Geography

​Messenia is contiguous to Elis, extending for the most part towards the south and the Libyan Sea. In the time of the Trojan War, this country was subject to Menelaus as a part of Laconica, and the land was called Messene; but the city now named Messene, of which Ithome was the acropolis, had not yet been founded. After the death of Menelaus, when those who succeeded to Laconica grew weak, the Neleidae ruled over Messenia. Indeed, at the time of the return of the Heracleidae and the division of the country which then took place, Melanthus was king of the Messenians, who were organized by themselves, whereas previously they had been subjects of Menelaus. There is a proof of this: for from the Messenian Gulf and the adjacent gulf called Asinaeon from the Messenian Asine, were the seven cities which Agamemnon promised to give to Achilles: “Cardamyle, and Enope, and grassy Hire, and sacred Pherae, and Antheia with deep meadows, and beautiful Aepeia, and vine-clad Pedasus,” since he would not have promised cities that belonged neither to himself nor to his brother. And the poet shows that men from Pherae also joined the expedition with Menelaus, and he also includes one in the Laconian catalogue, which is situated in the Messenian Gulf. Messene is after Triphylia; there is a cape common to both, after which is Coryphasium; and the mountain Aegaleum lies above this and the sea at a distance of seven stadia.

​Now ancient Messenian Pylos was a city situated under Aegaleum, but when this was destroyed, some of them settled on Coryphasium; and the Athenians built it a second time when they were sailing to Sicily with Eurymedon in the archonship of Stratocles, as a fortress against the Lacedaemonians. There too is the Messenian Cyparissia, and the island of Sphagia, which lies in front of Pylos and is also called Sphacteria, around which the Lacedaemonians lost three hundred of their own men, who were besieged and taken alive by the Athenians. Off this coast of the Cyparissians lie two islands in the open sea, called Strophades, about four hundred stadia distant from the mainland in the Libyan and southern sea. Thucydides says that this Pylos was a naval station of the Messenians; and it is four hundred stadia distant from Sparta.

​Next is Methone; and they say that this is the place called Pedasus by the poet, one of the seven which Agamemnon promised to Achilles. Here Agrippa, during the Actian War, destroyed Bogus, the king of the Maurusians, who was of Antony’s faction, having taken the place by an attack from the sea.