Description of Greece

​But what I know to have happened in my own time in the coastal region of the Leuctrian land, I write. A wind, having carried fire into the wood, destroyed most of the trees; and when the place appeared bare, an image dedicated there was found of Zeus Ithomatas. The Messenians say that this is a proof for them that Leuctra anciently belonged to Messenia; but even if the Lacedaemonians inhabited Leuctra from the beginning, Zeus Ithomatas might well have received honors among them.

​Kardamyle, of which Homer also made mention in Agamemnon’s promises of gifts, is subject to the Lacedaemonians in Sparta, Emperor Augustus having cut it off from Messenia. Kardamyle is eight stades distant from the sea, and sixty from Leuctra. There, not far from the beach, is a sacred precinct of the daughters of Nereus; for they say that they came up from the sea to this place to see Pyrrhus the son of Achilles, when he was going away to Sparta for his marriage with Hermione. In the town there is a sanctuary of Athena and of Apollo Carneus, according to the custom of the Dorians.

​The city called Enope in the epic poems of Homer, whose people are Messenians but contribute to the council of the Free Laconians, is called Gerenia in our time. In this city some say that Nestor was reared, while others say that he came fleeing to this place when Pylos was being captured by Heracles.

​Here in Gerenia is a tomb and holy sanctuary of Machaon the son of Asclepius, and it is possible for men to find cures for diseases from Machaon. They call the sacred place Rhodos, and there is a standing bronze image of Machaon; and a crown is placed upon his head, which the Messenians call “kiphos” in their local tongue. The author of the epic poem, the Little Iliad, says that Machaon met his end by Eurypylus the son of Telephus.

​Wherefore I myself know that these things happen concerning the Asclepieion in Pergamum: they begin their hymns with Telephus, but they sing nothing at all in honor of Eurypylus, nor do they wish to name him at all in the temple, as knowing him to be the murderer of Machaon. Nestor is said to have recovered the bones of Machaon; and as for Podalirius, they say that as they were returning after the sack of Ilium, he missed his course, and having escaped safely to Syrnos on the Carian mainland, he settled there.

​In the Gerenian territory is Mount Calathion; on it is a sanctuary of Claea, and close by the sanctuary itself is a cave, which has a narrow entrance, but presents what is inside as worthy of seeing. Alagonia is thirty stades distant from Gerenia as you go up into the interior, and I have already catalogued this town too among the Free Laconians; there are sanctuaries of Dionysus and Artemis there, worthy of seeing.