CHAPTER I.
The border of Messenia towards Laconia, as fixed by Augustus, is at Gerenia, and in our time is called the Chœrian dell. This country, originally without inhabitants, is described to have been inhabited by the first colonists in the following manner. After the death of Lelex, who reigned in what is now called Laconia, but was then called Lelegia after him, Myles who was the elder of his sons succeeded him, and Polycaon the younger was only a private person till he married the Argive Messene, the daughter of Triopas, the son of Phorbas. But Messene, being full of pride owing to her father, who was foremost of all the Greeks in merit and power, did not think it tolerable that her husband should be a private person. So they gathered together an army from Argos and Lacedæmon and invaded this country, and the whole district was called Messene from her. And several other cities were built, as well as the place where the royal headquarters were established, viz. Andania. Before the battle which the Thebans fought with the Lacedæmonians at Leuctra, and the building of Messene in our day close to Ithome, I know of no city that was previously called Messene. My inference is very much confirmed by Homer. For in the catalogue of those who went to Ilium, when enumerating Pylos and Arene and other cities, he mentions no Messene. And in the Odyssey he shews that by this time the Messenians were a race and not a city,
‘For the Messenians took cattle from Ithaca,’[53]
and clearer still in speaking of the bow of Iphitus,
‘They two in Messene met one another,
In the house of Ortilochus.’[54]
By the house of Ortilochus in Messene he meant the town of Pheræ, as he has shewn in the visit of Pisistratus to Menelaus,
‘They went to Pheræ to the house of Diocles,
The son of Ortilochus.’[55]
However the first rulers of this country were Polycaon (the son of Lelex) and his wife Messene. Caucon, the son of Celænus, the son of Phlyus, introduced here from Eleusis the mysteries of the Great Goddesses. Phlyus was according to the Athenian tradition the son of Mother Earth. And this tradition of theirs is confirmed by the Hymn of Musæus made for the Lycomidæ in honour of Demeter. And the rites of the Great Goddesses were held in greater honour many years afterwards, owing to Lycus the son of Pandion, than in Caucon’s days. And they still call the place where he purged the initiated the oak coppice of Lycus. That there is an oak-coppice in this land called Lycus’ is also borne out by Rhianus the Cretan,
‘By rocky Elæum and beyond the oak-coppice of Lycus.’
And that this Lycus was the son of Pandion is plain by the inscription on the statue of Methapus. This Methapus reformed some of the rites. He was an Athenian by race, an organizer of all sorts of mystic rites. He it was who established also among the Thebans the rites of the Cabiri. And he erected near the enclosure of the Lycomidæ a statue with an inscription which confirms my account. “I have purified the home and paths of Hermes and the firstborn daughter of Demeter, where they say Messene established games to the Great Goddesses, owing to the son of Caucon, the illustrious descendant of Phlyus. But I wonder that Lycus the son of Pandion should establish the sacred rites of Atthis in venerable Andania.” This inscription shews that Caucon who came to Messene was the descendant of Phlyus, and confirms all the other facts about Lycus, and that the mysteries in ancient times were celebrated at Andania. And it seems also common sense that Messene would not establish the mysteries in any other place than where she and Polycaon lived.