Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER XXXI.

Not far from Pharæ is the grove of Carnean Apollo, and a fountain of water in it, and Pharæ is about six stades from the sea. As you go from thence into the interior of Messenia about 80 stades you come to the town of Thuria,—which they say Homer called Anthea in his verses. And Augustus gave Thuria to the Spartans. For when the future Emperor of Rome was at war with Mark Antony, several Greeks and especially Messenians fought for Antony because the Lacedæmonians espoused the side of Augustus. Accordingly Augustus punished the Messenians and others who had opposed him, some more some less. And the people of Thuria left their ancient city which was built on a height, and went and dwelt in the plain. Not that they altogether abandoned the upper city, for there are ruins of their walls and a temple there called the temple of the Syrian goddess. And a river called Aris flows by their town in the plain.

And there is in the interior a village called Calamæ and a place called Limnæ: in the latter place is a temple of Artemis of Limnæ, where they say Teleclus the king of Sparta was killed. And as you go from Thuria in the direction of Arcadia are the sources of the river Pamisus, in which small boys by being dipped are cured of diseases. And as you go to the left from these sources of the river and go forward about 40 stades, you come to the city of the Messenians under Mount Ithome: which is encircled not only by Mount Ithome but also in the direction of the Pamisus by Mount Eva. The mountain they say was called Eva from the Bacchic cry Evœ, which Dionysus and his attendant women first uttered here. And round Messene is a circular wall entirely constructed of stone, and towers and battlements are built on it. As to the walls of the Babylonians, or those called Memnon’s in Susa amongst the Persians, I have neither seen them nor heard anything of them from eye witnesses: but I can confidently affirm that the wall round Messene is stronger than those at Ambrosus in Phocis or at Byzantium or at Rhodes. And in the market-place at Messene there is a statue of Zeus Soter, and a conduit called Arsinoe, which got its name from the daughter of Leucippus, and water flows underground to feed it from a well called Clepsydra. And the gods who have temples are Poseidon and Aphrodite. And the most notable thing is a statue of the Mother of the Gods in Parian marble by Damophon, who most artistically rivetted the Zeus at Olympia when the ivory got loose. And honours were bestowed upon him by the people of Elis. He too designed the statue that the people of Messene call Laphria: whom they are accustomed to worship for the following reason. Among the Calydonians, who worship Artemis most of all the gods, her title is Laphria. And the Messenians who received Naupactus from the Athenians, and lived consequently very near to Ætolia, borrowed the worship of Artemis Laphria from the Calydonians. The statue I shall describe elsewhere. The title Laphria is only given to Artemis by the Messenians and the people of Patræ in Achaia. Ephesian Artemis is the title which all cities recognize, and by which men privately worship her as greatest of the gods; partly from the fame of the Amazons, who are said to have established the worship of her image, partly because she had a temple at Ephesus from time immemorial. And three other things contributed to her glory also, the size of the temple which exceeds all other human structures, the celebrity of the city of Ephesus, and the splendour of the goddess’ shrine.

At Messene there is also a temple and stone statue of Ilithyia. And hard by is a hall of the Curetes, where they sacrifice all kinds of living things alike. Beginning with bulls and goats, they even go as far as to cast birds into the flames. There is also a temple sacred to Demeter, and statues of Castor and Pollux represented as carrying off the daughters of Leucippus. I have already shown in a previous part of my work that the Messenians assert that Castor and Pollux are indigenous with them and not with the Lacedæmonians. And they have many statues well worth seeing in the temple of Æsculapius. For besides the statues of the god and his sons, and besides those of Apollo and the Muses and Hercules, there are statues of Thebes and Epaminondas the son of Cleommis, and of Fortune and of Lightbringing Artemis. Those in stone are the work of Damophon, the only Messenian statuary that I know of that has produced any remarkable statues. The effigy of Epaminondas in iron is by another hand. There is also at Messene a temple of Triopas and her statue in gold and Parian marble: and the paintings at the back of the temple are Aphareus and his sons, the kings of Messene before the expedition of the Dorians to the Peloponnese, and after the return of the Heraclidæ Cresphontes, the leader of the Dorians, and of those that dwelt at Pylos Nestor and Thrasymedes and Antilochus, who were preferred to the sons of Nestor partly because they were older, partly because they had taken part in the Trojan expedition. There are paintings also of Leucippus the brother of Aphareus, and of Hilaira, Phœbe, and Arsinoe. There are paintings also of Æsculapius, (the son of Arsinoe according to the tradition of the Messenians,) and Machaon and Podalirius, for they also had a share in the expedition to Ilium. These paintings were executed by Omphalion, the pupil of Nicias the son of Nicomedes: some say that he was also the slave of Nicias and his favourite.