[149] Pliny, b. xxxvi. c. 18, speaks of the black marble of Tænarus.
[150] Od. xxi. 13.
[151] Eustathius informs us that, according to some writers, Sparta and Lacedæmon were the names of the two principal quarters of the city; and adds that the comic poet, Cratinus, gave the name of Sparta to the whole of Laconia.
[152] Od. iii. 488.
[153] Cheramidi.
[154] Od. iii. 487.
[155] Od. ii. 359.
[156] The text to the end of the section is very corrupt. The following is a translation of the text as proposed to be amended by Groskurd. The epithet of Lacedæmon, hollow, cannot properly be applied to the country, for this peculiarity of the city does not with any propriety agree with the epithets given to the country; unless we suppose the epithet to be a poetical licence. For, as has been before remarked, it must be concluded from the words of the poet himself, that Messene was then a part of Laconia, and subject to Menelaus. It would then be a contradiction (in Homer) not to join Messene, which took part in the expedition, with Laconia or the Pylus under Nestor, nor to place by itself in the Catalogue, as though it had no part in the expedition.
[157] Skylli.
[158] The islands about Delos.