Book 8
5.7
Since some critics writei.e., in Homer’s text, Hom. Il. 2.581 and Hom. Od. 4. 1 Lacedaemon “Ketoessan” and others “Kaietaessan,” the question is asked, how should we interpret “Ketoessa,” whether as derived from “Kete,”The usual meaning of Kete is “deep-sea monsters,” or more specifically the “cetaceans,” but Strabo obviously speaks of the word in the sense of “ravines” or “clefts” (see Buttman, Lexilogus, and Goebel, Lexilougus). or as meaning “large,”The meaning given to the word in the scholia to Homer, and one which seems more closely associated with the usual meaning, “deep-sea monster.” which seems to be more plausible. And as for “Kaietaessan,” some interpret it as meaning “Kalaminthode,”i.e., “abounding in mint.” whereas others say that the clefts caused by earthquakes are called “Kaietoi,” and that from “Kaietoi” is derived “Kaietas,” the word among the Lacedaemonians for their “prison,” which is a sort of cavern. But some prefer to call such cavernous places “Kooi,” and whence, they add, comes the expression “’oreskoioi’ monsters.”Hom. Il. 1.268Here Homer refers to the Centaurs, which, according to the above interpretation, are “monsters that live in mountain-caverns.” Laconia is subject to earthquakes, and in fact some writers record that certain peaks of Taÿgetus have been broken away. And there are quarries of very costly marble—the old quarries of Taenarian marble on Taenarum; and recently some men have opened a large quarry in Taÿgetus, being supported in their undertaking by the extravagance of the Romans.
