Kitap 8
4.8
The city of the Messenians is similar to Corinth; for above either city lies a high and precipitous mountain that is enclosed by a commoni.e., common to the lower city and the acropolis. wall, so that it is used as an acropolis, the one mountain being called Ithome and the other Acrocorinthus. And so Demetrius of Pharos seems to have spoken aptly to PhilipPhilip V—reigned 220 to 178 B.C. the son of Demetrius when he advised him to lay hold of both these cities if he coveted the Peloponnesus,This same Demetrius was commissioned by Philip V to take Ithome but was killed in the attack (see Polybius 3.19, 7.11). “for if you hold both horns,” he said, “you will hold down the cow,” meaning by “horns” Ithome and Acrocorinthus, and by “cow” the Peloponnesus. And indeed it is because of their advantageous position that these cities have been objects of contention. Corinth was destroyed and rebuilt again by the Romans;Leucius Mummius (cp. 8. 6. 23) the consul captured Corinth and destroyed it by fire in 146 B.C.; but it was rebuilt again by Augustus. and Messene was destroyed by the Lacedaemonians but restored by the Thebans and afterward by Philip the son of Amyntas. The citadels, however, remained uninhabited.
4.9
The temple of Artemis at Limnae, at which the Messenians are reputed to have outraged the maidens who had come to the sacrifice,Cp. 6. 1. 6. is on the boundaries between Laconia and Messenia, where both peoples held assemblies and offered sacrifice in common; and they say that it was after the outraging of the maidens, when the Messenians refused to give satisfaction for the act, that the war took place. And it is after this Limnae, also, that the Limnaeum, the temple of Artemis in Sparta, has been named.
