Kitap 8
5.1
Be this as it may, after the Messenian Gulf comes the Laconian Gulf, lying between TaenarumNow Cape Matapan. and Maleae,Now Cape Malea. which bends slightly from the south towards the east; and Thyrides,Literally, “Windows”; now called Kavo Grosso, a peninsular promontory about six miles in circumference, with precipitous cliffs that are riddled with caverns (Frazer, Pausanias 3, p. 399, and Curtius, Peloponnesos 2, p. 281). a precipitous rock exposed to the currents of the sea, is in the Messenian Gulf at a distance of one hundred and thirty stadia from Taenarum. Above Thyrides lies Taÿgetus; it is a lofty and steep mountain, only a short distance from the sea, and it connects in its northerly parts with the foothills of the Arcadian mountains in such a way that a glen is left in between, where Messenia borders on Laconia. Below Taÿgetus, in the interior, lies Sparta, and also Amyclae, where is the temple of Apollo,For a description of this temple, see Paus. 3.18.9ff and Pharis. Now the site of Sparta is in a rather hollow district,Hence Homer’s “Hollow Lacedaemon” (Hom. Od. 4.1). although it includes mountains within its limits; yet no part of it is marshy, though in olden times the suburban part was marshy, and this part they called Limnae;“Marshes.” and the temple of Dionysus in LimnaeBölte (Mitteilungen d. Kaiserl. deutsch. Arch. Intst. Athen. Abt. vol. 34 p. 388 shows that Tozer (Selections, note on p. 212 was right in identifying this “temple of Dionysus in Limnae” with the Lenaeum at Athens, where the Lenaean festival was called the “festival in Limnae.” stood on wet ground, though now its foundations rest on dry ground. In the bend of the seaboard one comes, first, to a headland that projects into the sea, Taenarum, with its temple of Poseidon situated in a grove; and secondly, near by, to the cavernThe “Taenarias fauces” of Vergil Georgics 4.467. through which, according to the myth writers, Cerberus was brought up from Hades by Heracles. From here the passage towards the south across the sea to Phycus,Now Ras-al-Razat. a cape in Cyrenaea, is three thousand stadia; and the passage towards the west to Pachynus,Now Cape Passero. the promontory of Sicily, is four thousand six hundred, though some say four thousand; and towards the east to Maleae, following the sinuosities of the gulfs, six hundred and seventy; and to Onugnathus,Literally, “Ass’s-jaw”; now Cape Elaphonisi. a low-lying peninsula somewhat this side of Maleae, five hundred and twenty; off Onugnathus and opposite it, at a distance of forty stadia, lies Cythera, an island with a good harbor, containing a city of the same name, which Eurycles, the ruler of the Lacedaemonians in our times, seized as his private property; and round it lie several small islands, some near it and others slightly farther away; and to Corycus,To be identified with Cimarus (10. 4. 5); see Murray’s Small Classical Atlas (1904, Map 11). The cape is now called Garabusa. a cape in Crete, the shortest voyage is seven hundred stadia.From Cape Taenarum.
