Kitap 3
21.2
Farther On in the direction of Pellana is what is called Characoma (Trench); and after it Pellana, which in the olden time was a city. They say that Tyndareus dwelt here when he fled from Sparta before Hippocoon and his sons. Remarkable sights I remember seeing here were a sanctuary of Asclepius and the spring Pellanis. Into it they say a maiden fell when she was drawing water, and when she had disappeared the veil on her head reappeared in another spring, Lancia.
21.3
A hundred stades away from Pellana is The place called Belemina. It is naturally The best watered region of Laconia, seeing that The river Eurotas passes through it, while it has abundant springs of its own.
21.4
As you go down to the sea towards Gythium you come to a village called Croceae and a quarry. It is not a continuous stretch of rock, but the stones they dig out are shaped like river pebbles; they are hard to work, but when worked sanctuaries of the gods might be adorned with them, while they are especially adapted for beautifying swimming-baths and fountains. Here before the village stands an image of Zeus of Croceae in marble, and the Dioscuri in bronze are at the quarry.
21.5
After Croceae, turning away to the right from the straight road to Gythium, you will reach a city Aegiae. They say that this is the city which HomerHom. Il. 2.583 in his poem calls Augeae. Here is a lake called Poseidon's, and by the lake is a temple with an image of the god. They are afraid to take out the fish, saying that a fisherman in these waters turns into the fish called the fisher.
21.6
Gythium is thirty stades distant from Aegiae, built by the sea in the territory of the Free Laconians, whom the emperor Augustus freed from the bondage in which they had been to the Lacedaemonians in Sparta. All the Peloponnesus, except the Isthmus of Corinth, is surrounded by sea, but the best shell-fish for the manufacture of purple dye after those of the Phoenician sea are to be found on the coast of Laconia.
