[3]
They say that one of the places mentioned in Homer's Catalogue,1 Messe, is nowhere to be seen; and that Messoa was not a part of the country but of Sparta, as was the case with Limnaeum,2 . . . 3 But some take "Messe" as an apocopated form of "Messene," for, as I have said,4 Messene too was a part of Laconia. As examples of apocope from the poet himself, writers cite "kri," "do," and "maps,"5 and also the passage “"the heroes Automedon and Alcimus,"
”6for "Alcimedon"; then from Hesiod, who uses "bri" for "brithu" or "briaron"; and Sophocles and Ion, "rha" for "rhadion"; and Epicharmus, "li" for "lian," and "Syraco" for "Syracuse"; and in Empedocles,7 "ops" for "opsis": “"the 'ops'8 of both becomes one;"
”9 and in Antimachus, “"the sacred 'ops' of the Eleusinian Demeter,"
”10 and "alphi" for "alphiton"; and Euphorion even uses "hel" for "helos"; and in Philetas, "eri" for "erion": “"maidservants bring white 'eri'11 and put it in baskets;"
”12 and Aratus says "peda" for "pedalia": "the 'peda'13 towards the wind"; and Simmias, "Dodo" for "Dodona." As for the rest of the places listed by the poet, some have been destroyed; of others traces are still left; and of others the names have been changed, for example, Augeiae14 to Aegaeae;15 for the Augeiae in Locris16 no longer exists at all. As for Las, the story goes, the Dioscuri17 once captured it by siege, and it was from this fact that they got the appellation "Lapersae."18 And Sophocles says, “"by the two Lapersae, I swear, by Eurotas third, by the gods in Argos and about Sparta."
”19
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2 "Limnae or Limnaeum, Cynosura, Messoa, and Pitane, seem to have been the quarters or wards of Sparta, the inhabitants of each quarter forming a local tribe" (Frazer's Pausanias, note on Paus. 16.9).
3 Three or four Greek letters are missing. Meineke's conjecture yields "near Thornax," which, according to Stephanus Byzantinus, was a mountain in Laconia. But as yet such a mountain has not been identified, and on still other grounds the conjecture is doubtful (cp. the note on Paus. 10.8, "Thornax," in Frazer's Pausanias.). Kramer's tempting conjecture yields "according to the Thracian," i.e., Dionysius the Thracian, who wrote Commentaries on Homer; but it is doubtful whether Strabo would have referred to him merely by his surname (cp. the full name in 14. 2. 13).
4 8. 3. 29, 8. 4. 1.
5 For "krithe," "doma," "mapsidion," Aristot. Poet. 1458a quotes the same example.
7 Aristotle (l.c.) quotes the same example.
8 "Vision."
9 Empedocles Fr. 88 (Diels)
10 Antimachus Fr.
11 For "erion," "wool."
12 Euphorion Fr.
13 "Rudders."
15 That is, the Laconian (not the Locrian) Augeiae, which was thirty stadia from Gytheium (Paus. 3.21.6), near the Limni of today.
17 Castor and Pollux.
18 "Sackers of Las."
19 Soph. Fr. 871 (Nauck)
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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