[24] He describes the dominions of Nestor in these words: “"And they who inhabited Pylus, and the beautiful Arene, and Thryum, a passage across the Alpheius, and the well-built Æpy, and Cyparisseis, and Amphigeneia, and Pteleum, and Helos, and Dorium, where the Muses having met with Thamyris the Thracian, deprived him of the power of song, as he was coming from Œchalia, from the house of Eurytus the Œchalian.1” It is Pylus, therefore, to which the question relates, and we shall soon treat of it. We have already spoken of Arene. The places, which he here calls Thryum, in another passage he calls Thryoessa,
He calls it the ford or passage of the Alpheius, because, according to these verses, it seems as if it could be crossed at this place on foot. Thryum is at present called Epitalium, a village of Macistia. With respect to εὔκτιτον αἶπυ, Æpy the well-built," some writers ask which of these words is the epithet of the other, and what is the city, and whether it is the present Margalæ of Amphidolia, but this Margalæ is not a natural fortress, but another is meant, a natural strong-hold in Macistia. Writers who suppose this place to be meant, say, that Æpy is the name of the city, and infer it from its natural properties, as in the example of Helos,3 Ægialos,4 and many others: those who suppose Margalæ to be meant here, will assert the contrary. Thryum, or Thryoessa, they say, is Epitalium, because all the country is θοͅυώδης, or sedgy, and particularly the banks of the rivers, but this appears more clearly at the fordable places of the stream. Perhaps Thryum is meant by the ford, and by ‘the well-built Æpy,’ Epitalium, which is naturally strong, and in the other part of the passage he mentions a lofty hill;“ There is a city Thryoessa, lofty, situated on a hill,
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Far off, on the banks of the Alpheius.2Il. xi. 710.
“ The city Thryoessa, a lofty hill,
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Far away by the Alpheus.5Il. xi. 710.
