LAS
Lakonia, Greece.
Town mentioned in the
Catalogue of Ships (
Il. 2.585). Legend gives it an eponymous founder (
Paus. 3.24.10) and adds that it was captured by the Dioskouroi (
Strab. 8.5.4) and that the Heraklidai used its port after their victory. The importance of
this port in historic times is illustrated by the fact that
the Spartan fleet called there in 411 (
Thuc. 8.91-92) and
that the Lakedaimonians attacked it in 189 (Livy 3 8.30-31) in order to obtain access to the sea. Under the Empire, it was sufficiently prosperous to coin money under
Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Geta.
The site of the Homeric city was supposed to be Mount
Asia, which is identified with the hill of Passava, on
which is built a Frankish castle with large blocks of
ancient masonry visible in its walls. But one cannot be
sure, given the absence of any Mycenaean sherds. On the
other hand, numerous chance finds from the Hellenistic
and Roman periods have been made on the plain. The
port may have been situated either at Vathi, on the coast,
or a little to the S at Ayeranos, which can be identified
as the site of the Arainos mentioned by Pausanias together with Las.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Puillon-Boblaye,
Recherches géographiques . . . (1835) 87; W. M. Leake,
Travels in the
Morea I (1830) 255-57;
Peloponnesiaca (1847) 174;
E. S. Forster,
BSA 13 (1906-7) 232-34; H. Waterhouse
& R. Hope Simpson,
BSA 56 (1961) 118; R. Hope Simpson & J. F. Lazenby,
The Catalogue of Ships in Homer's
Iliad (1970) 79.
C. LEROY
