OETYLUS
OETYLUS (
Οἴτυλος, Hom., Paus.,
Steph. B. sub voce Βείτυλος, Böckh,
Inscr. no. 1323;
Βίτυλα,
Ptol. 3.16.22;
Οἴτυλοσ--καλεῖται δ᾽ ὑπό τινων Βείτυλος, Strab. viii. p.360, corrected in accordance with the inscription), a town of Laconia on the eastern side
[p. 2.470]of the Messenian gulf, represented by the modern town of
Vítylo, which has borrowed its name from it. Pausanias says that it was 80 stadia from Thalamae and 150 from Messa; the latter distance is too great, but there is no doubt of the identity of Oetylus and
Vítylo; and it appears that Pausanias made a mistake in the names, as the distance between Oetylus and Caenepolis is 150 stadia. Oetylus is mentioned by Homer, and was at a later time one of the Eleuthero-Laconian towns.
It was still governed by its ephors in the third century of the Christian era. Pausanias saw at Oetylus a temple of Sarapis, and a wooden statue of Apollo Carneius in the agora. Among the modern houses of
Vítylo there are remains of Hellenic walls, and in the church a beautiful fluted Ionic column supporting a beam at one end of the aisle, and three or four Ionic capitals in the wall of the church, probably the remains of the temple of Sarapis. (
Hom. Il. 2.585;
Strab. viii. p.360;
Paus. 3.21.7,
25.10,
26.1;
Steph. B. sub voce Ptol.
l.c.; Böckh,
l.c.; Morritt, in Walpole's
Turkey, p. 54; Leake,
Morea, vol. i. p. 313; Boblaye,
Récherches, &c. p. 92; Curtius,
Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 283.)
