Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "DIROS Village LACONIA" .
MESSI (Ancient city) ITYLO
One of the nine cities of Laconia enumerated by Homer, who gives it
the epithet of polutreron, abounding in pigeons (Il. ii. 502). Strabo says that
the position of Messa was unknown, (viii. p. 364); but Pausanias mentions a town
and harbour, named Messa (iii. 25. § 9), which is identified by most modern scholars
with the Homeric town. This Messa, now Mezapo, is situated on the western coast
of Mani, between Hippola and Oetylus; and the cliffs in the neighbourhood are
said to abound in wild pigeons. (Leake, Morea, vol. i. p. 286; Boblaye, Recherches,
&c. p. 91; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 282.) Leake, however, has subsequently
conjectured that Messa corresponds to Mistra in the Spartan plain, partly on account
of its site, and partly because the Messa of Pausanias could never, from its situation,
have been a place of much importance. (Peloponnesiaca, p. 357.) But there does
not appear any sufficient reason for rejecting the identity of the Messa of Pausanias
with the Messe of Homer.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
A town and harbour in Laconia, near Cape Taenarum.
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