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PYLOS ILIAS (Ancient city) ILIA
Pylus (Pulos: Eth. Pulios). A town in hollow Elis, described by Pausanias
as situated upon the mountain road leading from Elis to Olympia, and at the place
where the Ladon flows into the Peneius (vi. 22. § 5). Strabo, in a corrupt passage,
assigns to it the same situation, and places it in the neighbourhood of Scollium
or Mt. Scollis (metaxu tou PeWeiou kai tou Selleentos ekboles /un>[read kai tes
tou Selleentos emboles] Pulos oikeito, Strab. viii. p. 338). Pausanias says that
it was 80 stadia from Elis. Diodorus (xiv. 17) gives 70 stadia as the distance,
and Pliny (iv. 5. s. 6) 12 Roman miles. According to the previous description,
Pylus should probably be identified with the ruins at Agrapidho-khori, situated
on a commanding position in the angle formed by the junction of the Peneius and
Ladon. This site is distant 7 geographical miles from Elis, which sufficiently
agrees with the 80 stadia of Pausanias. Leake, however, places Pylus further S.,
at the ruins at Kulogli, mainly on the ground that they are not so tar removed
from the road between Elis and Olympia. But the fact of the ruins at Agrapidho-khori
being at the junction of the Peneius and Ladon seems decisive in favour of that
position ; and we may suppose that a road ran up the valley of the Peneius to
the junction of the two rivers, and then took a bend to the right into the valley
of the Ladon. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 228, Peloponnesiaca, p. 219;
Boblaye, Recherches, &c. p. 122; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 39.) The Eleian
Pylus is said to have been built by the Pylon, son of Cleson of Megara, who founded
the Messenian Pylus, and who, upon being expelled from the latter place by Peleus,
settled at the Eleian Pylos. (Paus. iv. 36. § 1, vi. 22. § 5.) Pylus was said
to have been destroyed by Hercules, and to have been afterwards restored by the
Eleians ; but the story of its destruction by Hercules more properly belongs to
the Messenian Pylus. Its inhabitants asserted that it was the town which Homer
had in view when he asserted that the Alpheius flowed through their territory
(Alpheiou, host' euru rheei Pulion dia gaies, Il. v. 545). On the position of
the Homeric Pylus we shall speak presently; and we only observe here, that this
claim was admitted by Pausanias (vi. 22. § 6), though its absurdity had been previously
pointed out by Strabo (viii. p. 350, seq.). Like the other Eleian towns, Pylus
is rarely mentioned in history. In B.C. 402 it was taken by the Spartans, in their
invasion of the territory of Elis (Diod. xiv. 17); and in B.C. 366 it is mentioned
as the place where the democratical exiles from Elis planted themselves in order
to carry on war against the latter city. (Xen. Hell. vii. 4. 16) Pausanias saw
only the ruins of Pylus (vi. 22. § 5), and it would appear to have been deserted
long previously.
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
The name of three towns on the western coast of the Peloponnesus.
(1) In Elis, at the foot of Mount Scollis, and about seventy or eighty stadia
from the city of Elis on the road to Olympia, near the confluence of the Ladon
and the Peneus.
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