Listed 9 sub titles with search on: Ancient literary sources for wider area of: "ZACHARO Municipality ILIA" .
ARINI (Ancient city) ILIA
City in Messenia, founded by Aphareus, mentioned by Homer, perhaps identical with Samicum.
LAPITHAS (Mountain) OLYMPIA
Mountain in Arcadia.
LEPREON (Ancient city) ILIA
A town in Elis, founded by the Minyae, its contingent at Plataea.
ARINI (Ancient city) ILIA
... perhaps Samicum was the acropolis of Arene, which the poet mentions in the
Catalogue: "And those who dwelt in Pylus and lovely Arene." For while they cannot
with certainty discover Arene anywhere, they prefer to conjecture that this is
its site; and the neighboring River Anigrus, formerly called Minyeius, gives no
slight indication of the truth of the conjecture, for the poet says: "And there
is a River Minyeius which falls into the sea near Arene." For near the cave of
the nymphs called Anigriades is a spring which makes the region that lies below
it swampy and marshy. The greater part of the water is received by the Anigrus,
a river so deep and so sluggish that it forms a marsh; and since the region is
muddy, it emits an offensive odor for a distance of twenty stadia, and makes the
fish unfit to eat.
In the mythical accounts, however, this is attributed by some
writers to the fact that certain of the Centaurs here washed off the poison they
got from the Hydra, and by others to the fact that Melampus used these cleansing
waters for the purification of the Proetides.80 The bathing-water from here cures
leprosy, elephantiasis, and scabies. It is said, also, that the Alpheius was so
named from its being a cure for leprosy. At any rate, since both the sluggishness
of the Anigrus and the backwash from the sea give fixity rather than current to
its waters, it was called the "Minyeius" in earlier times, so it is said, though
some have perverted the name and made it "Minteius" instead.
But the word has other sources of derivation, either from the
people who went forth with Chloris, the mother of Nestor, from the Minyeian Orchomenus,
or from the Minyans, who, being descendants of the Argonauts, were first driven
out of Lemnos into Lacedaemon, and thence into Triphylia, and took up their abode
about Arene in the country which is now called Hypaesia, though it no longer has
the settlements of the Minyans. Some of these Minyans sailed with Theras, the
son of Autesion, who was a descendant of Polyneices, to the island which is situated
between Cyrenaea and Crete ("Calliste its earlier name, but Thera its later,"
as Callimachus says), and founded Thera, the mother-city of Cyrene, and designated
the island by the same name as the city.
LEPREON (Ancient city) ILIA
To the south of Pylus is Lepreum. This city, too, was situated
above the sea, at a distance of forty stadia; and between Lepreum and the Annius
is the temple of the Samian Poseidon, at a distance of one hundred stadia from
each. This is the temple at which the poet says Telemachus found the Pylians performing
the sacrifice: "And they came to Pylus, the well-built city of Neleus; and the
people were doing sacrifice on the seashore, slaying bulls that were black all
over, to the dark-haired Earth-shaker." Now it is indeed allowable for the poet
even to fabricate what is not true, but when practicable he should adapt his words
to what is true and preserve his narrative; but the more appropriate thing was
to abstain from what was not true. The Lepreatans held a fertile territory; and
that of the Cyparissians bordered on it. Both these districts were taken and held
by the Cauconians.
PYLOS TRIFYLIAS (Ancient city) ILIA
Triphylian Pylus, also called the Lepreatic Pylus, which Homer calls emathoeis and transmits to posterity as the fatherland of Nestor, as one might infer from his words, whether it be that the river that flows past Pylus towards the north now called Mamaus, or Arcadicus was called Amathus in earlier times, so that Pylus got its epithet emathoeis from Amathus, or that this river was called Pamisus, the same as two rivers in Messenia, and that the derivation of the epithet of the city is uncertain; for it is false, they say, that either the river or the country about it is amathodes.
.. most of the more recent writers, both historians and poets, say that Nestor was a Messenian, thus adding their support to the Pylus which has been preserved down to their own times. But the writers who follow the words of Homer more closely say that the Pylus of Nestor is the Pylus through whose territory the Alpheius flows. And the Alpheius flows through Pisatis and Triphylia.
LEPREON (Ancient city) ILIA
Immediately afterwards an Elean embassy arrived, and first making an alliance with Corinth went on from thence to Argos, according to their instructions, and became allies of the Argives, their country being just then at enmity with Lacedaemon and Lepreum.
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