Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/15

 B. Tin. c. in. 1, 2. GREECE. ELIS. * From the isthmus to the promontory Araxus is a distance of 1030 stadia. Such in general then is the nature and extent of the Pelo- ponnesus, and of the country on the other side of the strait up to the farther recess of the gulf. Such also is the nature of the gulf between both. We shall next describe each country in particular, begin- ning with Elis. CHAPTER III. 1 . AT present the whole sea-coast lying between the Achsei and Messenii is called Eleia, it stretches into the inland parts towards Arcadia at Pholoe, and the Azanes, and Parrhasii. Anciently it was divided into several states ; afterwards into two, Elis of the Epeii, and Elis under Nestor, the son of Neleus. As Homer says, who mentions Elis of the Epeii by name, " Sacred Elis, where the Epeii rule." The other he calls Pylus subject to Nestor, through which, he says, the Alpheius flows : " Alpheius, that flows in a straight line through the land of the Pylians." a The poet was also acquainted with a city Pylus ; " They arrived at Pylus, the well-built city of Neleus." 3 The Alpheius however does not flow through nor beside the city, but another river flows beside it, which some call Pamisus, others Amathus, from which Pylus seems to be termed Emathoeis, but the Alpheius flows through the Eleian territory. 2. Elis, the present city, was not yet founded in the time of Homer, but the inhabitants of the country lived in villages. It was called Coele [or Hollow] Elis, from the accident of its locality, for the largest and best part of it is situated in a hollow. It was at a late period, and after the Persian war, that the people collected together out of many demi, or Groskurd. The Gulf of Corinth is, in other passages, called by Strabo the Crissaean Gulf. 1 Od. xv. 298. * II. v. 545. 3 Od. iii. 4.