From this rich southern plain it is easy to reach the confines of the more northern plain, which was the country’s heart. Here was the capital of its prehistoric kings, and here about the mountain fortresses of Ithome and Eira occurred the chief events of its pitiable historic life. Ithome is one of the highest fortified mountains in Greece, but can be ascended by roadways which only below the fortress peaks change to rocky paths, insecure even for mountain horses. From this summit, by the favour of Zeus of the open sky whose sanctuary it once was, all Messenia can be overlooked. It is indeed a lovely country. The mountain ranges to the north and east have reserved their sterner influences for other peoples, while the open sea along the western and southern coasts bestows the largess of a perfect climate. The country between Kalamata and Ithome is one of great fertility and beauty. Orchards of gray-green olives are broken by dark cypresses, while lemon and orange groves, unknown to Euripides, add their peculiar radiance to the landscape. In the spring, almond trees delicately lift their pink blossoms above long hedges of glistening green cactus, and the green grass of the wayside fields nurses buttercups and scarlet anemones, purple and yellow irises, and thick clusters of deep blue flowers. The loveliness of Messenia decided her history, which was one of passionate and futile resistance to foreign greed. The Spartan poet Tyrtæus said that the soil of Messenia was “good to plough and good to plant.” Long before his day the Spartans had stretched out their hands for it, and from the eighth century to the fourth they never relinquished their grasp. During the more important epochs of Greek history Messenia was but a province of Laconia.