The ancients imagined that Laconia once contained within its boundaries 39,000 farms; but this statement is not well authenticated. The greater part of the country as far as the sea was agricultural land in the possession of the Spartans, and cultivated by their serfs or helots. MESSENE, MESSENIA, MESSENIACA. The third of the Dorian kingdoms is Messene, Messenia, or Messeniaca, for all these three names are applied to the kingdom of Cresphontes. The boundaries in the mythical age cannot be accurately defined, but so far as we can see, they were about the same as in the Macedonian period; it perhaps extended to the very top of Taygetus and the sources of the Pamisus. Although it was likewise a mountainous country, yet owing to the splendid valley of the Pamisus (valley of Calamata), which is one of the richest in the world, and to other fertile coast-districts, it enjoyed the reputation of being a particularly wealthy country, whence, according to tradition, it was so much the object of the cupidity of Cresphontes, when lots were drawn for Lacedaemon and Messene, that he used a false lot. At present the country is in an unspeakably miserable condition. The name Messene is said originally to have belonged to the country only, and not to a city. Messene, too, originally consisted of one sovereign principality and several dependent ones, the Achaean princes being in a relation of dependence on the Dorian kings. But while at Sparta the ancient inhabitants were deprived of the actual exercise of their rights, they rose in Messene to a condition of equality with their Dorian conquerors, and the latter became amalgamated with the ancient inhabitants into one compact nation. The two states also differed in other respects: Sparta was ruled by two kings, while in Messene a Heracleid monarchy was established. The early history of Messene is as uncertain as that of the Roman kings; the traditions about the destruction of the kingdom are anything but authentic, and we cannot fix the time of that event within a hundred years. This observation is too important not to be repeated in this place. The colony of Messenians which is said to have been established at Zancle, is probably nothing but an inference from the subsequent name of that place; for the foundation of that colony, if we assign it to the time in which alone it can be conceived to have been established, would be separated by more than a century from the events in Messene, to which it is said to owe its origin. The only historical fact is, that the last Messenian war belongs to the period about Olymp. 80; some towns were then reduced to the condition of perioeci, but the great body of the country people became helots, and the land was divided among the Spartans. The war ended with the capitulation of the helots, who had withdrawn to the citadel of Ithome, whence the besieged obtained a free departure to Naupactus; in this latter place they afterwards lived under the protection of Athens.