MESSENE was situated about ten English miles from the sea, its situation is very justly compared with that of Corinth; for it, too, had its ἄκρα upon an inaccessible rock (ITHOME) surrounded by a wall, which connected it with the lower town. The remains of these walls belong to the grandest of all the remnants of Greek antiquity; they consist of blocks of five feet in length and two and a half in breadth, and these are placed in such a manner as to turn their smaller side outward. It is very doubtful whether this wall was constructed in the time of Epaminondas, or whether it is a relic of an earlier period; even the ancients observed that the towers at the corners were a later addition; and modern travellers state, that this observation is evidently correct. Hence it is conjectured, that the towers were built in the time of Epaminondas; but that the fortification itself belongs to an earlier period. It can hardly be believed that, in the age of Epaminondas, such a style of building should have continued to be employed, since Megalopolis, in the building of which a whole people exerted itself, did not possess such walls. Messene and Corinth were the strongest points in Peloponnesus; and whoever was in possession of them, could control the whole peninsula. The cause of the great strength of Ithome was the circumstance that, like Acrocorinthus, the rock had a well furnishing an abundant supply of water, which was wanting in many other Greek acropoleis, as, for example, in that of Athens. A town Messene did not exist before the time of Epaminondas. Some years ago a French antiquary asserted that Messene was more ancient, but this cannot be proved. Ithome, on the other hand, appears in the traditions of the earliest times; and during the first Messenian war, it was the centre of the country; that fortress, containing the temple of Zeus Ithomatas, was the place of refuge of the Messenians; there the treaty with the Lacedaemonians was concluded; and in the war of Aristomenes, too, it appears in the same light and under the same circumstances. All that is related about the first Messenian wars, attests the fearful devastation which must then have taken place. Even as early as the Peloponnesian war, we no longer find any traces of the many towns that are mentioned, and which must be regarded as historical (for names of towns are not invented), such as Stenyclaros, Andania, Aepy, Pedasos, and many others. In the east of Messenia, a few places survived, and for a time belonged to Laconia, but the western part of the country was completely devastated. In the Homeric Catalogue[34] we find only a few places in the west; in the east we have Cardamyle and Pherae, and Cyparissia is the only town in the west that remained, being mentioned in the Periplus and elsewhere, as a very good harbour for small vessels. The little modern town of Arcadia is not far from the site of the ancient Cyparissia: the country around it is very fertile.