the Achaean confederacy, and was afterwards almost entirely deserted. Polybius was a native of Megalopolis, and although he did all he could to save his native city, it seems yet to have suffered greatly from the Romans after the destruction of Corinth, and then it was justly said Ἐρημία μεγάλη ’στὶν ἡ Μεγάλη πόλις; in the days of Strabo it was completely reduced to the rank of a village. As it had been built at a late period, Megalopolis, like all the towns which arose under the Macedonian dominion, had no great buildings, whence no ruins of it are found. I might mention also _Phigalea_, _Melaeniae_, and other towns, but it is hardly worth while. Phigalea has become celebrated through the well-known sculptures, which are excellent in their way, and belong to the period of archaic art, that is, to the period of the Persian wars and a short time after; they were found in the ruins of a temple, and are now in England. ELIS. The name Elis is of more recent date than the Trojan times; the town of that name was a recent structure, and the population also is not ancient. The most northern part of Elis was inhabited during the Trojan times by the _Epeans_; the middle part, _Pisatis_, extended as far as the Alpheus, and the country south of that river belonged to the Pylian kingdom of Nestor. This division continued to exist at a later period. The Doric name for Elis was Alis, and we should, properly speaking, adopt this pronunciation, which occurs in Plautus’ Prologue to the “Captivi” (_vendidit in Alide_), and upon all ancient monuments. On coins we find ϜΑΛΕΙΩΝ, which by a strange mistake has been referred to the Faliscans, until at length some English scholar, I think it was Knight, explained it rightly, the nature of the digamma having become clear. The Pisatans were probably Arcadians. Respecting Triphylia, between Pisatis and Messenia, there are strange traditions: in the most ancient of them it is said to have been inhabited by Caucones, itself a mysterious name, which is described by some as signifying a race of Carians; according to others, the country was inhabited by Minyans, who, though they are traced to the Minyans in Lemnos, are perhaps nothing else but Pelasgians, that is, a people likewise belonging to the Arcadians. Afterwards Triphylia always was a part of the ἔθνος Ἀρκαδικόν, although the Arcadians were never united under one strategus. The Epeans were expelled by the Aetolians; the Aetolian Oxylus is said to have accompanied the Dorian Heracleids, to have guided them by way of Naupactus into Achaia, and to have received Elis as a reward for this service. This tradition must be left to stand on its own grounds: certain it is at least that Elis was Aetolian, as the three states were Dorian; but the name of the Aetolians had a different meaning in the early times from that which we attach to it at a later period, and of which I shall speak hereafter.