Gythium is about 30 stades from Ægiæ, and is near the sea, and is inhabited by the Eleutherolacones, whom the Emperor Augustus liberated from the yoke of slavery imposed on them by the Lacedæmonians of Sparta. All the Peloponnese except the Isthmus of Corinth is surrounded by water: and the maritime parts of Laconia furnish shell fish from which purple dye is obtained, next in excellence to the Tyrian purple. And the Eleutherolacones have 18 cities, first Gythium as you descend from Ægiæ to the sea, and next Teuthrone, and Las, and Pyrrhichus, and near Tænarum Cænepolis, and Œtylus, and Leuctra, and Thalamæ, and Alagonia, and Gerenia: and opposite Gythium Asopus near the sea, and Acriæ, and Bœæ, and Zarax, and Epidaurus called Limera, and Brasiæ, and Geronthræ, and Marius. These are all that remain of what were once 24 cities of the Eleutherolacones. And the other six, which I shall also give an account of, are tributary to Sparta and not independent as those we have just spoken of. And the people of Gythium assign no mortal as their founder, but say that Hercules and Apollo, when their contest for the tripod was over, jointly built their town. In the market-place they have statues of Apollo and Hercules, and near them Dionysus. And in a different part of the town is Carnean Apollo, and a temple of Ammon, and a brazen statue of Æsculapius; his shrine has no roof to it, and there is a fountain of the god, and a temple sacred to Demeter, and a statue of Poseidon the Earth-holder. And the person that the people of Gythium call the old man, who they say lives in the sea, is I discovered Nereus, and this name Homer gave him in the Iliad in the speech of Thetis, ‘Ye now enter Ocean’s spacious bosom, to visit the old man of the sea and the homes of our sire.’[43] And the gates here are called Castorides, and in the citadel there is a temple and statue of Athene. CHAPTER XXII. And about 3 stades from Gythium is the White Stone, where they say Orestes sat to cure himself of his madness. In the Doric tongue the stone was called Zeus Cappotas. And opposite Gythium lies the island Cranae, where according to Homer Paris first carried off Helen. Facing this island on the mainland is the temple of Aphrodite Migonitis, and the whole place is called Migonium. The temple they say was built by Paris. And Menelaus, returning home safe 8 years after the capture of Ilium, placed near the temple of Aphrodite Migonitis statues of Thetis and Praxidice. There is a mountain too above Migonium sacred to Dionysus, which they call Larysium: and here at the commencement of spring they have a feast to Dionysus, alleging among other reasons for the festival that they found here a ripe cluster of grapes.