22. On the Triphylian Sea are situated Cyparissia, and Pyrgi, and the rivers Acidon and Neda. At present the boundary of Triphylia towards Messenia is the impetuous stream of the Neda descending from the Lycæus, a mountain of Arcadia, and rising from a source which, according to the fable, burst forth to furnish water in which Rhea was to wash herself after the birth of Jupiter. It flows near Phigalia, and empties itself into the sea where the Pyrgitæ, the extreme tribe of the Triphylii, approach the Cyparissenses, the first of the Messenian nation. But, anciently, the country had other boundaries, so that the dominions of Nestor included some places on the other side of the Neda, as the Cyparisseïs, and some others beyond that tract, in the same manner as the poet extends the Pylian sea as far as the seven cities, which Agamemnon promised to Achilles, “All near the sea bordering upon the sandy Pylus,”[73] which is equivalent to, near the Pylian sea. 23. Next in order to the Cyparisseïs in traversing the coast towards the Messenian Pylus and the Coryphasium, we meet with Erana, (Eranna,) which some writers incorrectly suppose was formerly called Arene, by the same name as the Pylian city, and the promontory Platamodes, from which to the Coryphasium, and to the place at present called Pylus, are 100 stadia.[74] There is also a cenotaph and a small town in it both of the same name--Protē. We ought not perhaps to carry our inquiries so far into antiquity, and it might be sufficient to describe the present state of each place, if certain reports about them had not been delivered down to us in childhood; but as different writers give different accounts, it is necessary to examine them. The most famous and the most ancient writers being the first in point of personal knowledge of the places, are, in general, persons of the most credit. Now as Homer surpasses all others in these respects, we must examine what he says, and compare his descriptions with the present state of places, as we have just said. We have already considered his description of the Hollow Elis and of Buprasium. 24. He describes the dominions of Nestor in these words: “And they who inhabited Pylus, and the beautiful Arene, and Thryum, a passage across the Alpheius, and the well-built Æpy, and Cyparisseis, and Amphigeneia, and Pteleum, and Helos, and Dorium, where the Muses having met with Thamyris the Thracian, deprived him of the power of song, as he was coming from Œchalia, from the house of Eurytus the Œchalian.”[75] It is Pylus, therefore, to which the question relates, and we shall soon treat of it. We have already spoken of Arene. The places, which he here calls Thryum, in another passage he calls Thryoessa, “There is a city Thryoessa, lofty, situated on a hill, Far off, on the banks of the Alpheius.”[76]