He calls it the ford or passage of the Alpheius, because, according to these verses, it seems as if it could be crossed at this place on foot. Thryum is at present called Epitalium, a village of Macistia. With respect to εὔκτιτον Αἶπυ, “Æpy the well-built,” some writers ask which of these words is the epithet of the other, and what is the city, and whether it is the present Margalæ of Amphidolia, but this Margalæ is not a natural fortress, but another is meant, a natural stronghold in Macistia. Writers who suppose this place to be meant, say, that Æpy is the name of the city, and infer it from its natural properties, as in the example of Helos,[77] Ægialos,[78] and many others: [CAS. 349] those who suppose Margalæ to be meant here, will assert the contrary. Thryum, or Thryoessa, they say, is Epitalium, because all the country is θρυώδης, or sedgy, and particularly the banks of the rivers, but this appears more clearly at the fordable places of the stream. Perhaps Thryum is meant by the ford, and by “the well-built Æpy,” Epitalium, which is naturally strong, and in the other part of the passage he mentions a lofty hill; “The city Thryoessa, a lofty hill, Far away by the Alpheus.”[79] 25. Cyparisseïs is near the old Macistia, which then extended even to the other side of the Neda, but it is not inhabited, as neither is Macistum. There is also another, the Messenian Cyparissia, not having quite the same name, but one like it. The city of Macistia is at present called Cyparissia, in the singular number, and feminine gender, but the name of the river is Cyparisseis. Amphigeneia, also belonging to Macistia, is near Hypsoeis, where is the temple of Latona. Pteleum was founded by the colony that came from Pteleum in Thessaly, for it is mentioned in this line, “Antron on the sea-coast, and the grassy Pteleum.”[80] It is a woody place, uninhabited, called Pteleasimum. Some writers say, that Helos was some spot near the Alpheius; others, that it was a city like that in Laconia, “and Helos, a small city on the sea;”[81] others say that it is the marsh near Alorium, where is a temple of the Eleian Artemis, (Diana of the Marsh,) belonging to the Arcadians, for this people had the priesthood. Dorium is said by some authors to be a mountain, by others a plain, but nothing is now to be seen; yet it is alleged, that the present Oluris, or Olura, situated in the Aulon, as it is called, of Messenia, is Dorium. Somewhere there also is Œchalia of Eurytus, the present Andania, a small Arcadian town of the same name as those in Thessaly and Eubœa, whence the poet says, Thamyris, the Thracian, came to Dorium, and was deprived by the Muses of the power of song. 26. Hence it is evident that the country under the command of Nestor is on each side of the Alpheius, all of which tract he calls the country of the Pylians, but nowhere does the Alpheius touch Messenia, nor the Hollow Elis.[82]