Plut. Instit. Lacon. § 10. Chateaubriand, Itin. xi. 110. Poucqueville’s description of the stream is striking and picturesque: “The banks,” he says, “are bordered with never-fading laurels, which, inclining towards each other, form an arch over its waters, and seem still consecrated to the deities of whom its purity is a just emblem; while swans, even of a more dazzling whiteness than the snows that cover the mountain-tops above, are constantly sailing up and down the stream.”—Travels, p. 84. The Viscount Chateaubriand, however, sought in vain for these poetical birds, and, therefore, evidently considers them fabulous. Footnote 285: Strabo’s brief description of the site deserves to be mentioned: ἔστι μὲν οὖν ἐν κοιλοτέρῳ χωρίῳ τὸ τῆς πόλεως ἔδαφος, καίπερ ἀπολαμβάνον ὄρη μεταξύ. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 185. Footnote 286: Xen. Hellen. v. 5. 2. Footnote 287: At this ancient city Castor and Polydeukes were worshipped not as heroes but as divinities. Isoc. Encom. Helen. § 27. Cf. Pind. Pyth. xi. 60, sqq. Nem. x. 56. Dissen supposes these tombs to have been vaults under ground in the Phœbaion.—Comm. p. 508. Footnote 288: Steph. de Urb. v. Μενέλαος, p. 551, a. Berkel.—Polyb. v. 22. Footnote 289: Xen. Hellen. vi. 5. 27. Contracting now our circle of vision, and contemplating the distinct villages or groups of buildings of which the capital of Laconia anciently consisted,[290] we behold the encampments as it were of the five tribes, extending in a circle about the Acropolis.[291] The quarter of the Pitanatæ,[292] commencing about the Issorion and the bridge over the Tiasa on the west, extended eastward beyond the Hyacinthine road[293] to the cliffs overhanging the valley of the Eurotas above the confluence of that river with the Tiasa. Immediately contiguous to the dwellings of this tribe in the north eastern division of the city, opposite that cloven island in the Eurotas, which contained the temple of Artemis, Orthia, and the Goddess of Birth, dwelt the Limnatæ,[294] who possessed among them the temple erected by the Spartans to Lycurgus. North again of these, and clustering around that sharp eminence which constituted as it were a second Acropolis, were the habitations of the Cynosuræ,[295] whose quarter appears to have extended from the old bridge over the Eurotas to the temple of Dictynna, and the tombs of the Euripontid kings on the west. From this point to the Dromos, lying directly opposite the southern extremity of the Isle of Plane Trees, formed by the diverging and confluent waters of the Tiasa, lay the village of the Messoatæ,[296] where were situated the tomb of Alcman, the fountain Dorcea, and a very beautiful portico overlooking the Platanistas. The road extending from the Dromos to the Issorion formed the western limits of the tribe of the Ægidæ,[297] whose quarter extending inward to the heart of the city, appears to have comprehended