Messa (Greece)

Messa or Messe (Ancient Greek: Μέσση) was one of the nine cities of ancient Laconia enumerated in the Catalogue of Ships, in the Iliad by Homer, who gives it the epithet of πολυτρήρων, 'abounding in pigeons'.[1] Strabo says that the position of Messa was unknown;[2] but Pausanias mentions a town and harbour named Messa,[3] which is identified by most modern scholars with the Homeric town. This Messa is situated on the western coast of Mani, between Hippola and Oetylus; and the cliffs in the neighbourhood are said to abound in wild pigeons.[4]

Its site is located near the modern Cape Tigani.[5][6]

  1. ^ Homer. Iliad. Vol. 2.502.
  2. ^ Strabo. Geographica. Vol. viii. p. 364. Page numbers refer to those of Isaac Casaubon's edition.
  3. ^ Pausanias (1918). "25.9". Description of Greece. Vol. 3. Translated by W. H. S. Jones; H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann – via Perseus Digital Library.
  4. ^ William Martin Leake, Morea, vol. i. p. 286.
  5. ^ Richard Talbert, ed. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. p. 58, and directory notes accompanying. ISBN 978-0-691-03169-9.
  6. ^ Lund University. Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.