16.
Towards the south of Pylus is Lepreum. This also was a city, situated 40 stadia above the sea-coast. Between the Lepreum and the Annius (Anigrus? Alphæus?) is the temple of the Samian Neptune. These places are distant 100 stadia from each other. This is the temple in which the poet says that the Pylii were found by Telemachus engaged in offering sacrifice:
“They came to Pylus, the well-built city of Neleus; the people were sacrificing on the sea-shore bulls, entirely black, to Neptune, the god of the dark locks, who shakes the earth.”62
For the poet was at liberty to feign things which did not exist, but when it is possible to adapt poetry to reality, and [Pg 18]
[CAS. 345] preserve the narrative ... it is better to abstain from fiction.
The Lepreatæ possessed a fertile country, on the confines of which were situated the Cyparissenses. But Caucones were masters of both these tracts, and even of the Macistus, which some call Platanistus. The town has the same name as the territory. It is said, that in the Lepreatis there is even a monument of a Caucon, who had the name of the nation, either because he was a chief, or for some other reason.
