21.

From this Pylus and the Lepreum to the Messenian Pylus71 and the Coryphasium, fortresses situated upon the sea, [Pg 22]
[CAS. 348] and to the adjoining island Sphagia, is a distance of about 400 stadia, and from the Alpheius a distance of 750, and from the promontory Chelonatas 1030 stadia. In the intervening distance are the temple of the Macistian Hercules, and the river Acidon, which flows beside the tomb of Jardanus, and Chaa, a city which was once near Lepreum, where also is the Æpasian plain. It was for this Chaa, it is said, that the Arcadians and Pylians went to war with each other, which war Homer has mentioned, and it is thought that the verse ought to be written,

“Oh that I were young as when multitudes of Pylii, and of Arcades, handling the spear, fought together at the swift-flowing Acidon near the walls of Chaa,”72

not Celadon, nor Pheia, for this place is nearer the tomb of Jardanus and the Arcades than the other.