3.26.1 From Oetylus to Thalamaithe road is about eighty stadium-lengths long. On it is a sanctuary of Ino and an oracle. They consult the oracle in sleep, and the goddess reveals whatever they wish to learn, in dreams. Bronze statues of Pasiphae and of Hēlios stand in the unroofed part of the sanctuary. It was not possible to see the one within the temple clearly, owing to the garlands, but they say this too is of bronze. Water, sweet to drink, flows from a sacred spring. Pasiphae is a title of the Moon, and is not a local goddess of the people of Thalamae.

3.26.2 Twenty stadium-lengths from Thalamaiis a place called Pephnus on the coast. In front of it lies a small island no larger than a big rock, also called Pephnus. The people of Thalamaisay that the Dioskouroi were born here. I know that Alcman too says this in a song: but they do not say that they remained to be brought up in Pephnus, but that it was Hermes who took them to Pellana.

3.26.3 In this little island there are bronze statues of the Dioskouroi, a foot high, in the open air. The sea will not move them, though in winter-time it washes over the rock, which is wonderful. Also the ants here have a whiter color than is usual. The Messenians say that this district was originally theirs, and so they think that the Dioskouroi belong to them rather than to the Lacedaemonians.

3.26.4 Twenty stadium-lengths from Pephnus is Leuktra. I do not know why the city has this name. If indeed it is derived from Leukippos the son of Perieres, as the Messenians say, it is for this reason, I think, that the inhabitants honor Asklepios most of the gods, supposing him to be the son of Arsinoe the daughter of Leukippos. There is a stone statue of Asklepios, and of Ino in another place.

3.26.5 Also a temple and statue have been erected to Cassandra the daughter of Priam, called Alexandra by the natives. There are wooden images of Apollo Karneios according to the same custom that prevails among the Lacedaemonians of Sparta. On the acropolis is a sanctuary and image of Athena, and there is a temple and grove of Eros in Leuktra. Water flows through the grove in winter-time, but the leaves which are shaken from the trees by the wind would not be carried away by the water even in flood.

3.26.6 I record an event which I know to have taken place in my time on the coast of Leuktra. A fire carried by the wind into a wood destroyed most of the trees, and when the place showed bare, a statue of Zeus of Ithome was found to have been dedicated there. The Messenians say that this is evidence that Leuktra was formerly a part of Messenia. But it is possible, if the Lacedaemonians originally lived in Leuktra, that Zeus of Ithome might be worshipped among them.

3.26.7 Cardamyle, which is mentioned by Homer in the Gifts promised by Agamemnon,^* is subject to the Lacedaemonians of Sparta, having been separated from Messenia by the emperor Augustus. It is eight stadium-lengths from the sea and sixty from Leuktra. Here not far from the beach is a precinct sacred to the daughters of Nereus. They say that they came up from the sea to this spot to see Pyrrhos the son of Achilles, when he was going to Sparta to wed Hermione. In the town is a sanctuary of Athena, and an Apollo Karneios according to the local Dorian custom.

3.26.8 A city, called in Homer’s poems Enope,^* with Messenian inhabitants but belonging to the league of the Free Laconians, is called in our time Gerenia. One account states that Nestor was brought up in this city, another that he took refuge here, when Pylos was captured by Hēraklēs.

3.26.9 Here in Gerenia is a tomb of Makhaon, son of Asklepios, and a holy sanctuary. In his temple men may find cures for diseases. They call the holy spot Rhodos; there is a standing bronze statue of Makhaon, with a garland on his head which the Messenians in the local speech call kiphos. The author of the epic The Little Iliad says that Machaon was killed by Eurypylos, son of Telephus.

3.26.10 I myself know that to be the reason of the practice at the temple of Asklepios at Pergamon, where they begin their hymns with Telephus but make no reference to Eurypylos, or care to mention his name in the temple at all, as they know that he was the slayer of Makhaon. It is said that the bones of Makhaon were brought home by Nestor, but that Podaleirios, as they were returning after the sack of Troy, was carried out of his course and reached Syrnus on the Carian mainland in safety and settled there.

3.26.11 In the territory of Gerenia is a mountain, Calathium; on it is a sanctuary of Claea with a cave close beside it; it has a narrow entrance, but contains objects which are worth seeing. Thirty stadium-lengths inland from Gerenia is Alagonia, a town which I have already mentioned in the list of the Free Laconians. Worth seeing here are temples of Dionysus and of Artemis.