the fertile portions of which consisted mostly of a long, narrow
valley, shut in on three sides by the mountain ranges of Ta-yg'etus
on the west and Parnon on the north and east, and open only on
the south to the sea. Through this valley flows the river Euro'tas,
on whose banks, about twenty miles from the sea, stood the capital
city, Lacedae'mon, or Sparta, which was unwalled and unfortified
during its most flourishing period, as the Spartans held that the
real defence of a town consists solely in the valor of its citizens.
The sea-coast of Laconia was lined with towns, and furnished with
numerous ports and commodious harbors. While Sparta was equaled
by few other Greek cities in the magnificence of its temples and
statues, the private houses, and even the palace of the king,
were always simple and unadorned.

15. West of Laconia was Messe'nia, the south-western division of
Greece, a mountainous country, but with many fertile intervening
valleys, the whole renowned for the mildness and salubrity of
its climate. Its principal river, the Pami'sus, rising in the
mountains of Arcadia, flows southward to the Messenian Gulf through
a beautiful plain, the lower portion of which was so celebrated
for its fertility that it was called Maca'ria, or "the blessed;"
and even to this day it is covered with plantations of the vine,
the fig, and the mulberry, and is "as rich in cultivation as can
be well imagined."

16. One district more--that of E'lis, north of Messenia and west
of Arcadia, and embracing the western slopes of the Achaian and
Arcadian mountains--makes up the complement of the ancient
Peloponnesian states. Though hilly and mountainous, like Messenia,
it had many valleys and hill-sides of great fertility. The river