DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4099#0357
324 THE ALPHEIOS.
according to Livy,' it was only five miles from Elis. Strabo,1 how-
ever, says that the Pyrgitai, or country of the Pyrgoi, was the last
of Triphylia on the confines of the Cyparisseans of Messenia. The
Pyrgos of Livy and the Pyrgoi of Strabo were evidently different
places; and perhaps the modern Pyrgos occupies the site of the latter.
Herodotus3 pretends that Pyrgos was founded by the Minyans.
The port, which is called Pyrgoi, is about an hour and a half
distant from the town.
TO PHLOKA.
On the 23d, we resumed our journey; and after passing, for an
hour and twenty minutes, through the plain, and having observed
some ancient vestiges, and crossed two streams, we suddenly arrived
on the banks of the Alpheios/ which the fluctuating surface of the
plain had previously secluded from our view. The river here forms
two low islands. The opposite bank is composed of low and pic-
turesque hills, fringed with trees and broken into knolls and glens,
with the pretty village of Gulanza peering on one side.
The Alpheios in this place has the same muddy colour, and nearly
the same breadth, as the Tiber at Rome. Its current is augmented
by many tributary streams5 during its course through Arcadia and
Eleia. According to Plutarch,6 its first name was Nuktimos, which
' B. 27. c. 32. * B. 8. p. 348.
3 B. 4. c. 148. Stephanus places Pyrgoi in Messenia. De Urb. p. 651.
* Pindar frequently writes the name of this river without the diphthong.
9 See Pausau. b. 5. c. 7. 6 De fluniin.
according to Livy,' it was only five miles from Elis. Strabo,1 how-
ever, says that the Pyrgitai, or country of the Pyrgoi, was the last
of Triphylia on the confines of the Cyparisseans of Messenia. The
Pyrgos of Livy and the Pyrgoi of Strabo were evidently different
places; and perhaps the modern Pyrgos occupies the site of the latter.
Herodotus3 pretends that Pyrgos was founded by the Minyans.
The port, which is called Pyrgoi, is about an hour and a half
distant from the town.
TO PHLOKA.
On the 23d, we resumed our journey; and after passing, for an
hour and twenty minutes, through the plain, and having observed
some ancient vestiges, and crossed two streams, we suddenly arrived
on the banks of the Alpheios/ which the fluctuating surface of the
plain had previously secluded from our view. The river here forms
two low islands. The opposite bank is composed of low and pic-
turesque hills, fringed with trees and broken into knolls and glens,
with the pretty village of Gulanza peering on one side.
The Alpheios in this place has the same muddy colour, and nearly
the same breadth, as the Tiber at Rome. Its current is augmented
by many tributary streams5 during its course through Arcadia and
Eleia. According to Plutarch,6 its first name was Nuktimos, which
' B. 27. c. 32. * B. 8. p. 348.
3 B. 4. c. 148. Stephanus places Pyrgoi in Messenia. De Urb. p. 651.
* Pindar frequently writes the name of this river without the diphthong.
9 See Pausau. b. 5. c. 7. 6 De fluniin.