Messene (Greek Μεσσήνη (f. sg.)) is an ancient Greek polis (city) in the southwest of the Peloponnese. pausanias: Round Messene is a wall, the whole circuit of which is built of stone, with towers and battlements upon it. I have not seen the walls at Babylon or the walls of Memnon at Susa in Persia, nor have I heard the account of any eye-witness; but the walls at Ambrossos in Phocis, at Byzantium and at Rhodes, all of them the most strongly fortified places, are not so strong as the Messenian wall.1
See:
- http://www.ancientmessene.gr/site/index_en.php
- Pausanias, Description of Greece IV.31 – 33
- Petros G. Themelis: Das antike Messene. Athen, TAP 2003.
- William Frank Wyatt: Messene or Ithome (Mavromati) Messenia, Greece. In: Richard Stillwell u. a. (Hrsg.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0006:id=messene-1
- A Bibliography on the History and Archaeology of ancient Messene (Nikos Tsivikis)
