Strabo, Geography
H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., Ed.

There are many accounts respecting the Caucones. They are said to be an Arcadian tribe, like the Pelasgi, and also, like them, a wandering people. Thus the poet relates, that they came as auxiliaries to the Trojans, but from what country he does not mention, but it is supposed from Paphlagonia. For in that country there is a tribe of the name of Cauconiatæ, that border upon the Mariandyni, who are themselves Paphlagonians. We shall say more of them when we describe that country.¹

At present I must add some remarks concerning the Caucones in Triphylia. For some writers say, that the whole of the present Elis, from Messenia to Dyme, was called Cauconia. Antimachus calls them all Epeii and Caucones. But some writers say that they did not possess the whole country, but inhabited it when they were divided into two bodies, one of which settled in Triphylia towards Messenia, the other in the Buprasian district towards Dyme, and in the Hollow Elis. And there, and not in any other place, Aristotle considered them to be situated. The last opinion agrees better with the language of Homer, and the preceding question is resolved. For Nestor is supposed to have lived at the Triphyliac Pylus, the parts of which towards the south and the east (and these coincide towards Messenia and Laconia) was the country subject to Nestor, but the Caucones now occupy it, so that those who are going from Pylus to Lacedæmon must necessarily take the road through the Caucones. The temple of the Samian Neptune, and the naval station near it, where Telemachus landed, incline to the west and to the north. If then the Caucones lived there only, the account of the poet must be erroneous. [For, according to Sotades, Minerva enjoins Nestor to send his son with Telemachus in a chariot to Lacedæmon towards the east, while she herself returns back to the west, to pass the night in the vessel; “ but at sun-rise she sets out to the magnanimous Caucones,

” to obtain payment of the debt, in a forward direction. How then are we to reconcile these opinions? for Nestor might say, ‘The Caucones are my subjects, and lie directly in the road of persons who are going to Lacedæmon; why then do you not accompany Telemachus and his friends on his journey, but take a road in an opposite direction?’ Besides, it was natural for one, who was going to recover payment of a debt, and that a considerable sum, as she says, from a people under the command of Nestor, to request some assistance from him in case they should be so unjust, as usually happens, as to refuse to discharge it. But she did not do this.

If therefore the Caucones are to be found in one situation only, these absurdities would follow. But if one division of this tribe occupied the places in Elis near Dymë, Minerva might be said to direct her journey thither, and even the return to the ship would not be absurd, nor the separation from the company of Telemachus, when her road was in an opposite direction.

The question respecting Pylus may perhaps be resolved in a similar manner, when we come, as we proceed, to the description of the Messenian Pylus.²]