Messa
Ita quod si contingat pagesos del Malhac obtinere in quæstione, quæ pendet coram senescallo Bellicadri, super cartallis tritici, quos annuatim ibidem pro Messa levare consuevimus, nos tantumdem de frumento eidem episcopo in loco congruo tenebimur assidere.Vide infra Messis 2.
Eidem Hugonino in inguine quædam Messa naturaliter sibi venit, quam crepare fecit cum fibula sive actu.(leg. acu.) Infra : Bossa. Vide in hac voce.
MESSA (Μέσση), one of the nine cities of Laconia enumerated by Homer, who gives it the epithet of πολυτρήρων, abounding in pigeons( Il. 2.502). Strabo says that the position of Messa was unknown, (8. p. 364); but Pausanias mentions a town and harbour, named Messa (3.25.9), which is identified by most modern scholars with the Homeric town. This Messa, now Mezapo, is situated on the western coast of Mani, between Hippola and Oetylus; and the cliffs in the neighbourhood are said to abound in wild pigeons. (Leake, Morea, vol. 1. p. 286; Boblaye, Récherches, &c. p. 91; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. 2. p. 282.) Leake, however, has subsequently conjectured that Messa corresponds to Mistrá in the Spartan plain, partly on account of its site, and partly because the Messa of Pausanias could never, from its situation, have been a place of much importance. (Peloponnesiaca, p. 357.) But there does not appear any sufficient reason for rejecting the identity of the Messa of Pausanias with the Messe of Homer.
(Μέσσα). A town and harbour in Laconia, near Cape Taenarum.
- Paus. 3.25.9