The region of Messenia in the south-west of the Peloponnese was, and is, very fertile. In Mycenaean times, it was home to a large palace near Pylos, associated in the Homeric poems with the figure of Nestor. In historical times, in the late 8th century BCE the Spartans from the region of Laconia to the east invaded Messenia and enslaved its people, who remained Spartan helots until the fall of the Spartan system in 371 BCE. Two years later, the Theban general Epaminondas commissioned the building of a capital city for the newly liberated Messenians. The city, called Messene, was located at the foot of Mt Ithome, a site which had been a focal point for Messenian resistance to Spartan rule on at least two occasions in the previous centuries. Messene went on to become a major centre during Hellenistic and Roman times, and the ruins today are well worth visiting.
