City
Melena
NW of Megalopolis, Arcadia (Greece)
Listen to the story
Melena turns up twice on the Tabula. Here it sits correctly on the road from Olympia to Megalopolis, a bare name with no picture; elsewhere a mistaken copy appears, where the route out of Megalopolis was drawn in the wrong direction, towards Argos. A list of places compiled in Ravenna repeats that same error. The Greek travel writer Pausanias called it a town founded by Melaineus, son of Lycaon, yet deserted in his day despite its plentiful springs. Its name seems to point to earth goddesses, above all Demeter. It is usually placed in Arcadia near Kokkoras, where traces of a Roman farmstead and baths have been found.