Oetylus

Oetylus (Οἴτυλος, Hom., Paus., Steph. B. sub voce Βείτυλος, Böckh, Inscr. no. 1323; Βίτυλα, Ptol. 3.16.22; Οἴτυλος--καλεῖται δ’ ὑπό τινων Βείτυλος, Strab. viii. p.360, corrected in accordance with the inscription), a town of Laconia on the eastern side of the Messenian gulf, represented by the modern town of Vítylo, which has borrowed its name from it. Pausanias says that it was 80 stadia from Thalamae and 150 from Messa; the latter distance is too great, but there is no doubt of the identity of Oetylus and Vítylo; and it appears that Pausanias made a mistake in the names, as the distance between Oetylus and Caenepolis is 150 stadia. Oetylus is mentioned by Homer, and was at a later time one of the Eleuthero-Laconian towns. It was still governed by its ephors in the third century of the Christian era. Pausanias saw at Oetylus a temple of Sarapis, and a wooden statue of Apollo Carneius in the agora. Among the modern houses of Vítylo there are remains of Hellenic walls, and in the church a beautiful fluted Ionic column supporting a beam at one end of the aisle, and three or four Ionic capitals in the wall of the church, probably the remains of the temple of Sarapis. (Hom. Il. 2.585; Strab. viii. p.360; Paus. 3.21.7, 25.10, 26.1; Steph. B. sub voce Ptol. l.c.; Böckh, l.c.; Morritt, in Walpole's Turkey, p. 54; Leake, Morea, vol. i. p. 313; Boblaye, Récherches, &c. p. 92; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 283.)