The so called bath of Pausanias
In the small settlement of Agíos Nikólaos in the northeast of the Methana peninsula there is a small house on the coast. A mofetta is the source of carbon dioxide. This heats the sea water to a temperature of around 39 ° C when a little water is pumped out and the pressure on the gas column drops.
There is now an electric pump that conveys the warm water to the outside, filling a small pool that a friend built in May 2020.
Before you go down the stairs to the house, there is a platform on the left above the driveway with scant remains of a Roman bath. It is said that ancient sculptures were found there a few decades ago.
Archaeologists will have to confirm in the future whether the bath is really the famous Pausanias bath. There are still no systematic excavations.
The "baths of Pausanias" could have been also the bath ruin in Thiafi Bay.
Pausanias about Methana´s baths
The Troizean country includes a peninsula that extends far into the sea; an insignificant city of Methana by the sea is inhabited on it.
There is a sanctuary of Isis, and on the market there is a statue of Hermes and another of Heracles. Warm baths are about thirty stadiums away from the town.
When Antigonus, the son of Demetrios, was king of Macedonia, the water is said to have burst out first, but not water right from the start, but a tremendous fire had burst up and when it extinguished, the water poured out, which is now still hot and salty .
If you have bathed there, there is no cold water nearby and even if you plunge into the water, swimming is not without risk, because there are many other seals living in the water there as well as other sea animals.
What I was mostly surprised about in Methana, I want to report: When the south-east wind blows over the Saronic bosom over the swinging vines, the young shoots wither wither. While this wind is blowing, two men tear a rooster, which has white feathers, and run in the opposite direction around the vineyards, each with one half of the rooster. They bury them there when they meet again at the points from where they started.
They invented this remedy against the southwest wind.
The islets, which lie before them in the country, in number nine, they call the Pelops Islands. When it rains, as they say, one of them is not reached by the rain. I don't know if that's really the case.
The inhabitants of Methana say so. At least I saw that people averted hailstones through sacrifices and magic. Methana is a peninsula in the Peloponnese; within the peninsula (Steno) the Troezean area borders on the Hermionic.
Source: PAUSANIAS. Langscheidsche Bibliothek, volume 37, contents book 1-6, Berlin-Schöneberg and Stuttgart 1855-1920.
Location of the bath
Photos
