Primary Sources:

• Pausanias: Guide to Greece, Book V (On Messenia).
• Thucydides: 1.101.1-3 (On the Peloponnesian War, Messenia).

Secondary Sources:

• P. Themelis, The Sculpture of Messene, in Palagia (ed.), Handbook of Greek Sculpture, 2019, 536-576.
• P. Themelis, Ancient Messene, Athens, 2019.
• P. Themelis, The Economy and Society of Messenia under Roman Rule, in A.D. Rizakis (ed.), Roman Peloponnese III. Society, Economy and Culture in the Imperial Roman Order: Continuity and Innovation, Meletemata XX, Athens 2010.
• P. Themelis, Cults on Mount Ithome, Kernos 17 (2004), 143-154.
• P. Themelis, “The Messene Theseus and the Ephebes”, in Buzzi S. et alii (eds.), Zona Archaeologica, Festschrift für Hans Peter Isler zum 60. Geburstag, Bonn 2001, 407-419.
• P. Themelis, “Damophon” in Palagia O. and Pollitt J.J. (eds.), Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture (YCS 30), Cambridge 1996, 154-187.
• P. Themelis, 2002. Messene, recent discoveries (sculpture), in Excavating Classical Culture (eds. M. Stamatopoulou, M. Yeroulanou), 229-243.
• S. Alcock, 2002. Archaeologies of the Greek Past, Landscape, Monuments, and Memories, 132-175.
• P. Cartledge, 2001. Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300-362 B.C.E.
• N. Luraghi, 2004. Helots and their Masters in Messenia and Lakonia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures.
• N. Luraghi, 2008. The Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory.
• A. Makres, Victorious Athletes of Ancient Messene: Old and New Epigraphic Evidence, in: Greek Epigraphy and Religion. Papers in Memory of Sara B. Aleshire from the Second North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (eds. E. Mackil, N. Papazarkadas), Brill, Leiden/Boston 2021, 167-203.
• C. Roebuck, 1941. A History of Messenia from 369 to 146 B.C.E.
• P. J. Rhodes, 2010. A History of the Classical Greek World.