in Ancient Geography, a territory in the Peloponnese, lying partly in Argolis and partly in Laconia, and inhabited by a tribe of half-barbarous marauders of Pelasgic origin, who on the approach of an enemy retired to their fastnesses on Mount Parnon. The Cynurians were first subdued by the Argives, to whom they remained subject with some small intermissions till the year 547 B.C., when they fell under the dominion of Sparta. The city of Thyrea, with a small tract of the surrounding country, is the only part of the Cynuria that can now be identified. At the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, it was assigned as a dwelling-place by the Spartans to the people of Ægina, who had been driven out of their island by the Athenians. In the eighth year of that war, however, the Athenians landed on the coast, took Thyrea, and carried away the inhabitants into captivity. By Philip of Macedon the Thyreatis was restored to the Argives; but quarrels for the possession of the district subsisted between that people and the Spartans till the days of Pausanias.