BOOK IV — Messenia (Part 1)

CHAPTER I.

The border of Messenia towards Laconia, as fixed by Augustus, is at Gerenia, and in our time is called the Chœrian dell. This country, originally without inhabitants, is described to have been inhabited by the first colonists in the following manner. After the death of Lelex, who reigned in what is now called Laconia, but was then called Lelegia after him, Myles who was the elder of his sons succeeded him, and Polycaon the younger was only a private person till he married the Argive Messene, the daughter of Triopas, the son of Phorbas. But Messene, being full of pride owing to her father, who was foremost of all the Greeks in merit and power, did not think it tolerable that her husband should be a private person. So they gathered together an army from Argos and Lacedæmon and invaded this country, and the whole district was called Messene from her. And several other cities were built, as well as the place where the royal headquarters were established, _viz._ Andania. Before the battle which the Thebans fought with the Lacedæmonians at Leuctra, and the building of Messene in our day close to Ithome, I know of no city that was previously called Messene. My inference is very much confirmed by Homer. For in the catalogue of those who went to Ilium, when enumerating Pylos and Arene and other cities, he mentions no Messene. And in the Odyssey he shews that by this time the Messenians were a race and not a city,

‘For the Messenians took cattle from Ithaca,’

and clearer still in speaking of the bow of Iphitus,

‘They two in Messene met one another, In the house of Ortilochus.’

By the house of Ortilochus in Messene he meant the town of Pheræ, as he has shewn in the visit of Pisistratus to Menelaus,

‘They went to Pheræ to the house of Diocles, The son of Ortilochus.’

However the first rulers of this country were Polycaon (the son of Lelex) and his wife Messene. Caucon, the son of Celænus, the son of Phlyus, introduced here from Eleusis the mysteries of the Great Goddesses. Phlyus was according to the Athenian tradition the son of Mother Earth. And this tradition of theirs is confirmed by the Hymn of Musæus made for the Lycomidæ in honour of Demeter. And the rites of the Great Goddesses were held in greater honour many years afterwards, owing to Lycus the son of Pandion, than in Caucon’s days. And they still call the place where he purged the initiated the oak coppice of Lycus. That there is an oak-coppice in this land called Lycus’ is also borne out by Rhianus the Cretan,

‘By rocky Elæum and beyond the oak-coppice of Lycus.’

And that this Lycus was the son of Pandion is plain by the inscription on the statue of Methapus. This Methapus reformed some of the rites. He was an Athenian by race, an organizer of all sorts of mystic rites. He it was who established also among the Thebans the rites of the Cabiri. And he erected near the enclosure of the Lycomidæ a statue with an inscription which confirms my account. “I have purified the home and paths of Hermes and the firstborn daughter of Demeter, where they say Messene established games to the Great Goddesses, owing to the son of Caucon, the illustrious descendant of Phlyus. But I wonder that Lycus the son of Pandion should establish the sacred rites of Atthis in venerable Andania.” This inscription shews that Caucon who came to Messene was the descendant of Phlyus, and confirms all the other facts about Lycus, and that the mysteries in ancient times were celebrated at Andania. And it seems also common sense that Messene would not establish the mysteries in any other place than where she and Polycaon lived.

CHAPTER II.

And being very anxious to know accurately who the sons of Polycaon were by Messene, I perused the poem called _the Great Eœæ_ and the Naupactian poems, and also all the genealogical information of Cinæthon and Asius. And yet I did not discover anything in them except that _the Great Eœæ_ say that Polycaon the son of Butes married Euæchme, the daughter of Hyllus the son of Hercules, but they make no mention of either Messene or her husband. But in after time, when none of the descendants of Polycaon survived, they continued five generations and no more, they introduced as King Perieres the son of Æolus. To his court came as the Messenians say Melaneus, a skilful archer and for that reason thought to be the son of Apollo, and Perieres assigned to him Carnasium to dwell in, which was formerly called Œchalia from the wife of Melaneus. But the Thessalians and Eubœans--for there are almost always disputed accounts of most Grecian events--give different accounts. The former say that Eurytium a place deserted in our days was a city in old times and called Œchalia: but Creophylus in his Heraclea has written what corresponds with the account of the Eubœans. And Hecatæus the Milesian writes that Œchalia is in Scium a part of Eretria. But the Messenians seem to me to give the most probable account, especially about the bones of Eurytus, which I shall touch upon later. And Perieres had by Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus Aphareus and Leucippus who, on his death, succeeded their father as kings of the Messenians, but Aphareus had most power. During his reign he built the city Arene which got its name from the daughter of Œbalus, his wife and uterine sister. For Gorgophone was married to Œbalus, as I have already mentioned, in my account of Argolis, and also in my account of Laconia. Aphareus then built the city Arene in Messenia, and received into his house his cousin Neleus, the son of Cretheus, the son of Æolus (who was surnamed Poseidon), when he fled from Pelias at Iolcus, and gave him the maritime parts of the land, among which were several other cities besides Pylos, where Neleus dwelt, and made it his seat of government. And Lycus the son of Pandion came also to Arene, when he also fled from Athens from his brother Ægeus. And he taught the mysteries of the Great Goddesses to Aphareus and his sons and his wife Arene. And he introduced them into Andania, for Caucon there initiated Messene. And the elder and more manly of Aphareus’ children was Idas, and the younger was Lynceus, of whom Pindar said, believe it who will, that he had such keen eyesight that he could see through the trunk of a tree. We do not know of Lynceus having had a son, but Ides had by Marpessa a daughter Cleopatra, who married Meleager. And the writer of the Cyprian Poems says that the wife of Protesilaus, (who when the Greeks got to the Troad was the first who ventured to land), was by name Polydora, and he also says that she was the daughter of Meleager the son of Œneus. If this be correct then all these three women, beginning with Marpessa, committed suicide after the death of their husbands.

CHAPTER III.

But when between the sons of Aphareus and Castor and Pollux (their uncles) a quarrel arose about cattle, and Lynceus was slain by Pollux, while Idas died smitten with lightning, the house of Aphareus was entirely deprived of male offspring, and upon Nestor the son of Neleus devolved the kingdom of the Messenians, over all whom Idas reigned over and others besides, except those who followed the sons of Æsculapius. For they say that the sons of Æsculapius that went on the expedition to Ilium were Messenians: for Æsculapius was the son of Arsinoe the daughter of Leucippus, and not the son of Coronis. And they call a deserted place in Messenia Tricca, it is mentioned by Homer in the passage where Nestor is consoling Machaon, who was wounded with an arrow. He would not have exhibited such kindness except to a neighbour and king of the same tribe. They confirm also greatly this account about the children of Æsculapius by showing at Gerenia the monument of Machaon, and at Pharæ the temple of the sons of Machaon.

And after the end of the war against Ilium, and the death of Nestor after his return home, the expedition of the Dorians and return of the Heraclidæ two generations afterwards drove out the descendants of Neleus from Messenia. And this was as it were the climax of the doings of Temenus which I have already described. But I will narrate this much more. When the Dorians assigned Argos to Temenus, Cresphontes asked of them Messenia, on the ground that he was older than Aristodemus, who had just died. But Theras the son of Autesion vehemently opposed Cresphontes; he was of Theban ancestry and fifth descendant of Polynices the son of Œdipus, and at this time Guardian of Aristodemus’ sons, as he was their uncle on the mother’s side, for Aristodemus had married the daughter of Autesion, whose name was Argia. But Cresphontes, for he was determined to have Messenia, begged of Temenus to decide the question by lots. And Temenus put into a water-pot which had water in it the lots of Cresphontes and the sons of Aristodemus separately, so that he whose lot came up first should have Messenia. Temenus prepared both the lots, the lot of the sons of Aristodemus he made of clay dried in the sun, and Cresphontes’ lot of clay that had been baked in the furnace: and the lot of the sons of Aristodemus melted, and stuck to the bottom of the water-pot, so that Cresphontes (for his lot came out) got possession in this way of Messenia. And the old Messenians were not turned out by the Dorians, but agreed to Cresphontes being their king, and to the partition of the land among the Dorians. And they were brought over to this compliance by suspicion of their former kings, because they were Minyæ who had originally sprung from Iolcus. And the wife of Cresphontes was Merope the daughter of Cypselus (who was at that time king of the Arcadians), by whom he had several children and the name of the youngest was Æpytus. And his palace, where he himself and his sons meant to live, he built at Stenyclerus: for in ancient times Perieres and the other kings lived at Andania, and after Aphareus had built Arene he and his sons lived there, and in the reign of Nestor and his descendants the Court lived at Pylos, but Cresphontes changed the royal residence to Stenyclerus. And, as he chiefly ingratiated himself with the people, the wealthy classes rose up in insurrection against him and killed him and all his sons except Æpytus, who being quite a boy was brought up by Cypselus, and alone survived of all the house, and when he grew to man’s estate the Arcadians restored him to Messene. And the other kings of the Dorians, the sons of Aristodemus, and Isthmius the son of Temenus, joined in bringing him back. And when Æpytus became king he punished his father’s murderers, and all those who had instigated the crime: and bringing over to his side by his attentions those who were in high position among the Messenians, and the populace by gifts, he arrived at such a pitch of honour that his descendants were called Æpytidæ instead of Heraclidæ.

And Glaucus the son of Æpytus, who succeeded his father, in all other respects imitated his father both in public and private, but far exceeded him in piety. For when the sacred enclosure of Zeus on the summit of Ithome did not receive honours among the Dorians, through the neglect of Polycaon and Messene, Glaucus restored his worship: and was the first to sacrifice to Machaon the son of Æsculapius at Gerenia, and awarded such gifts to Messene the daughter of Triopas as are usually bestowed on heroes. And Isthmius Glaucus’ son also built a temple to Gorgasus and Nicomachus at Pharæ. And the son of Isthmius was Dotadas, who, though Messenia had several other havens, constructed one at Mothone. And Sybotas the son of Dotadas decreed that annually the king should sacrifice by the river Pamisus, and offer victims to Eurytus the son of Melaneus in Œchalia, before the rites of the Great Goddesses that are still celebrated in Andania.

CHAPTER IV.

And in the reign of Phintas, the son of Sybotas, the Messenians first sent to Apollo at Delos sacrifices and a choir of men. And their processional Hymn to the god was composed by Eumelus, and these are considered the only genuine lines of Eumelus. It was during the reign of this Phintas that a disagreement for the first time came about between the Lacedæmonians and the Messenians. The cause is doubtful, but is traditionally as follows. On the borders of Messenia is a temple of Artemis Limnas, in which the Messenians and Lacedæmonians were the only Dorians that had a share. The Lacedæmonians say that some maidens of theirs who were present at the feast were violated by some Messenians, and that their king Teleclus, (the son of Archelaus, the son of Agesilaus, the son of Doryssus, the son of Labotas, the son of Echestratus, the son of Agis,) was slain in endeavouring to prevent this outrage. They also say that the maidens who were violated put themselves to death from shame. But the Messenian account is that Teleclus plotted against their persons of quality that came to the temple, on account of the excellence of the Messenian soil, and picked out some beardless Spartans, and, dressing them in female attire and ornaments like maidens, introduced them armed with daggers among some of the Messenians who were resting: but the other Messenians came up to the rescue, and killed the beardless young men and Teleclus himself. And the Lacedæmonians--for their king had not contrived all this without the common consent--knowing that they had begun the wrong, did not demand vengeance for the murder of Teleclus. These are the different accounts the two nations give, let everyone accept the view he prefers.

And a generation afterwards, when Alcamenes the son of Teleclus was king at Lacedæmon, and the king of the other family was Theopompus, the son of Nicander, the son of Charillus, the son of Polydectes, the son of Eunomus, the son of Prytanis, the son of Eurypon, and Antiochus and Androcles the sons of Phintas were kings of the Messenians, strife arose between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians, and the Lacedæmonians began hostilities, availing themselves, as they were full of animosity and very warlike, of an adequate and even specious pretext. But had their disposition been more peaceable it would have been settled by arbitration. This is what happened. Polychares a Messenian in other respects not obscure was a victor at Olympia in the games, when the people of Elis were celebrating their 4th Olympiad and competed only in the race in which Polychares was victor. This man had much cattle and, because he had not sufficient land to pasture them upon, he handed them over to Euæphnus a Spartan to feed on his land, on condition that he should have a share in the produce of the cattle. Now Euæphnus was a person who preferred unrighteous gains to acting with integrity, and was generally speaking a wheedling fellow, so he sold the oxen of Polychares to merchants who sailed to Laconia, and went himself to Polychares and reported to him that some pirates had landed on the spot, and violently robbed him both of cattle and herdsmen. And while he was deceiving Polychares one of the herdsmen fled from the merchants, and coming back to Polychares found Euæphnus with him, and accused him to his master. And being detected and having no defence, he earnestly begged for pardon from Polychares and his son: on the score that, among the elements in human nature whereby we become unjust almost by compulsion, the love of gain is the most powerful. And he stated the sum which he had received for the cattle, and asked Polychares’ son to go with him and carry it back to his father. And when they went on their journey and got to Laconia, Euæphnus dared a deed more unholy than the former, he slew the son of Polychares. And when Polychares knew of this last misfortune, he went to Lacedæmon to the kings and Ephors, and went wailing through the multitude, reckoning up what he had suffered at the hands of Euæphnus, whom he had treated as a friend, and trusted more than all the Lacedæmonians. And when he got no redress, though he went continually to the authorities, then he went off his head, and giving way to his anger, and being perfectly reckless of the consequences, endeavoured to kill every Lacedæmonian he met.

CHAPTER V.

The Lacedæmonian account is that they went to war because Polychares was not given up to them, and because of the murder of Teleclus, and because they were suspected earlier still of having had a hand in the villany of Cresphontes about the lots. But the Messenians contradict what I have already said about Teleclus, and point to the fact that Æpytus the son of Cresphontes was restored by the sons of Aristodemus, which they would never have done had they been at variance with Cresphontes. And they say that they did not give up Polychares to the Lacedæmonians for punishment, because neither would they give up Euæphnus, but they were willing that sentence should be given by the Argives (who were the kinsmen of both) at Amphictyonia, or that the case should be submitted to the Court at Athens called the Areopagus, because that court seemed from ancient times appointed for murder cases. They also say that the Lacedæmonians did not go to war on this account, but in consequence of their ambition plotted against their land and did various things, alleging at one time the condition of Arcadia, at another the state of Argos, for they were never satisfied with slicing off from time to time the territory of both of those people. And they were the first to become friends of the barbarian Crœsus who sent them gifts, at the time when he reduced to slavery all the Greeks in Asia Minor, and all the Dorians that dwelt in the mainland of Caria. And they declare that, when the Phocian leaders plundered the temple at Delphi, the kings at Sparta and other noblemen privately, and the Ephors and senators publicly, had a hand in it. And above all, to shew that the Lacedæmonians would stick at nothing for lucre, they twitted them with their alliance with Apollodorus the tyrant of Cassandrea. Why indeed the Messenians consider this such a bitter taunt, I cannot now discuss: for except that the courage of the Messenians and the length of time they fought differed from the tyranny of Apollodorus, they suffered nearly as much as the people of Cassandrea. These are the causes which each nation assign for the war.

And now an embassy of Lacedæmonians came to demand the extradition of Polychares. The kings of the Messenians however answered the embassy that after deliberation with the people they would send an answer to Sparta, and accordingly after the departure of the embassy they convened the citizens to a general assembly. And different opinions were bandied about; Androcles thought they ought to give up Polychares as having acted impiously and most savagely, Antiochus took the opposite view, and maintained that it would be most distressing if Polychares should suffer before the eyes of Euæphnus, and enumerated the harrowing details of what his punishment would be. And eventually the rival parties of Androcles and Antiochus proceeded to such lengths that they took up arms. However their strife was not long continued, for the party of Antiochus, being far superior in numbers, slew Androcles and the most illustrious of his partizans. And Antiochus being now the only king sent letters to Sparta, to say that he would submit the matter to the arbitration of the courts I have mentioned. But the Lacedæmonians are said to have given no answer to the bearers of these letters. And not many months afterwards Antiochus died, and Euphaes his son succeeded him. And the Lacedæmonians not only sent no herald to proclaim war with the Messenians, nor openly renounced friendship with them, but made their preparations as secretly as possible, and previously bound themselves by oath that neither for length of war (if it should not be decided speedily), nor for reverses (if they should meet with even great ones), would they leave off till they had won Messenia by the fortune of war. After taking this oath they made a night-attack on Amphea, having appointed Alcamenes the son of Teleclus as their General. Amphea is a small town in Messenia but near Laconia, situated on a high hill, and well supplied with water. And in other respects Amphea seemed a very convenient base for their war. So they captured the town, the gates being open and no garrison there, and killed all the Messenians that they took in the town, some even in their beds, and others as they found them sitting as suppliants at the temples and altars of the gods, and only a few escaped. This was the first attack the Lacedæmonians made upon Messenia, in the second year of the ninth Olympiad, in which Xenodocus the Messenian was victor in the race. And at Athens there were not as yet yearly magistrates appointed by lot: for the descendants of Melanthus, who were called Medontidæ, had at first much of their power taken away by the people, and instead of a kingdom their power became limited, and afterwards their authority was definitely restricted to ten years. At the time of the capture of Amphea Æsimides, the son of Æschylus, was in the fifth year of his government over the Athenians.

CHAPTER VI.

But before I write the history of this war, and the actions and sufferings entailed by it upon both parties by Providence, I wish to relate in their order the exploits of Aristomenes the Messenian hero. For this war between the Lacedæmonians and their allies and the Messenians and their mercenaries did not get its name from the attacking force, as the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, but was called the Messenian war from the disasters which befell the Messenians, just as the war at Ilium got called Trojan and not Grecian, so it was in this war, which Rhianus of Bene and Myron of Priene have celebrated, the former in poetry, the latter in prose. Neither of them however have narrated fully the events of the war from beginning to end, but Myron has described the capture of Amphea and its consequences up to the death of Aristodemus, and Rhianus has not touched at all the commencement of the war, but only what eventually happened to the Messenians in consequence of their quarrel with the Lacedæmonians, and he has not described even the whole of this, but only what took place after the battle which they fought at what was called _the great trench_; and the hero Aristomenes on whose account only I mentioned Rhianus and Myron, and who was the first and foremost in bringing the name of Messene to honour, this hero (I say) has been introduced by Myron into his history, and by Rhianus into his poem, in which Aristomenes is as much lauded as Achilles by Homer in the Iliad. As these two have given such different accounts, I am obliged to accept one of them and not both together. Rhianus appears to me to speak more probably about the age of Aristomenes. But Myron, as one can learn in other particulars and not least in the history of this Messenian war, does not with sufficient accuracy test the truth or at least probability of what he relates. For he states that Aristomenes slew Theopompus, the king of the Lacedæmonians, a little before the death of Aristodemus, whereas we know that Theopompus did not die in battle or in any other way before the end of the war. And in fact Theopompus concluded the war, as the elegiac lines of Tyrtæus bear me out,

‘To our king Theopompus god-beloved, Through whom we took Messene spacious town.’

Aristomenes therefore in my opinion was in the second Messenian war, and I shall relate in detail all about him when I come to that part of my subject.

Now the Messenians, when they heard all that had happened at Amphea from those who escaped from its capture, convened delegates from all their towns at Stenyclerus. And when the people were gathered together in the assembly, several of those in authority, and last of all the king, exhorted them not to be dejected at the fall of Amphea as if all the war were decided thereby, and not to fear the preparations of the Lacedæmonians as more formidable than their own, for although they had had longer experience in war, yet the Messenians would find necessity a great spur to brave men, and would meet with greater favour from the gods as defending their country, and not commencing hostilities.

CHAPTER VII.

With these words Euphaes dismissed the assembly, and from that time forward kept all the Messenians under arms, compelling those that did not know to learn the art of war, and making those that did practise more frequently than before. And the Lacedæmonians made incursions into Messenia, but did not injure the country inasmuch as they considered it their own, neither did they cut down trees nor pull down houses; but they drove off whatever cattle they found, and carried off the corn and all fruit. They likewise made attacks on some of the towns but took none, inasmuch as they were strongly fortified and carefully guarded, and after much loss they desisted from the attempt, and ceased attacking them. And the Messenians plundered the maritime parts of Laconia, and all the farms in the neighbourhood of Mount Taygetus. And in the 4th year after the capture of Amphea Euphaes, full of zeal from the ardour of the Messenians who were boiling over with rage at the Lacedæmonians, and at the same time thinking their training complete, ordered a march, and bade the slaves follow with wood and all other things necessary for entrenching a camp. And the Lacedæmonians heard from the garrison at Amphea that the Messenians were on the march, and they too marched out to battle. And at a place in Messenia very convenient for a battle, with a deep ravine in front of it, Euphaes drew up the Messenians in battle array, having appointed Cleonnis to the chief command: the cavalry and light-armed troops, which were both less than 500, were under Pytharatus and Antander. And when the two armies engaged the ravine prevented the heavy-armed troops from encountering, though they advanced against one another eagerly and impetuously in their mutual hatred, but the cavalry and the light-armed troops engaged above the ravine, and they were equally matched in numbers and skill, and consequently the battle was evenly poised. But while these were engaged, Euphaes ordered the slaves first to fortify the rear of the army and then the flanks with stockades. And when night overtook them and the battle was stayed, then they fortified also the front of the camp opposite the ravine, so that next day the tactical skill and foresight of Euphaes dawned upon the Lacedæmonians, and they found that they could not fight against the Messenians if they would not come out of their entrenchments, and they despaired of besieging them as they had no siege train.

And so they returned home: and a year afterwards, when the old man reviled them and taunted them with cowardice and disregard of their oath, they openly made preparations for a second campaign against the Messenians. And they were led by both their kings, Theopompus the son of Nicander, and Polydorus the son of Alcamenes, for Alcamenes was now dead. And the Messenians made counter-preparations, and when the Spartans marched to battle moved out to meet them. And the Lacedæmonians were led by Polydorus on the left wing, and Theopompus on the right, and in the centre by Euryleon, a Lacedæmonian for the nonce but originally a Theban descended from Cadmus, the fifth descendant from Ægeus, the son of Œolycus, the son of Theras, the son of Autesion. And opposite the right wing of the Lacedæmonians were the Messenians under Antander and Euphaes, and on the wing opposite Polydorus under Pytharatus, and in the centre under Cleonnis. And as they were just going to engage, the kings came up and exhorted their men. To the Lacedæmonians Theopompus made a short harangue according to the custom of his country, reminding them of their oath against the Messenians, and how noble an ambition it was to shew themselves more capable of brilliant exploits than their fathers who subjugated their neighbours, and to acquire a richer territory. Euphaes spoke at greater length than the Lacedæmonian king, but not more so than the occasion warranted. For he shewed that the contest was not only for land or possessions, but they knew clearly he said what misery would come upon them if they were conquered: their wives and children would be led off into captivity, the lightest punishment for their young men would be death, perhaps not unaccompanied by outrage, their temples would be plundered, their country destroyed by fire. He was not he said merely making suppositions, what those who were taken at Amphea had suffered was proof positive of all that he said. Rather than bear such ills it would be preferable to die nobly, and it would be much easier (when they were yet unconquered and as bold as the enemy) to vanquish their adversaries by their courage, than to retrieve their ruined fortunes if they were faint-hearted now. Such was the speech of Euphaes.

CHAPTER VIII.

And directly the leaders on either side gave the signal for battle, the Messenians came on at the double, and exposed themselves freely as men dealing death in their rage at every blow, and everyone was anxious to begin the fight. And the Lacedæmonians rushed out to meet them with equal ardour, but took care not to break their line. And when they got to close quarters, they threatened one another, rattling their arms, and looking fiercely at one another, and proceeded to abuse, the Lacedæmonians saying that the Messenians were already their slaves, and that they were not a whit freer than the Helots, and the Messenians replying that they were impious in what they were attempting, _viz._ in attacking kinsmen for the sake of gain, and were profane to the national gods of the Dorians and especially to Hercules. And by this time they followed up words with blows, and rushed on one another pell mell (with greatest vigour the Lacedæmonians), man attacking man. From their long experience and practice in war the Lacedæmonians had the advantage, and also from their numbers, (for the neighbouring nations who were subject to them they had with them in their army, and the Asinæi and Dryopes, who a generation earlier had been driven by the Argives from their own land and had come to Lacedæmon as suppliants, were now compelled to swell their army), and against the light-armed troops of the Messenians they had Cretan archers, mercenaries. And the Messenians were animated equally by despair and contempt of death, and all their sufferings they looked on as necessary rather than dreadful to those who loved their country’s honour, and the more vigorously they fought the harder they thought would things go for the Lacedæmonians. And some of them advancing in front of their lines exhibited brilliant bravery, and others badly wounded and scarce alive were animated by desperation. And they cheered one another on, those who were alive and yet unwounded encouraging the wounded to receive with joy their fate, and sell their lives as dearly as possible: and the wounded, (when they perceived their strength failing, and that they would soon yield up their breath), urging on the unwounded to shew as much courage as themselves had shewn, and not to let their death be useless to their country. But the Lacedæmonians at first made no harangues to their men, and were not as ready as the Messenians to display heroic courage: but being accustomed to war from boys their formation in line was deeper, and they expected that the Messenians could not hold out as long as they could, nor stand the strain of their heavy armour, nor their wounds. Such were the peculiar features of each army in respect to both the behaviour and feelings of the combatants: what was common to both was that no quarter was asked for, perhaps this was despaired of from their fierce hatred, and they felt the greatest self-indignation that they had not sold their lives dearer: and those that killed their man abstained both from boasting and reproaches, being uncertain which party would win. And most unexpectedly fell those who were endeavouring to plunder some of the dead bodies, for either by disclosing some naked part of their body they got pierced with darts, not on their guard in their thirst for plunder, or they were killed by some of those whom they were attempting to rob who were still alive. The kings also fought right valiantly, and Theopompus rushed with ungovernable rage against Euphaes, intending to kill him. And Euphaes seeing him rushing on said to Antander that Theopompus was displaying as much bravery as his ancestor Polynices: for Polynices led an army from Argos against his own country, and he and his brother mutually slew one another: and Theopompus (he added) wished to load the family of the Heraclidæ with the same guilt as that of the family of Laius and Œdipus: he would not however go with joy from the battle. With these words he himself went forward to meet Theopompus. Hereupon the battle, which had rather flagged, took up fresh vigour again, and their bodies were renewed as it were, and the fearlessness of death on both sides was increased, so that one might have thought the battle had only just commenced. And eventually Euphaes’ division, nearly mad with desperate valour and stoutheartedness, for the King’s bodyguard were all picked men, broke the enemy’s line, routed Theopompus, and put the Lacedæmonians in that part of the field to flight. But the other wing of the Messenians was hard pressed, for Pytharatus their General was dead, and without a leader they became disordered and dejected. But neither did Polydorus pursue the fleeing Messenians, nor Euphaes the fleeing Lacedæmonians. For Euphaes and his staff thought it better to come to the aid of their vanquished friends: nor did they engage with Polydorus and his troops: for by this time it was already dark, and the Lacedæmonians were prevented from following the fugitives not least by their ignorance of the country. It was also their country’s custom not to pursue an enemy too hotly, being more anxious not to break their line than to annihilate the enemy. And in the centre on both sides, the Lacedæmonians under Euryleon, and the Messenians under Cleonnis, the fight was pretty equal, till the approach of night put an end to the contest.

This battle was fought on both sides mainly by the heavy armed infantry. Some cavalry there was indeed, but they had no great influence on the fortunes of the day, for the Peloponnesians of that day were not good horsemen. And the light armed troops of the Messenians and the Cretans on the Lacedæmonian side did not come to the encounter at all: for they were posted in ancient fashion among the infantry. And on the following day neither party were minded to renew the battle nor to erect a trophy of victory, but as the day wore on they sent out heralds to treat of the burying of their dead, and as this was agreed to on both sides, they began to bury their dead immediately.

CHAPTER IX.

But the Messenians after the battle began to find their affairs in a deplorable condition: for they were nearly ruined by their outlay in money expended in keeping garrisons in the towns, and their slaves deserted to the Lacedæmonians. Also a pestilence fell upon them, which troubled them greatly being like the plague, though it did not prevail universally throughout their country. And after deliberation about their present condition they determined to abandon their towns in the interior of the country, and dwell in the mountain district of Ithome. And there was a small town at Ithome which Homer has mentioned in his catalogue,

‘And rocky Ithome.’

To this town they repaired, extending its ancient limits so as to make it a sufficient defence for all of them. And the place was in other respects a strong position: for Ithome is as high as any of the mountains within the Isthmus, and in this respect most difficult of access. They thought they would also send an envoy to Delphi, and they selected for this mission Tisis the son of Alcis, who in general merit and in divination was considered inferior to nobody. This Tisis on his return from Delphi was laid in wait for by the Lacedæmonians who were in garrison at Amphea: but he would not be taken alive, so valiantly did he defend himself against those that had lain in ambush, in spite of the wounds he received from them, till a voice was heard without any appearance of the speaker, “Let the bearer of the oracle go.” And Tisis, directly he got safe to Ithome, and had delivered his oracle to the king, fell down dead of his wounds. And Euphaes collected the Messenians together and recited the oracle. “Sacrifice a pure virgin (selected by lot out of the family of the Æpytidæ) by night to the gods below. But if you cannot find one of the Æpytidæ, then sacrifice anyone else who offers himself as a willing victim.” This being the utterance of the god, forthwith all the maidens of the family of the Æpytidæ drew lots. And when the lot fell upon the daughter of Lyciscus, Epebolus the seer said it would not do to sacrifice her; for she was not really the daughter of Lyciscus, but a girl that the wife of Lyciscus being barren had palmed off as hers. While he was making this revelation, Lyciscus took off the girl and fled to Sparta. And the Messenians being very dejected at finding out the flight of Lyciscus, Aristodemus, a man of the family of the Æpytidæ, and in other respects and in war more illustrious than Lyciscus, offered to sacrifice his own daughter. But the affairs of mankind, and not least their desires, are secretly directed by Fate, just as the bottom of a river has pebbles, so that Aristodemus on this occasion, endeavouring to save Messene, was prevented by the following circumstance. A Messenian, whose name is not known, happened to be deeply in love with the daughter of Aristodemus, and was on the eve of marrying her. He at first disputed the right of Aristodemus to the maiden as he had betrothed her to him, and argued that he being her betrothed alone had right to her. And afterwards, when he found this argument unavailing, he invented a shameful story, that he had had an amour with her and that she was pregnant by him. And at last he wrought up Aristodemus to such a pitch, that driven to madness in his anger he killed his daughter, and afterwards cut her up and found she was not pregnant. And Epebolus who was present bade somebody else give his daughter as a victim, for the daughter of Aristodemus (he said) could be no more use to them now she was dead: for her father had indeed killed her, but not sacrificed her to the gods as the Pythian oracle ordered. When the seer had said this the mass of the Messenians rushed forward to kill the girl’s lover, as he had caused Aristodemus to commit a useless crime, and had rendered doubtful the safety of the community. But this man was a very great friend of Euphaes. Euphaes accordingly persuaded the Messenians that the oracle was fulfilled by the death of the girl, and that what Aristodemus had done was sufficient. And when he had said this all the Æpytidæ agreed with him: for each was anxious to have his fears removed about having to sacrifice his own daughter. So they hearkened to the advice of the king and broke up the assembly, and afterwards turned their attention to the sacrifices and festival of the gods.

CHAPTER X.

But the Lacedæmonians on hearing the oracle of the Messenians were very dejected, both they and their kings, and henceforth shrank from resuming the war. But in the sixth year after the flight of Lyciscus from Ithome the Lacedæmonians (as their sacrifices were auspicious) led an army to Ithome. But the Cretans chanced to be absent, and the allies of the Messenians were also behindhand. For the Spartans were an object of suspicion to other Peloponnesians and especially to the Arcadians and Argives. The Argives indeed were going to come to help the Messenians secretly without the knowledge of the Lacedæmonians, privately rather than from public decree. But the Arcadian expedition was publicly announced, though they were behindhand too. But the Messenians were induced by confidence in the oracle to hazard war even without allies. In most respects the battle was no different from the former one, for daylight on this occasion too failed the combatants: it is not however mentioned that either wing or division were broken, for they say the troops did not remain in the order in which they were placed at first, but the bravest men came from the wings in both armies into the centre, and there was the strain of battle. For Euphaes was more ardent in fight than one would have expected from a king, and recklessly rushing upon Theopompus and his staff, received many mortal wounds. As he fainted away and fell to the ground, and could scarce breathe, the Lacedæmonians strove with might and main to drag him to their army. But their previous goodwill to Euphaes, and their future disgrace if they abandoned him, roused the Messenians, and it appeared better to them to give up their lives for their king rather than purchase safety by abandoning him. Accordingly the peril of Euphaes prolonged the battle, and added to the bravery exhibited on both sides, and afterwards he revived, and saw that his men were fighting as valiantly as the foe, and not many days afterwards he died, having been king of the Messenians for 13 years, and having been at war with the Lacedæmonians during all his reign. And as he had no children he left the choice of his successor to the people, and Cleonnis and Damis were rival competitors with Aristodemus, being considered superior to him both in other respects and in war. And Antander had been killed in the battle jeoparding his life for Euphaes. And the opinions of the seers, Epebolus and Ophioneus, were both similar, that the kingdom of Æpytus and his descendants should not be conferred upon a man polluted with the murder of a daughter. Nevertheless Aristodemus was elected and became king. And Ophioneus the Messenian seer was blind from his birth, and had the following mode of divination. By enquiring into a person’s private and public fortune in the past he informed them what it would be in the future. This was his divination, and Aristodemus having become king through the people was desirous to gratify them in all that was reasonable, and of those in authority he held Cleonnis and Damis in special honour. He also paid great attention to the allies, and sent gifts to the most influential Arcadians both at Argos and Sicyon. And in the war which was carried on in the reign of Aristodemus they pillaged from time to time, and in the summertime made incursions into one another’s country. There were counter-incursions into Laconia on the part of the Arcadians with the Messenians. But the Argives did not think it well openly to proclaim their hostility against the Lacedæmonians, but made their preparations so as to strike in when the fray begun.

CHAPTER XI.

In the fifth year of the reign of Aristodemus, when both nations were about to take the field again after open proclamation of war, both very much weakened by the length and expenses of the war, then allies came to both, to the Lacedæmonians the Corinthians alone of all the Peloponnesians, and to the Messenians the Arcadians in full force, and picked men from Argos and Sicyon. The Lacedæmonians placed the Corinthians and Helots and the provincials in the centre, and themselves with their kings took up their position on the wings, in deeper and fuller formation than was ever before adopted. And the dispositions of Aristodemus and his staff for the battle were as follows. For all the Arcadians or Messenians that were strong in body and stout of heart, but had not good weapons, he picked out the best arms, and when the action became hot, posted them among the Argives and Sicyonians: and extended his line so as not to be taken in flank by the enemy. And he took care that his men were so placed that they had the mountain Ithome in their rear. And he appointed Cleonnis to the command here, and himself and Damis stayed with the light-armed troops, and a few slingers and archers: most in this part of the army were well adapted physically for attack and retreat, and lightly armed. Each had a breastplate or shield, but such as were deficient in this respect had goatskins and sheepskins, or the skins of wild beasts, the Arcadian mountaineers in particular had the skins of wolves and bears. And each had several javelins, and some had lances. And these lay in ambush in Ithome where they could be best concealed from sight. And the heavy armed troops of the Messenians and the allies stood the first onset of the Lacedæmonians, and afterwards were in all respects full of bravery. They were outnumbered by the enemy, but being picked men they fought against an armed mob and not against men of equal discipline to themselves, consequently they held out much longer through their bravery and skill. Moreover the light-armed troops of the Messenians, when the signal was given, rushed against the Lacedæmonians and hemmed them in, and hurled their javelins at their flanks, and the bolder of them rushed in and fought hand to hand. And the Lacedæmonians, though they saw before them a second danger and so hopeless a one in the same place, yet were not in despair, but turned upon the light-armed troops and tried to repel them, but as because of the lightness of their armour they easily ran away, the Lacedæmonians were both perplexed and irritated. Somehow or other men are apt to be especially vexed at what happens contrary to their expectation. And so here those of the Spartans who were already wounded, and those who were nearest to the light-armed troops, as their comrades lay dead, rushed out of their ranks wherever they saw the light-armed troops pressing on, and in their heat pursued rather too far as the enemy retired. Then the light-armed troops of the Messenians, as they had done at first, struck them, and hurled their javelins at them as they stood their ground, and when they pursued made a feint to flee, and attacked them as they tried to rejoin their men. And this they did in various parts of the field, and at different points in the enemy’s lines. And the heavy-armed of the Messenians and the allies at this juncture pressed more boldly right at the foe. And eventually the Lacedæmonians, spent with the length of the battle and their wounds, and at the same time harassed beyond measure by the light-armed troops, broke their ranks. And in the rout the light-armed troops harassed them all the more. Of the Lacedæmonians who were cut to pieces in the battle, I could not ascertain the number, but I believe it was very large. And the return home to some was easy, but to the Corinthians it was sure to be dangerous, for, whether they returned through Argolis or by Sicyon, they had equally to pass through hostile country.

CHAPTER XII.

The Lacedæmonians were troubled at this reverse that had befallen them, and at the many excellent warriors they had lost in the battle. And they despaired of success in the war, so they sent envoys to Delphi. And this was the oracle the Pythian Priestess gave. ‘Phœbus bids you not only apply yourselves to warlike deeds, but as it was by cunning that the people got the Messenian land, by the selfsame cunning as it was got shall it be taken.’ The kings and Ephors, though they were very anxious to do so, could not find out a good plan till they imitated the wiliness of Odysseus at Ilium. They sent 100 men to Ithome to spy out the enemies’ designs, who were to pretend to be deserters. And to keep up the cheat these men were publicly condemned at Sparta as deserters. But on their arrival Aristodemus sent them home again at once, saying, “The injuries done to the Lacedæmonians are recent, their craft ancient.” The Lacedæmonians having failed in this manœuvre next attempted to tamper with the allies of the Messenians. But as the Arcadians rejected their overtures, for to them the envoys went first, they did not proceed to Argos. And Aristodemus hearing of all these intrigues on the part of the Lacedæmonians sent himself messengers to consult the oracle at Delphi. And this was the answer of the Pythian priestess. “The glory in the war the god gives you, but take care that the treacherous hostile ambush be not too much for you through Spartan wiles; for if Ares is to have their well-wrought armour, and the garlands of their dances are to belong to sorrowing owners, then must they avoid the appearance of two hidden things. Nor shall the sacred light of day behold the end of all this till fate shall come to the things that change their nature.” Aristodemus however and the seers could not understand what was meant: but a few years afterwards the god threw light on it and fulfilled it. Remarkable things too happened at this time to the Messenians. As Lyciscus lived as a resident alien at Sparta his daughter, whom he had taken with him in his flight from Messene, chanced to die. And as he often went to visit his daughter’s grave, some Arcadian cavalry lay in wait for him and carried him off. And he was taken to Ithome, and being brought before the assembly he made his defence; he had not left his country he said intending treason, but in consequence of believing the assertion of the seer that she was not his genuine daughter. In this line of defence he was not believed to be speaking the truth till a woman, who was at that time the priestess of Hera, came into the theatre. And she confessed that the child was hers, and that she had given it to the wife of Lyciscus to palm off as her own. And now (she continued) by revealing my secret I shall depose myself from my priesthood. This she said because it was a custom in Messene that, if any of the children of a priest or priestess died, the priesthood should pass to somebody else. Thinking therefore that the woman was speaking the truth, they chose for the goddess a priestess in her place, and said that Lyciscus had acted in a pardonable way.

And after that they resolved, for it was the 20th year of the war, to send again to Delphi to enquire about their chance of victory. And to their enquiry the Pythian Priestess returned this answer. “To those who shall first set up 100 tripods at the altar of Zeus of Ithome the god will give the Messenian land with fame in war. This is the will of Zeus. But guile moves you on, and behind is vengeance, and you cannot deceive the god. Act as fate shall determine. Ruin takes people by turns.” When they heard this they thought the oracle was in their favour, and promised them victory in the war; for as they were in possession of the temple of Zeus within the walls of Ithome, they thought the Lacedæmonians could not be beforehand with them in erecting tripods. And so they intended making wooden tripods, for they had not means enough to make tripods of brass. But somebody from Delphi reported the oracle at Sparta. And the Spartans had a public consultation about it, but could hit upon no plan, but Œbalus, a man of no great repute but evidently possessed of good judgment, made 100 tripods of clay roughly, and took them with him and nets as if he were a hunter. And being unknown even to most of the Lacedæmonians he easily escaped the detection of the Messenians. For joining himself with some countrymen he went with them into Ithome, and directly night came on he offered these clay tripods to the god, and returned to Sparta and told the Lacedæmonians what he had done. And the Messenians when they saw what had happened were terribly upset, and guessed (as indeed was the case) that it was a trick of the Lacedæmonians: however Aristodemus consoled them with arguments suited to the present conjuncture, and placed their wooden tripods which were already made at the altar at Ithome. It happened also that Ophioneus, the seer who was blind from birth, greatly to the surprise of all men recovered his sight: for he had a sharp headache and recovered his sight after it.

CHAPTER XIII.

And thenceforward--for fate already turned the scales towards the capture of Ithome--the god gave them various predictions of their coming destiny. For the statue of Artemis, which was of brass as well as the armour, dropped its shield; and as Aristodemus was about to sacrifice the victims to Zeus at Ithome, the rams of their own accord violently dashed their heads against the altar, and were killed by the blow. And a third phenomenon happened. Some dogs assembled in the same place and howled all night, and eventually went off in a body to the camp of the Lacedæmonians. This troubled Aristodemus, as also the following vision of the night. He dreamed that he was going out to battle fully armed, and saw lying on a table the victims’ entrails, and his daughter appeared to him in a black dress with her breast and belly ripped up, and he thought she threw away what was on the table, and took away his armour, and instead of it put upon him a golden crown and white robe. And as Aristodemus was dispirited, for he thought the dream announced to him the end of his life, (for the Messenians buried their notable men in white raiment with crowns on their heads), somebody brought him word that Ophioneus had suddenly become blind again as before. Then he understood the hidden sense of the oracle, that by the pair who appeared after being hidden, and returned again as fate necessitated, the Pythian Priestess meant the eyes of Ophioneus. Thereupon Aristodemus laying to heart his domestic misfortunes, that he had been the murderer of his daughter to no purpose, and seeing no future hope of safety for his country, cut his throat at his daughter’s grave, being such an one as would in all human calculation have saved his country had not fortune brought to nothing his plans and actions. And he died after a reign of six years and a few months. And to the Messenians their affairs now seemed desperate, so that they were very near sending a supplicatory embassy to the Lacedæmonians, though pride restrained them from actually doing so, so much did they feel the blow of Aristodemus’ death. And when they gathered together in their assembly they did not choose another king, but appointed Damis dictator. And he, having selected Cleonnis and Phyleus as his coadjutors, made preparations for the campaign according to his best ability under the circumstances: for he was pressed hard by the siege, and not least by famine and the fear that famine inspired that they could not hold out from want of supplies. There was no deficiency of bravery or venturesomeness on the part of the Messenians: all their generals and notables were killed. For about five months they held out, and towards the close of the year evacuated Ithome, having been at war for full twenty years, as the lines of Tyrtæus testify: “They in the twentieth year left the rich pastures, and fled from the high hills of Ithome.” This war came to an end in the first year of the fourteenth Olympiad, in which Dasmon the Corinthian was victor in the stadium, the Medontidæ at Athens being still in possession of their ten year office, and at the completion of the fourth year of office of Hippomenes.

CHAPTER XIV.

And the Messenians who had friends at Sicyon and at Argos and amongst the Arcadians retired to those places, and those of the family of the priests who performed the mysteries to the Great Goddesses went to Eleusis. And the multitude dispersed to their several nationalities. And the Lacedæmonians first razed Ithome to the ground, and afterwards attacked and captured the other cities. And out of the spoils they set up to Apollo of Amyclæ some brazen tripods: under the first tripod is a statue of Aphrodite, and under the second one of Artemis, and under the third one of Proserpine the daughter of Demeter. These they erected there. And of the Messenian land they gave to the Asinæi, who had been ejected by the Argives, the territory by the sea that they still have: and to the descendants of Androcles, (for Androcles had a daughter and she had sons, and after the death of Androcles they fled to Sparta), they gave what is called Hyamea. And the following conditions were imposed on the Messenians by the Lacedæmonians. First of all they bound them by oath not to revolt or to attempt any revolutionary movement. And next they appointed no stated tribute, but they were to bring to Sparta from the land half its produce. With respect too to the burials of kings and other people in authority, provision was made that the men and women in Messenia should wear black raiment, and a punishment was ordained for those who violated this rule. And as to their exactions from the Messenians they have been described by Tyrtæus: “As asses worn out by long continued toil, carrying to their masters from bitter necessity half of all the fruit the country yields.” And that necessity was laid on them of mourning for their masters’ deaths he has manifested in the following lines, “They and their wives together wailing for their masters, when baneful death seized on any one.”

The Messenians in these circumstances, and with no hope of any kinder treatment from the Lacedæmonians, and thinking death in battle or a wholesale migration from the Peloponnese preferable to their present condition, resolved upon a general rising. And they were mainly induced to this by the young men, who had had no experience of war, and were ambitious, and preferred death in a free country to happiness in all other conditions with slavery. These youths were reared in various parts of Messenia, but the bravest and most numerous were in the neighbourhood of Andania, and among them Aristomenes, who is still honoured among the Messenians as a hero: and the circumstances attending his birth they think rather remarkable. For they say that a demon or god in the form of a dragon had an intrigue with Nicotelea his mother. I have heard the Macedonians say similar things about Olympias, and the Sicyonians about Aristodama. But the difference is that the Messenians do not claim that Aristomenes was the son of Hercules or Zeus, as the Macedonians say that Alexander was the son of Ammon, and as the people of Sicyon say that Aratus was the son of Æsculapius, but most of the Greeks say that Pyrrhus was the father of Aristomenes, though I know that the Messenians call Aristomenes the son of Nicomedes at the libations. He then, being in fall vigour of age and boldness, and other influential persons tried to bring about a general rising. And this was not at first done openly, but they sent secretly to Argos and the Arcadians, to see if they would assist them as energetically as they had done in the former war, _bonâ fide_ and not half-heartedly.

CHAPTER XV.

And when they had made all their preparations for war, and their allies were even more zealous than they had expected, for the hostility between the Arcadians and Argives and the Lacedæmonians had blazed out fiercely, then in the thirty-ninth year after the capture of Ithome they rose in insurrection, in the fourth year of the 23rd Olympiad, in which the Hyperesian Icarus was victor in the stadium. And at Athens there were now annual archons, and the archon this year was Tlesias. Who were kings at Lacedæmon at this time has not been recorded by Tyrtæus, but Rhianus in his poem has said that Leotychides was king during this war. I cannot agree with him in this: as to Tyrtæus, though he has not mentioned expressly the time, yet one may suppose he has hinted it in the following passage,--in the elegiac lines he wrote about the former war. “Nineteen years unceasingly they fought for their country, ever with stout heart, those warriors the fathers of our fathers.” Manifestly then it was in the third generation after the former war that the Messenians commenced this war, and the period is marked by the fact that the kings then at Sparta were Anaxander the son of Eurycrates the son of Polydorus, and of the other family Anaxidamus the son of Zeuxidamus, the son of Archidamus, the son of Theopompus. I go as far as the fourth descendant of Theopompus, because Archidamus the son of Theopompus died in his father’s lifetime, and the kingdom devolved upon Zeuxidamus his grandson. And Leotychides clearly was king after Demaratus the son of Aristo, and Aristo was seventh descendant from Theopompus.

And now in the first year after their insurrection the Messenians engaged with the Lacedæmonians at a place in their country called Deræ, and neither side had allies. And the battle was an undecided one, but they say Aristomenes exhibited in it preterhuman bravery, so that they elected him king after the battle, for he was of the family of the Æpytidæ, and though he was for refusing they also appointed him commander in chief. He was inclined to let them disown no one who had done valiantly in war: and for himself thought it right first and foremost (as the war with the Lacedæmonians was only just begun) to thoroughly frighten them by some bold stroke, and so to awe them more for the future. Accordingly he went by night to Lacedæmon and hung up a shield at the temple of Athene Chalciœcus, and on it was the inscription, “Aristomenes offers this to the goddess from Spartan spoils.”

The Lacedæmonians also had an oracular answer from Delphi, that an Athenian would give them good advice. They sent therefore envoys to the Athenians to report the oracle, and to ask for the man who was to give them this good advice. And the Athenians neither wishing that the Lacedæmonians should get the best part of the Peloponnese without great danger, nor to disobey the god, took counsel accordingly, and sent to Sparta one Tyrtæus a schoolmaster, who was thought to have very little intelligence and was lame in one foot. And he on his arrival there recited his elegiac verses and his anapæsts privately to the authorities, and publicly to all whom he could collect together. And a year after the battle of Deræ, when both nations had now allies, they prepared for battle in a village called _Boar’s Memorial_. The Messenians had the men of Elis and Arcadia as their allies in the action, and had moreover help from Argos and Sicyon. There were also present all the Messenians that had fled voluntarily, both those from Eleusis who were the hereditary priests of the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, and the descendants of Androcles: for these too hastened to their assistance. And to the help of the Lacedæmonians came the Corinthians, and some of the people of Lepreum from hatred to the men of Elis. The Asinæi were neutral. _Boar’s Memorial_ is near Stenyclerus in Messenia, and was so called because they say Hercules had a mutual covenant there with the sons of Neleus over a boar’s entrails.

CHAPTER XVI.

And when the seers in both armies had commenced by sacrifice, the Lacedæmonian seer being Hecas, the descendant and namesake of that Hecas who had come to Sparta with the sons of Aristodemus, and the Messenian seer being Theoclus, a descendant of Eumantis (a native of Elis and one of the Iamidæ whom Cresphontes had introduced into Messene), both armies were with more confidence stirred up to battle. And there was ardour exhibited by several according to their age and prowess, but notably by Anaxander, the king of the Lacedæmonians, and the Spartans in his division: and in the Messenian army Phintas and Androcles, the descendants of Androcles, and the men who were posted with them, strove to show their valour. And Tyrtæus and the priests of the Great Goddesses took no part in the action but that of cheering on the rears of their respective armies. And this was the disposition of Aristomenes. Eighty picked men of the Messenians about the same age as himself were in close attendance upon him, and each of them thought himself highly flattered to be posted near Aristomenes: and they were very keen at detecting in a glance one another’s ideas and especially their leader’s plans in the very germ. They and Aristomenes had the brunt of the battle, being posted opposite to Anaxander and the bravest of the Lacedæmonians. And receiving wounds fearlessly, and rushing on with the greatest recklessness, in time they routed by their boldness Anaxander’s division. As these fled Aristomenes commanded another Messenian regiment to pursue them: and himself rushed into the thick of the fight, and routed the men there, and then again turned to some other part of the field. And having driven these also from their positions he hurried on, charging those that were left, until he had thoroughly beaten all the Lacedæmonian force, allies and all. And as they felt some shame in fleeing, and yet could not stand these frequent charges, he dashed in amongst them with more formidable fury than one could have expected from one man. But near a wild pear tree that grew in the plain Theoclus tried to prevent his passing: for he said Castor and Pollux were seated on the pear tree. And Aristomenes giving way to passion, and not hearing all the words of the seer, when he got to the pear tree dropped his shield, and this loss of Aristomenes gave the Lacedæmonians breathing time to stop from their flight: for he lost some time trying to find his shield.

And when the Lacedæmonians were dispirited at this blow, and were minded to finish the war, Tyrtæus put heart into them by reciting his verses, and got some Helots enrolled into the regiments in place of the dead men. And when Aristomenes returned to Andania, the women welcomed him with ribands and pelted him with flowers, and sang for him a song not forgotten even in our days, “To the mid plain and high mountain at Stenyclerus did Aristomenes pursue the Lacedæmonians.” And he afterwards recovered his shield by going to Delphi, and, as the Pythian Priestess ordered him, by descending to the sacred shrine of Trophonius at Lebadea. And afterwards he took the shield, and hung it up as a votive offering at Lebadea, and I have myself seen it hanging up there. Its design is an eagle with its wings extended at the upper part of the shield. And now Aristomenes on his return from Bœotia, having recovered his shield at the shrine of Trophonius, immediately went in for further action. And, having gathered together a levy of Messenians besides his own bodyguard of picked men, he marched at nightfall to a city of Laconia, whose old name was Pharis as in Homer’s catalogue, but it was called Pharæ by the Spartans and other neighbouring people. Marching there he cut to pieces those who attempted to defend themselves, and after carrying off much booty returned to Messene. And the Lacedæmonian hoplites under Anaxander their king attacking him on the road, he routed them also, and was fain to pursue Anaxander. But being wounded in his hinder quarters with a javelin he stayed the pursuit, without losing the plunder he had got. And after waiting sufficient time for his wound to be healed, he intended to enter Sparta by night, when he was prevented by the apparition of Helen and Castor and Pollux, and lay in ambush at nightfall for some maidens who were dancing to Artemis at Caryæ, and arrested all who were remarkable for the wealth and position of their fathers, and brought them by night to a village in Messenia and went to rest, having committed the custody of them to some men of his regiment. Thereupon the young men in drink I suppose, and otherwise unable to control their passions by reason, endeavoured to violate the maidens, and when Aristomenes forbade them to act in a manner not customary for Greeks, they took no notice of him, so that he was obliged to kill the most unruly of them. And the maidens he had taken captive he let go for a good ransom with their honour safe.

CHAPTER XVII.

And there is a place in Laconia called Ægila, where is a temple of Demeter. There Aristomenes and his soldiers, knowing that the women were keeping festival to Demeter, wished to seize them: but as these women inspired by the goddess made a bold defence, most of the Messenians received wounds with the swords which they used to sacrifice the victims with, and the sharp pointed spits on which they stuck their meat to roast it. And Aristomenes they struck with their torches and took him alive. However he escaped the same night to Messenia. They say that Archidamea the priestess of Demeter had the guilt of letting him escape. But she did not let him go for money, but was an old sweetheart of his, and made out that Aristomenes had escaped by burning his bonds.

And in the third year of the war, when an engagement was about to take place at what was called _The Great Trench_, and when the Arcadians had come from all their cities to help the Messenians, the Lacedæmonians bribed Aristocrates, the son of Icetas, a native of Trapezus, king and general of the Arcadians at this period. The Lacedæmonians are the first we know of that bribed an enemy, and the first that made renown in arms a thing to be purchased by money. For before the Lacedæmonians violated honour in their war with the Messenians, in regard to this treason of Aristocrates the Arcadian, their fighting men were distinguished for bravery, and good fortune from the deity. Afterwards too at Ægos-potamoi, when they opposed the fleet of the Athenians, they certainly bribed Adimantus and other Athenian Admirals. But in process of time upon the Lacedæmonians came what is called the Retribution of Neoptolemus. For Neoptolemus the son of Achilles, having slain Priam at the altar of _Household Zeus_, was himself also slain at Delphi at the temple of Apollo, and--in consequence of that--suffering what one had inflicted on another got called the Retribution of Neoptolemus. For when the Lacedæmonians were at the zenith of their power, and had destroyed the fleet of the Athenians, and Agesilaus had reduced most of Asia Minor, then it was not possible to strip the Mede of all his power, because the barbarian circumvented them by sending money to Corinth and Argos and Athens and Thebes, and what was called the Corinthian war was brought about by this money, so that Agesilaus was compelled to leave Asia Minor. And so the deity made to recoil upon themselves the wiliness that the Lacedæmonians had displayed to the Messenians. And Aristocrates when he had received money from Lacedæmon, at first hid his plans from the Arcadians, but when they were on the eve of an engagement, then he threw them into consternation, by telling them they were in difficulty and straits and had no means of retreat if they should be beaten. He also said the sacrifices were not auspicious. He ordered everyone therefore to run away when he gave the signal. And when the Lacedæmonians began the engagement and the Messenians were opposite to them, thereupon at the commencement of the battle Aristocrates led off the Arcadians, and thus the Messenian centre and left wing was left exposed. For the Arcadians had occupied both these parts of the field, as the people of Elis were not present at the battle, nor the people of Argos and Sicyon. And Aristocrates put the finishing touch to his treason by fleeing through the Messenian lines. And they were quite bewildered at the unexpected state of affairs, and were disturbed by the passage of the Arcadians through their lines, so that most of them nearly forgot what they were about: for instead of the Lacedæmonians pressing on against the Arcadians they saw them fleeing, and some begged them to stand their ground, others reviled them as traitors and covenant-breakers. And for the Lacedæmonians to surround the Messenians who were now left alone was easy enough, and with the greatest ease they won a victory that was a foregone conclusion. And though Aristomenes and his division bravely stood their ground against the multitude of the Lacedæmonians that pressed against them, and endeavoured to keep them in check, yet they were too few to avail much. And such a quantity of Messenians were cut to pieces, that they, who had expected to be masters of the Lacedæmonians, now instead of having slaves had hardly any hope of safety. And of their leaders fell Androcles and Phintas and others, and Phanas, (who fought especially bravely, and had been victor at Olympia in the double course). And Aristomenes after the battle collected the Messenian fugitives, and persuaded them to leave Andania and any other towns in the heart of the country, and to take up their residence on the mountain Eira. And when they assembled there they were besieged by the Lacedæmonians who wished to take them. However they resisted and held out for eleven years after the disaster at _The Great Trench_. That that was the time the blockade lasted is plain from the verses of Rhianus about the Lacedæmonians.

“Along the ridges of the mountain white Twenty-two summers and winters did they fight.”

The word used for _summers_ in the line just above is a word properly meaning the grass when it is ripe, or a little before hay harvest.

CHAPTER XVIII.

And the Messenians when they were hemmed in at Eira, and debarred the rest of their country, except what was occupied by the people of Pylos near the sea, and the people of Mothone, plundered Laconia and their own country, which they now regarded as enemy’s country. And several joined them in these raids, as chance brought it about, and Aristomenes got together some picked men in number about 300. They harried and carried off from the Lacedæmonians whatever they could, corn and flocks and wine, but furniture and human beings they ransomed for money. So that the Lacedæmonians made a decree, inasmuch as they were farming for the benefit of the people of Eira rather than their own, not to cultivate Messenia and the neighbouring parts of Laconia till after the war. And from that time there was scarcity in Sparta, and with the scarcity came riots, for those who got their money by farming could not bear to see their lands lie fallow, but their vexation was checked by the verses of Tyrtæus. And Aristomenes with his picked men made a sally when the night was considerably advanced, and stole a march upon the enemy by getting to Amyclæ before daybreak, and seized the fort and plundered Amyclæ, and was off again before help could come from Sparta. And he afterwards overran the whole country, till making an attack on more than half the Lacedæmonian army under both their kings, he received several wounds as he defended himself valiantly, and as he was struck on the head by a stone his eyes got dizzy, and the Lacedæmonians rushing at him all together took him alive. Fifty of his men also were captured. These were all condemned by the Lacedæmonians to be thrown into their underground cavern called Ceadas; where they throw in their greatest malefactors. The other Messenians who were thrown in were killed instantaneously: but Aristomenes had some good genius who both now and on all occasions looked after him. Those who exaggerate everything about him say that, when he was thrown into Ceadas, an eagle flew under him and supported him with its wings, so that he reached the bottom safely without a wound or scratch. The god on this occasion must have also shown him some outlet. For when he got to the bottom of the cavern, he sat down and muffling his head in his cloak expected death which he felt certain. But on the third day after he heard a noise, and unveiled his face, and when his eyes got accustomed to the darkness, saw a fox preying on the dead carcases. And reflecting that it must have an outlet somewhere, he waited till the fox came near and when it came near seized hold of it, and in one of his hands, when the fox turned on him, held his cloak that it might bite that and not him. As it ran he ran with it, and was dragged by it along a very difficult path. At last he saw a little hole, just big enough for a fox to pass through, and light glimmered through it. And the fox, directly it was liberated by Aristomenes, betook itself to its hole. And Aristomenes, as the hole was too small to let him through, enlarged it with his hands and got home safe to Eira, having had most remarkable good fortune in respect to his capture, (for his spirit and bravery were such that no one could have expected to take him alive), and stranger still and most plainly not without divine assistance was this getting out safe from Ceadas.

CHAPTER XIX.

And it was almost immediately reported to the Lacedæmonians by deserters that Aristomenes had got home safe: but being considered as incredible as if anyone were to say that a dead man had come to life again, it was only believed in consequence of the following transaction on the part of Aristomenes. The Corinthians sent a force to help the Lacedæmonians to take Eira. Aristomenes, learning from his scouts that they were marching rather carelessly, and that their camps were negligently made up, attacked them by night, and as they were asleep slew most of them, and among others their leaders Hypermenides, and Achladæus, and Lysistratus, and Sidectus. He plundered also the tent of the generals, and the Lacedæmonians soon saw that it was Aristomenes and no other Messenian that had done all this. He sacrificed also to Zeus of Ithome the sacrifice which they call Hecatomphonia. It was of very remote antiquity, and any Messenian who had killed 100 enemies had a right to offer it. And Aristomenes first offered this sacrifice when he fought the battle at _Boar’s Memorial_, and the slaughter of these Corinthians by night gave him the right to offer this sacrifice a second time. They say also that he offered the sacrifice a third time as the result of various raids. But the Lacedæmonians, as the festival of Hyacinthus was now coming on, made a truce of 40 days with the inhabitants of Eira, and returned home and kept the festival, and some Cretan bowmen, who had been sent for as mercenaries from Lyctus and other towns, made incursions into various parts of Messenia. And as Aristomenes was at some distance from Eira, feeling perfect security as it was truce time, seven of these bowmen lay in wait for him, and took him prisoner, and bound him with the bands of their quivers. And it was evening. And two of them went to Sparta, and announced the capture of Aristomenes to the Lacedæmonians: and the remaining five retired to a farm in Messenia, where a fatherless maiden lived with her mother. The night before this maiden had had a dream. Some wolves (she dreamed) brought a lion to the farm bound and without claws, and she freed the lion from its bonds and got it claws, and then the wolves were torn in pieces by it. And now when the Cretans brought in Aristomenes, the maiden remembered her dream of the previous night, and asked her mother who he was: and when she learnt who he was she took courage, and looked earnestly at him, and understood the meaning of the dream. She therefore poured out wine freely for the Cretans, till drink overpowered them, and then withdrew the sword of the one who was fastest asleep. Then she cut the bonds of Aristomenes, and he took the sword and killed all 5. And Gorgus the son of Aristomenes took the maiden to wife. And thus Aristomenes requited to the damsel her saving of his life, and Gorgus was only 18 when he married her.

CHAPTER XX.

But in the 11th year of the siege it was fated that Eira should fall, and that the Messenians should be dispersed, and the god accomplished what had been oracularly foretold to Aristomenes and Theoclus. For when they went to Delphi after the disaster at _the Great Trench_, and enquired as to their safety, the Pythian Priestess replied as follows,

“When he-goat drinks of Neda’s winding stream, I cease to guard Messene. Her end is near.”

Now the Neda rises in Mount Lycæus: and the river flows through Arcadia and into Messenia again, and divides the maritime parts of Messenia and Elis. And now they were afraid of their he-goats drinking of the Neda: but the god had quite a different meaning which I will unfold. The wild fig tree, which some of the Greeks call Olynthe, is called by the Messenians Tragus (that is _He-Goat_). At this time there was a wild fig tree on the banks of the river Neda which did not grow upright, but bent into the stream and touched the water with its topmost boughs. And the seer Theoclus having noticed it conjectured that by the he-goat drinking of the Neda the Pythian Priestess meant this wild fig, and that therefore the fate of Messene was imminent. And he preserved silence on the matter to everyone else, but he took Aristomenes to this fig tree, and pointed out to him that their period of safety had passed. And Aristomenes was convinced by him that it was as he said, and that that there was no room for delay, and he adopted the following contrivance under the present conjuncture. The Messenians had some sacred records, which if lost would ruin Messene and keep her under for ever, but which if preserved would, according to the oracular utterances of Lycus the son of Pandion, give the Messenians a chance one day to recover their country, and Aristomenes knowing these oracular utterances conveyed away by night these _arcana_: and going to the most unfrequented part of Mount Ithome buried them there, and prayed to Zeus of Ithome and to the gods who had hitherto befriended the Messenians to be witnesses of this deposit, and not to allow the Lacedæmonians to rob them of their only hope of returning home again one day. And after this trouble came to the Messenians, as earlier still it did to the Trojans, from adultery. They occupied the mountainous district all round Eira as far as the Neda, and some lived outside the gates. And no other deserter came to them from Laconia, but a herdsman, a slave of Emperamus who was a man of some note at Sparta. This herdsman lived not far from the Neda. There he saw the wife of one of the Messenians who lived outside the walls coming to draw water: and he got enamoured of her, and ventured to talk with her, and overcame her chastity by gifts. And from that time forward this herdsman watched when her husband went upon garrison duty. Now the Messenians had to go on guard by turns in the citadel: it was here that they were chiefly afraid of the enemy getting into the place. And whenever the husband mounted guard, this herdsman used to go and visit his wife. And on one occasion he and others had to mount guard at night, and it chanced to be a very wet night. And the Messenians left their guard. For the quantity of rain pouring down almost forced them in, as they had no battlements or turrets in their improvised fortifications, and at the same time they did not expect that the Lacedæmonians would attack them in a night so wild and dark. And Aristomenes had been wounded a few days previously in rescuing a Cephallenian merchant and his goods, (he was a friend of his and used to introduce into Eira all necessary supplies, but had been captured by the Lacedæmonians and some Apteræan bowmen under Euryalus a Spartan), and therefore could not as usual go his nightly rounds. This was the chief reason why the citadel was abandoned by the guard. And as each of them went off from his post so did the husband of the woman who had this intrigue with the herdsman. And she at this time had the herdsman at her house, but perceiving the return of her husband quickly concealed him, and welcomed her husband rather more than usual, and asked him the reason of his return. And he, ignorant that she was unfaithful to him and had her paramour there, told her the truth, and said that, on account of the violence of the rain, and other circumstances which he mentioned, they had left their posts. And the herdsman overheard, and immediately, when he understood the condition of affairs, deserted the Messenians for the Lacedæmonians. The Lacedæmonian kings were at this time absent from the camp: but Emperamus the master of the herdsman was commander in chief of the forces that were besieging Eira. The herdsman then went to his master, and first begged pardon for his absence from home, and next showed him how they could capture Eira, mentioning all the circumstances which he had heard from the Messenian.

CHAPTER XXI.

What the herdsman said seemed trustworthy, and he led Emperamus and the Spartan force. Their march was difficult owing to the darkness and steady downpour. Still they advanced with alacrity, and, as soon as they got to the citadel of Eira, fixed scaling ladders and got over the walls with all dispatch. And the Messenians had several indications of their coming trouble, especially the unusual barking of the dogs, who barked fiercely and continuously. Perceiving then that the final struggle had come upon them, they had no time for arming themselves properly, but each seized what weapon he could find to defend their last possession out of all Messenia, their last inch of fatherland! The first who noticed that the enemy had got inside the walls, and who rushed up to the fray, were Gorgus the son of Aristomenes, and Aristomenes himself, and Theoclus the seer and Manticlus his son, and with them Euergetidas a man held in especial honour at Messene, who had improved his fortunes by his marriage with Agnagora, the sister of Aristomenes. And all the others at this time, though they perceived that they were in a trap, yet had a little hope in spite of the outlook: but Aristomenes and the seer knew that it was all up with the Messenians, remembering the Pythian Priestess’ oracle about the he-goat, but they concealed none the less the true state of affairs, and were silent about it to everybody. And they went all round the town energetically and exhorted every Messenian they met to play the man, and called from their houses those that yet remained in them. During the night nothing very notable was done on either side, for the attacking party were hindered by their ignorance of the ground and the boldness of Aristomenes, and the Messenians were rather backward in taking the word from their generals, and if anyone lit a torch or struck a light, the rain immediately put it out. And when day broke and they could see one another clearly, then Aristomenes and Theoclus endeavoured to nerve the Messenians to desperate courage, by giving them the necessary directions, and reminding them of the heroism of the people of Smyrna, who, though they were only Ionians, by their boldness and vigour drove out of their city Gyges, the son of Dascylus, and the Lydians who were in possession of it. And the Messenians hearing this were animated with the courage of despair, and forming what ranks they could rushed against the Lacedæmonians. And even the women eagerly hurled tiles, and whatever each could lay hold of, at the enemy: but they were partly prevented doing this from the slipperiness of the roofs through the frequent rain: but they seized arms and thus kindled still more the courage of the men, when they saw that even the women preferred perishing with their country to being led off as slaves to Lacedæmon, insomuch that had it been possible they would have given destiny the go-by. And the downpour of rain continued all day, and there was thunder and lightning, and they could hardly see for the lightning that flashed in their faces. And all this inspired courage in the Lacedæmonians, who thought that the god was visibly helping them, and as the lightning was on their right the seer Hecas announced that the omen was auspicious. He also devised the following stratagem. The Lacedæmonians were far the most numerous, but inasmuch as the battle was on a limited area and not fought tactically, but various bodies of men fought haphazard in various parts of the city, it happened that the rearmen of each division were useless. He therefore ordered them to retire to the camp and get some food and sleep, and come back again before evening to relieve their companions, who had borne the burthen and heat of the day. And thus by fighting and resting by turns they held out the longer, but the Messenians were getting entirely worn out, for it was now the third night that they had been fighting day and night continuously. And when the next morning came, and they were suffering from sleeplessness and constant rain and cold all combined, hunger and thirst assailed them too. Their women especially were ready to faint by reason of being unused to war, and by the long continuance of their efforts. Then the seer Theoclus came up and spoke to Aristomenes. “Why do you continue in vain this struggle? It is decreed that Messene must perish, long ago did the Pythian Priestess foretell this imminent ruin, and lately did the wild fig tree teach the same lesson. To me the god assigns an end with my country: but you may save the Messenians and yourself.” When he had spoken thus to him, he rushed against the foe, and said to the Lacedæmonians in a loud voice, “You shall not for long joy in your conquest of Messene.” After that he fiercely attacked those who were opposite to him and slew them, and was himself wounded, and breathed out his last having first glutted his soul with slaughter. And Aristomenes called all the Messenians back from the fight, except those who were fighting with remarkable bravery, whom he allowed to remain fighting. And the rest he ordered to follow where he should lead, with the women and children in their lines. To the command of this portion of the army he appointed Gorgus and Manticlus: and himself took up a position in the front rank, and by the motion of his head and the waving of his spear plainly showed that he was asking for a passage through, and already meditated retreat. Emperamus and the Spartans on the spot were right glad to let the Messenians through their lines, and not to irritate too much men who were mad in rage and desperate to the last degree. And Hecas the seer also bade them act so.

CHAPTER XXII.

Directly the Arcadians heard of the capture of Eira, they at once begged Aristocrates to lead them to save the Messenians or perish with them. But he having been bribed by the Lacedæmonians refused to lead them, and said that he knew none of the Messenians were alive for them to assist. But when the Arcadians received more certain intelligence that some survived who had been compelled to leave Eira, they set out to meet them at Mount Lycæus, having got ready both food and raiment, and sent certain influential persons to comfort the Messenians and guide them on their march. And when they got safe to Mount Lycæus the Arcadians welcomed them, and treated them kindly in other respects, and invited them to dwell in their cities, and said they would give them a share of the land. But Aristomenes in his grief for the capture of Eira and his hatred to the Lacedæmonians contrived the following plan. He selected from the whole body 500 Messenians, who he knew were prodigal of their lives, and selected them in the hearing of the other Arcadians and Aristocrates, not knowing that he was a traitor--for he thought Aristocrates had fled through cowardice and want of manliness rather than in treason--and he asked the 500 in his presence, whether they would die with him to avenge their country. And when they said they would he revealed his whole plan, that the following evening he intended to lead them to Sparta. For at this time most of the Lacedæmonians were at Eira, and others were busy in plundering the property of the Messenians. “And if we should capture Sparta and keep it,” continued Aristomenes, “we shall be able to exchange it for Messene: and if we fail we shall die together, having done deeds that posterity will not forget.” After he had made this speech, about 300 of the Arcadians wished to join him in his desperate undertaking. And for the moment they delayed their departure, as the victims were not auspicious. On the following day however they knew that their secret had been revealed to the Lacedæmonians, and that they had been betrayed by Aristocrates for the second time. For Aristocrates had at once disclosed by letter the design of Aristomenes, and given the letter to his most trusty slave, and sent it to Anaxander at Sparta. And on his return this slave was intercepted by some Arcadians who had previously been hostile to Aristocrates, and were now rather suspicious about him. And having intercepted this slave they brought him before the Arcadians, and showed the people the answer of Anaxander from Lacedæmon. It was to the effect that, just as Aristocrates’ flight at an opportune moment from _the Great Trench_ had not been unrewarded by the Lacedæmonians, so he should not be without further reward for his present information. And when this was reported to them all, the Arcadians began to stone Aristocrates, and urged the Messenians to do the same. But they looked at Aristomenes. And he looked on the ground and wept. So the Arcadians stoned Aristocrates to death, and cast him unburied out of their borders, and put up a pillar in the temple of Lycæan Zeus with the following inscription. “Time is sure to bring justice at last to an unjust king, and time with Zeus’ cooperation has easily found out Messene’s traitor. It is difficult for a perjured man to escape the god. Hail, royal Zeus, and save Arcadia.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

And all the Messenians that were captured at Eira, or in any other part of Messenia, were incorporated by the Lacedæmonians among the Helots: and the people of Pylos and Mothone and all the maritime towns removed in ships, after the capture of Eira, to Cyllene the arsenal of Elis. And from there they sent to the Messenians in Arcadia, wishing them to join them in an expedition to seek some city to dwell in, and bade them make Aristomenes the founder of the colony. But he said that for his part as long as he lived he would fight against the Lacedæmonians, and that he knew very well that Sparta would always have trouble through him: but he gave them Gorgus and Manticlus as their leaders. Euergetidas also retired to Mount Lycæus with the rest of the Messenians: and from thence, when he saw that Aristomenes’ plan about the capture of Sparta had fallen through, having got together about 50 of the Messenians he made a raid against the Lacedæmonians at Eira, and falling in with them still plundering he turned their chant of victory into a dirge. And fate seized him there, and Aristomenes ordered the leaders of the Messenians, and whoever wished, to take part in the colony to go to Cyllene. And all took part in it, except those that were prevented by old age, or were destitute of means for dwelling abroad. And these remained where they were among the Arcadians.

Eira was taken, and the second war between the Lacedæmonians and the Messenians finished, in the Archonship over the Athenians of Autosthenes, in the first year of the 28th Olympiad, in which Chionis the Laconian was victor.

And when the Messenians had got together at Cyllene, they resolved to winter there for that winter, and the people of Elis provided them with supplies and money: but directly Spring came they deliberated where they should go. And the view of Gorgus was that they should occupy Zacynthus beyond Cephallenia, and become islanders instead of dwelling on the mainland, and should sail in their ships to the maritime parts of Laconia and ravage their territory. Manticlus on the other hand exhorted them to forget Messene and their animosity to the Lacedæmonians, and sail to Sardinia and occupy that large and fertile island. Meantime Anaxilas sent a message to the Messenians inviting them to Italy. He was King at Rhegium, and fourth in descent from Alcidamidas, who had migrated from Messene to Rhegium, after the death of King Aristodemus and the capture of Ithome. This Anaxilas then invited the Messenians, and when they went to Rhegium he told them that the people of Zancle were at variance with him, and that they had a fertile country and a city in the rich part of Sicily, all which he said he would give them, and help them in conquering the country. And as they eagerly accepted his offer, Anaxilas conveyed them over into Sicily. Now Zancle was a place which had originally been occupied by pirates, and, as the land there was then unoccupied, they built a fort near the harbour, and made Zancle their headquarters for expeditions both by land and sea: and their leaders were Cratæmenes the Samian and Perieres from Chalcis. And eventually Perieres and Cratæmenes resolved to invite in other colonists from Greece. But now Anaxilas conquered the people of Zancle who put out to sea in their fleet, and the Messenians conquered them on land. And being blockaded by land by the Messenians and simultaneously by sea by the people of Rhegium, when their fort was taken, they fled for refuge to the altars of the gods and to the temples. Anaxilas however urged on the Messenians to slay the suppliants, though they prayed hard for quarter, and to enslave the rest together with their women and children. But Gorgus and Manticlus begged that Anaxilas would not compel them, who had been shamefully treated by their fellow-countrymen, to act with equal cruelty to Greeks. And after that they took the people of Zancle from the altars, and having mutually given and received pledges dwelt together as one people. But the name of the town they changed from Zancle to Messene. All this took place in the 29th Olympiad, in which Chionis the Laconian was victor the second time, and Miltiades was Archon at Athens. And Manticlus built a temple of Hercules for the new colony, and a statue of the god was placed outside the fort called Hercules Manticlus, just as Belus at Babylon got its name from an Egyptian called Belus, and Ammon in Libya from the name of the shepherd who built the temple. This was the end of the wandering of the Messenian exiles.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Meantime Aristomenes, when he refused the leadership of those who were going on the new colony, married his sister Agnagora to Tharyx of Phigalia, and his two eldest daughters to Damothoidas of Lepreum and Theopompus of Heræum. And he himself went to Delphi and consulted the oracle. What answer was returned is not recorded. But Damagetus a native of Rhodes, the King of Ialysus, had also at this time come to consult the oracle as to where he should marry a wife from, and the Pythian Priestess replied that he was to marry the daughter of the noblest of the Greeks. And Aristomenes had a third daughter, and he married her, thinking her father far the noblest Greek of his time. And Aristomenes went to Rhodes with his daughter, and from thence he intended to go to Sardis to Ardys the son of Gyges, and to Ecbatana the royal residence of the Medes to the Court of King Phraortes, but before he could carry out this intention he chanced to die of some illness, so that the fates did not permit him to wreak his vengeance on the Lacedæmonians. And Damagetus and the people of Rhodes built a splendid monument to him, and paid honours to his memory. The traditions about those who are called the Diagoridæ in Rhodes, (who were descended from Diagoras, the son of Damagetus, the son of Dorieus, the son of Damagetus by the daughter of Aristomenes), I have omitted, that I might not appear to have introduced irrelevant matter.

And the Lacedæmonians, when they had made themselves masters of Messenia, shared it out among themselves all but the territory of the Asinæi, and Mothone they gave to the people of Nauplia who had recently been ejected by the Argives.

And the Messenians who were captured at Eira, and compulsorily incorporated among the Helots, revolted again from the Lacedæmonians in the 79th Olympiad, in which the Corinthian Xenophon was victor, and Archimedes Archon at Athens. And they seized the following opportunity. Some of the Lacedæmonians, on a charge for which they were condemned to death, fled to Tænarum as suppliants; and there the Ephors took them from the altar and slew them. And the wrath of Poseidon came upon those Spartans who had violated his rights of sanctuary, and he adjudged the town to be utterly razed to the ground. And it was after this calamity that the Helots who were Messenians revolted and went to Mount Ithome. And the Lacedæmonians sent for several allies to help to subdue them, and among others for Cimon (the son of Miltiades) their friend, of whom they also begged some Athenian troops. But when these Athenian troops came they suspected them as likely to introduce revolutionary ideas among their own men, so in their suspicion they soon sent them home again from Ithome. But when the Athenians observed that suspicion on the part of the Lacedæmonians they were indignant and became friendly to the Argives, and, when those of the Messenians who were besieged at Ithome were allowed to surrender upon conditions, gave Naupactus to them, (having taken it from the Locrians in Ætolia called Ozolæ). And the Messenians were allowed to surrender partly because of the strength of the place, partly because the Pythian Priestess prophesied to the Lacedæmonians that there would be vengeance from Zeus of Ithome if they violated his right of sanctuary. So they were allowed to evacuate the Peloponnese upon conditions for these reasons.

CHAPTER XXV.

And when they got Naupactus, they were not content with the town and region that they had got through the Athenians, but a strong desire came upon them to get a place for themselves by their own valour. And as they knew that the Œniadæ, who had a rich soil in Acarnania, had been for all time at variance with the Athenians, they marched against them. And being not superior in point of numbers, but far superior in respect to bravery, they won a victory over them, and shut them up in their fort and blockaded them. And the Messenians employed every human invention for taking cities, they tried to get over the walls by scaling ladders, and undermined the fort, and bringing up such engines as they could get at short notice kept battering away at the walls. And those in the town, fearing that if the town was taken they would be undone, and their wives and children sold into slavery, preferred to surrender upon conditions. And for about a year the Messenians occupied the town and enjoyed the produce of the country, but the year after the Acarnanians gathering a force together from all their towns planned a march upon Naupactus. But they changed their minds about this when they saw that their march would be through the country of the Ætolians, who were always hostile to them, and at the same time they expected the Naupactians had a navy, as indeed they had, and as they were masters of the sea it would not be possible to subdue them with a land army. So they changed their plan with alacrity, and marched against the Messenians at Œniadæ. And they began to lay siege to the town: for they did not suppose that so few men would come to such a pitch of recklessness as to sally out and fight against them. And the Messenians had got together a store of corn and other provisions, expecting a long siege: but they thought before the blockade commenced they would have one good fight in the open, and as they were Messenians, who had only been inferior to the Lacedæmonians in luck not in courage, they would not be frightened at this mob that had come from Acarnania. And the Athenians remembered the action at Marathon, how thirty myriads of Medes were slain by less than 10,000. So they determined to fight the Acarnanians, and the battle was fought as follows. The Acarnanians inasmuch as they were far more numerous easily surrounded the Messenians, except where the gates at the back of the Messenians checked them, and the men on the walls stoutly defended their comrades. Here they could not be surrounded. But both their flanks were sore pressed by the Acarnanians, and they shot at them from all sides. And the Messenians being a compact body, wherever they made a general attack on the Acarnanians, threw the enemy’s ranks into confusion, and killed and wounded many, yet could not bring about a complete rout. For wherever the Acarnanians observed that their lines were pierced by the Messenians, there they brought up large detachments of men, and beat the Messenians back by sheer force of numbers. And whenever the Messenians were unsuccessful in an attack, and tried in some other place to break the Acarnanian line, the same result would follow. At whatever point they attacked they produced confusion and something like a rout, but the Acarnanians came swarming up, and so the Messenians had very unwillingly to retire. And the struggle being very evenly poised till night came on, and the attacking force of the Acarnanians being augmented the following evening from several towns, a regular blockade of the Messenians commenced. And they had no fear that the town would be taken by storm, either by the Acarnanians getting over the walls, or by their being compelled to desert their garrison duty. But by the 8th month all their supplies were consumed. To the Acarnanians they jeeringly cried out that their provisions would last even a ten years’ siege: but about the time of first sleep they quietly slipped out of Œniadæ, and being compelled to fight their way through directly the Acarnanians got to know of this flitting, lost about 300 but killed a still greater number of the enemy, and most of them succeeded in cutting their way through, and by the assistance of the Ætolians who were friendly to them got safe to Naupactus.

CHAPTER XXVI.

And from this time forward their hostility to the Lacedæmonians increased, as they notably shewed in the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians. For they made Naupactus a base against the Peloponnese, and when the Spartans were cut off at Sphacteria some Messenian bowmen from Naupactus assisted the Athenians. But after the reverse of the Athenians at Ægos-potamoi, the Lacedæmonians being masters of the sea drove the Messenians from Naupactus, and some went into Sicily to their kinsmen at Zancle and Rhegium, but most to Libya to the Euesperitæ, who being hard pressed in war by some of the neighbouring barbarians invited in the Greeks as colonists. To them went most of the Messenians under Comon, who had been their General at Sphacteria.

And a year before the Theban victory at Leuctra, the god foretold to the Messenians their return to the Peloponnese. For the priest of Hercules (they say) in Messene at the Sicilian Strait saw in a dream Hercules Manticlus invited in a friendly way by Zeus to Ithome. And among the Euesperitæ Comon dreamt that he had dealings with his dead mother, and that subsequently his mother came to life again. And he hoped as the Athenians were now powerful at sea that they would be restored to Naupactus: and the dream seemed to indicate that Messene would revive. And no long time after came to the Lacedæmonians at Leuctra the disaster that had long been fated: for the concluding words of the oracle given to Aristodemus the king of the Messenians were,

“Do as fate bids: woe comes to all in turn.”

As at that time it was fated for him and the Messenians to be unfortunate, so in after time was it fated for Lacedæmon when her day had come. And now the Thebans after the victory of Leuctra sent messengers to Italy and Sicily and to the Euesperitæ, to recall the Messenians from their wanderings to the Peloponnese. And they gathered together quicker than anyone would have thought, from yearning affection to their fatherland, and from their abiding hate to the Lacedæmonians. And Epaminondas was in doubt what city he should build as a base against the Lacedæmonians, or where he should find a site, for the Messenians would not dwell again at Andania and Œchalia, because they had been so unlucky when they lived there before. As he was in this doubt they say an old man, very like a priest of the mysteries, appeared to him in a vision of the night, and said to him, “My gift to you is universal conquest in war: and when you shall leave this earth I will make your name, O Theban, immortal and ever glorious. But do you in return restore to the Messenians their country and cities, for the wrath of Castor and Pollux towards them is now appeased.” These were his words to Epaminondas, who revealed the dream to Epiteles the son of Æschines, whom the Argives chose as their General and the restorer of Messene. This man was bidden in a dream, in the place where he should find at Ithome an ivy and myrtle tree growing, to dig between them and recover an old woman who was ill and confined there in a brass coffin and already near to death’s door. And Epiteles when day broke went to the appointed place, and dug up a cinerary urn of brass, and took it at once to Epaminondas and narrated his dream, and he told him to remove the lid and see what was in it. And he after sacrifice and prayer to the person who had sent him this dream opened the urn, and found some tin beaten very thin, and rolled up like a book. On it were written the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, and it was in fact what Aristomenes had buried. And they say the person who appeared to Epiteles and Epaminondas in their dreams was Caucon, who formerly came from Athens to Andania to Messene the daughter of Triopas.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The wrath of Castor and Pollux against the Messenians began before the battle at Stenyclerus, and I conjecture it to have originated in the following way. Panormus and Gonippus, two lads of Andania in the bloom of youth, were great friends, and used jointly to make incursions and raids into Laconia. And as the Lacedæmonians in camp were keeping the festival of Castor and Pollux, and after the banquet were full of wine and merrymaking, Gonippus and Panormus, clad in white tunics and purple cloaks, well mounted, with hats on their heads and spears in their hands, presented themselves to the Lacedæmonians. And when they saw them they bowed down before them and worshipped them, thinking they were Castor and Pollux who had come to the sacrifice. But these young men mixed up with them and rode through them and stabbed many with their lances, and, after many of them had fallen, rode back to Andania, having thus outraged the festival of Castor and Pollux. This is what I think made the Twin Brethren hate the Messenians. But now, as was hinted to Epaminondas in his dream, the Twin Brethren had no objection to the return of the Messenians. And Epaminondas was very greatly encouraged also to the restoration of Messene by the oracles of Bacis, who had been driven mad by the Nymphs and had given various prophetic utterances to several of the Greeks, and amongst others this one about the return of the Messenians:

“And then shall Sparta lose her glorious flower, Messene built again be for all time.”

I find also that Bacis foretold the manner in which Eira would be taken: this is one of his prophetic lines,

“Those from conquered Messene with its splashing fountains.”

And as the records of the Mysteries had been recovered, the priests entered them in books. And Epaminondas, as the place where the Messenians now have their capital seemed most convenient to settle in, bade the seers examine if the gods were favourable to the spot. And on their replying that the omens were favourable, he at once made preparations for building the town, ordering a large supply of stone, and sending for builders who should artistically lay out streets and build houses and temples and lines of walls. And when all was in readiness the Arcadians furnished victims, and Epaminondas and the Thebans sacrificed to Dionysus and Apollo Ismenius in the accustomed manner, and the Argives to Argive Hera and Nemean Zeus, and the Messenians to Zeus of Ithome and Castor and Pollux, and the priests of the Mysteries to the Great Goddesses and Caucon. And with one consent they invoked the heroes to come and dwell with them, especially Messene the daughter of Triopas, and Eurytus and Aphareus and his sons, and of the Heraclidæ Cresphontes and Æpytus. But most unanimous of all was the cry for Aristomenes. And that day they devoted to sacrifices and prayers, and on the following days they raised the circuit of the walls, and began to build their houses and temples inside the walls. And they carried on this work only to the music of Bœotian and Argive flutes, and the tunes of Sacadas and Pronomus now first came into competition. And they called the capital Messene, and they restored others of their towns. But the people of Nauplia were not turned out of Mothone, the Asinæi also were allowed to remain where they were, the latter out of gratitude because they had refused to join the Lacedæmonians against them. And the people of Nauplia, when the Messenians returned to the Peloponnese, had brought them as gifts whatever they had, and had continually prayed to the deity for their return, and had also made many requests to the Messenians for their own safety.

Thus the Messenians returned to the Peloponnese, and were restored to their country, 287 years after the capture of Eira, when Dyscinetus was Archon at Athens, and in the third year of the 102nd Olympiad, in which Damon of Thurii won the second prize. It was indeed no short time that the Platæans were exiles from their country, or the Delians when (expelled from Delos by the Athenians) they dwelt at Adramyttium. The Minyæ from Orchomenus also, having been driven out by the Thebans from Orchomenus after the battle of Leuctra, were restored to Bœotia by Philip the son of Amyntas, as the Platæans also. And although Alexander stript Thebes of Thebans, yet not many years afterwards Cassander the son of Antipater rebuilt it. The exile from Platæa seems to have been the longest of those which I have recorded, however it was not longer than two generations. But the Messenians were wanderers from the Peloponnese for nearly 300 years, during which time it is evident that they abandoned none of their national customs, nor did they change their Doric dialect, but even to our day they preserve it purer than any other of the Peloponnesians.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

On their return no apprehension was felt by them at first about the Lacedæmonians: for they, being afraid of the Thebans, did not interfere with the rebuilding of Messene, nor the gathering of the Arcadians into one town. But when the Phocian War, otherwise called the Holy War, withdrew the Thebans from the Peloponnese, then the Lacedæmonians pricked up their courage, and could no longer keep their hands off the Messenians. And the Messenians bore the brunt of the war alone, except the assistance they got from the Argives and Arcadians; they also begged for help from the Athenians,--but they replied that they could not join them in an incursion into Laconia, but if the Lacedæmonians were the aggressors and carried the war into Messenia, then they promised that they would not fail them. And eventually the Messenians got the help of Philip, the son of Amyntas, and the Macedonians, and this they say prevented them from participation in the struggle of the Greeks at Chæronea. Not that they would ever have been inclined to take up arms against the Greeks. But after the death of Alexander, when the Greeks commenced a second war against the Macedonians, the Messenians took their part in this, as I have before shewn in my account of Attica. But they did not join the Greeks in fighting against the Galati, as Cleonymus and the Lacedæmonians would not make a treaty with them.

And not long afterwards the Messenians occupied Elis, partly by cunning partly by audacity. The people of Elis in ancient times were the most orderly of all the Peloponnesians, but when Philip the son of Amyntas did all that harm to Greece that we have mentioned, and corrupted by bribes the most influential of the people of Elis, then for the first time in their history the people of Elis took up arms and became factious. And after they had taken the first plunge, they were likely with less reluctance to go into future civil strife, inasmuch as through the Lacedæmonians their policy had been shifted, and they had drifted into civil war. And the Lacedæmonians hearing of the factions at Elis made preparations to assist those who were for their party. And while they were drilling and mobilizing their forces, about 1000 picked men of the Messenians secretly approached Elis, with Lacedæmonian colours on their shields. And when the men in Elis who were friendly to the Spartans saw their shields, they concluded they had come to help them and admitted them within the walls. But when the Messenians got in, in the way I have described, they expelled from the town the Lacedæmonian party, and entrusted the town to their own friends. Their stratagem was Homeric, and the Messenians seem to have imitated Homer for the nonce, for Homer has represented in the Iliad Patroclus wearing the armour of Achilles, and how the Trojans, thinking that Achilles was leading the attack, were thrown into confusion in their van. Other stratagems of war are found in Homer, as when he describes two Greek spies coming to the Trojans by night instead of one, and afterwards a supposed deserter coming to Troy really to spy out the weak points. Moreover he represents those Trojans who were either too young or too old to fight as manning the walls, while those of a suitable age took the field against the Greeks. And those of the Greeks that were wounded gave their armour to other fighting men, that their services too might not be altogether lost. Thus Homer’s ideas have been generally useful to mankind.

CHAPTER XXIX.

And no long time after this action at Elis the Macedonians under Demetrius, the son of Philip the son of Demetrius, attacked Messene. Most of the audacity displayed by Perseus against Philip and his son Demetrius I have already described in my account about Sicyon: and the capture of Messene took place as follows. Philip was in need of money, and, as he must have it by hook or by crook, sent Demetrius with a fleet to the Peloponnese. And Demetrius chanced to put in at one of the least frequented harbours of Argolis: and without losing time he led his army by the shortest cuts through the country to Messene. And having posted in the van all his light-armed troops, as he was well acquainted with the road to Ithome, he got stealthily into the town a little before dawn, and took up his position between the town and the citadel. And when day broke and those in the town perceived their imminent peril, their first thought was that the Lacedæmonians had got into the town, so they rushed against them with the greatest alacrity owing to their ancient animosity. But when both from their arms and language they discovered that they were Macedonians under Demetrius the son of Philip, a panic came over them, when they considered the military renown of the Macedonians, and the good fortune which they had invariably had. However the magnitude of the impending danger suggested to them an almost supernatural bravery, and at the same time the hope to see better days supported them: for they could not but think their return to the Peloponnese after so long an exile was not against the will of the Deity. The Messenians therefore in the town rushed against the Macedonians with impetuosity, and the garrison in the citadel galled them from their higher position. The Macedonians from their courage and tactical skill fought at first like lions: but at last spent with their long march, and not only pressed hard by men, but pelted with tiles and stones by the women, fled in disorder. And most of them perished miserably, being pushed down the rocks, for Ithome was very precipitous here, but a few threw away their arms and got off safe.

What prevented the Messenians from joining at first the Achæan League was as follows. They had of their own accord gone to the aid of the Lacedæmonians when they were attacked by Pyrrhus the son of Æacus, and for this good service there were already friendlier relations between themselves and Sparta. They did not therefore wish to revive the old feud by going to the Achæan League, as the Achæans were most openly hostile to the Lacedæmonians. And what has not escaped my notice, and cannot have escaped the notice of the Messenians is that, even had there been no Achæan League, the Achæans would have been hostile to the Lacedæmonians, for among the Achæans the Argives and Arcadians were no small element. In process of time however the Messenians joined the Achæan League. And not long afterwards Cleomenes, the son of Leonidas and grandson of Cleonymus, took Megalopolis the chief town of the Arcadians in truce time. In the capture of the town about a third of the inhabitants were captured or slain, but Philopœmen the son of Craugis and those who escaped with him (and they say that rather more than two thirds of the people of Megalopolis got away) were kindly received by the Messenians, partly on account of the ancient friendliness which the Arcadians had first exhibited in the days of Aristomenes, and partly in consequence of the part they had taken in the rebuilding of Messene. The Messenians even went so far as to assign to the Arcadians equal rights to themselves. Such vicissitudes and changes are there in all human affairs, that the deity put it into the power of the Messenians to preserve in turn the Arcadians, and (what was still less to be expected) one day to capture Sparta. For when they fought against Cleomenes at Sellasia they joined Aratus and the Achæans in taking Sparta. And when the Lacedæmonians had got rid of Cleomenes, there rose up against them the tyrant Machanidas: and after his death Nabis sprang up as tyrant over them. And, as he not only plundered men but also sacrilegiously robbed the holy places, in no long time he amassed considerable sums of money, and got together with this money an army. And when he occupied Messene Philopœmen and the people of Megalopolis made a sally by night, and the Spartan tyrant departed on conditions. And the Achæans after this, in consequence of some difference with the Messenians, marched out against them in full force, and ravaged their territory. And again about harvest time they collected a force for the purpose of attacking Messenia, but Dinocrates a prominent man among the people, who had been recently elected ruler of the Messenians, forced Lycortas and the army with him to retire without effecting their object, and having occupied the byroads between Messenia and Arcadia he protected the Messenians in their town and in all the neighbouring districts. And when Philopœmen with a few cavalry came a little later than the army of Lycortas, not having been able to gather any tidings about them, the Messenians having the advantage of ground beat them in battle, and took Philopœmen alive. And the manner of his capture and his death I shall relate hereafter in my account of Arcadia. Suffice it here to state that those Messenians who were guilty of the death of Philopœmen were punished, and Messene again joined the Achæan League.

Hitherto I have had to deal with the many sufferings of the Messenians, and to describe how the Deity, having scattered them to the ends of the earth, and to places most remote from the Peloponnese, restored them to their own country a long time afterwards. And now let us turn to a description of the country and its towns.

CHAPTER XXX.

There is in our days in Messenia, about 20 stades from the Chœrian dell, a town by the sea called Abia. They say in old times it was called Ire, and that it was one of the seven towns, which Homer represents Agamemnon as promising to Achilles. And when Hyllus and the Dorians were conquered in battle by the Achæans, then they say Abia, the nurse of Glenus the son of Hercules, went to Ire, and there lived, and built a temple of Hercules, and for that reason Cresphontes afterwards assigned her several honours, and changed the name of the town to her name Abia. There were notable temples there both to Hercules and Æsculapius.

And Pharæ is distant from Abia about 80 stades, and the water by the road is salt. The Emperor Augustus ordered the Messenians at Pharæ to be ranked under Laconia. The founder of the city was they say Pharis, the son of Hermes by Phylodamea the daughter of Danaus. And Pharis they say had no male children, but only a daughter Telegone. The direct line of genealogy has been given by Homer in the Iliad, who says that the twins Crethon and Ortilochus were the sons of Diocles, and that Diocles himself was the son of Ortilochus, the son of Alpheus. But he has said nothing about Telegone, who according to the Messenian tradition was the wife of Alpheus and mother of Ortilochus. I have also heard at Pharæ that Diocles had a daughter Anticlea as well as his twin sons, and that she bare Nicomachus and Gorgasus to Machaon the son of Æsculapius: they lived at Pharæ, and after the death of Diocles succeeded to the kingdom. And a constant tradition about them has prevailed even to this day, that they have the power of healing illnesses and people maimed in body. And because of this the people sacrifice to them and offer votive offerings. At Pharæ there is also a temple and ancient statue of Fortune. The first person that I know of that has mentioned Fortune is Homer. He has mentioned her in his Hymn to Demeter, when enumerating the other daughters of Oceanus, how they played with Demeter’s daughter Proserpine, and among them Fortune, also a daughter of Oceanus. These are the lines. “We all were in the pleasant meadow, Leucippe, Phæno, Electra, and Ianthe, Melobosis, and Fortune, and Ocyroe of the beautiful eyes.” But he has said nothing further about her, how she is the greatest goddess in human affairs and has the greatest influence, as in the Iliad he represented Athene and Enyo as supreme in war, and Artemis as dreaded in childbirth, and Aphrodite as the goddess of marriages. He has not symbolized Fortune in this way. But Bupalus, a man of wonderful ability in building temples and making models of animals, is the first person we know of that made a statue of Fortune. His was for the people of Smyrna. Fortune has a globe on her head, and in one of her hands what is called by the Greeks the horn of Amalthea. Thus did he typify the actions of this goddess. Pindar also subsequently wrote various lines about Fortune, and named her City-Preserver.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Not far from Pharæ is the grove of Carnean Apollo, and a fountain of water in it, and Pharæ is about six stades from the sea. As you go from thence into the interior of Messenia about 80 stades you come to the town of Thuria,--which they say Homer called Anthea in his verses. And Augustus gave Thuria to the Spartans. For when the future Emperor of Rome was at war with Mark Antony, several Greeks and especially Messenians fought for Antony because the Lacedæmonians espoused the side of Augustus. Accordingly Augustus punished the Messenians and others who had opposed him, some more some less. And the people of Thuria left their ancient city which was built on a height, and went and dwelt in the plain. Not that they altogether abandoned the upper city, for there are ruins of their walls and a temple there called the temple of the Syrian goddess. And a river called Aris flows by their town in the plain.

And there is in the interior a village called Calamæ and a place called Limnæ: in the latter place is a temple of Artemis of Limnæ, where they say Teleclus the king of Sparta was killed. And as you go from Thuria in the direction of Arcadia are the sources of the river Pamisus, in which small boys by being dipped are cured of diseases. And as you go to the left from these sources of the river and go forward about 40 stades, you come to the city of the Messenians under Mount Ithome: which is encircled not only by Mount Ithome but also in the direction of the Pamisus by Mount Eva. The mountain they say was called Eva from the Bacchic cry Evœ, which Dionysus and his attendant women first uttered here. And round Messene is a circular wall entirely constructed of stone, and towers and battlements are built on it. As to the walls of the Babylonians, or those called Memnon’s in Susa amongst the Persians, I have neither seen them nor heard anything of them from eye witnesses: but I can confidently affirm that the wall round Messene is stronger than those at Ambrosus in Phocis or at Byzantium or at Rhodes. And in the market-place at Messene there is a statue of Zeus Soter, and a conduit called Arsinoe, which got its name from the daughter of Leucippus, and water flows underground to feed it from a well called Clepsydra. And the gods who have temples are Poseidon and Aphrodite. And the most notable thing is a statue of the Mother of the Gods in Parian marble by Damophon, who most artistically rivetted the Zeus at Olympia when the ivory got loose. And honours were bestowed upon him by the people of Elis. He too designed the statue that the people of Messene call Laphria: whom they are accustomed to worship for the following reason. Among the Calydonians, who worship Artemis most of all the gods, her title is Laphria. And the Messenians who received Naupactus from the Athenians, and lived consequently very near to Ætolia, borrowed the worship of Artemis Laphria from the Calydonians. The statue I shall describe elsewhere. The title Laphria is only given to Artemis by the Messenians and the people of Patræ in Achaia. Ephesian Artemis is the title which all cities recognize, and by which men privately worship her as greatest of the gods; partly from the fame of the Amazons, who are said to have established the worship of her image, partly because she had a temple at Ephesus from time immemorial. And three other things contributed to her glory also, the size of the temple which exceeds all other human structures, the celebrity of the city of Ephesus, and the splendour of the goddess’ shrine.

At Messene there is also a temple and stone statue of Ilithyia. And hard by is a hall of the Curetes, where they sacrifice all kinds of living things alike. Beginning with bulls and goats, they even go as far as to cast birds into the flames. There is also a temple sacred to Demeter, and statues of Castor and Pollux represented as carrying off the daughters of Leucippus. I have already shown in a previous part of my work that the Messenians assert that Castor and Pollux are indigenous with them and not with the Lacedæmonians. And they have many statues well worth seeing in the temple of Æsculapius. For besides the statues of the god and his sons, and besides those of Apollo and the Muses and Hercules, there are statues of Thebes and Epaminondas the son of Cleommis, and of Fortune and of Lightbringing Artemis. Those in stone are the work of Damophon, the only Messenian statuary that I know of that has produced any remarkable statues. The effigy of Epaminondas in iron is by another hand. There is also at Messene a temple of Triopas and her statue in gold and Parian marble: and the paintings at the back of the temple are Aphareus and his sons, the kings of Messene before the expedition of the Dorians to the Peloponnese, and after the return of the Heraclidæ Cresphontes, the leader of the Dorians, and of those that dwelt at Pylos Nestor and Thrasymedes and Antilochus, who were preferred to the sons of Nestor partly because they were older, partly because they had taken part in the Trojan expedition. There are paintings also of Leucippus the brother of Aphareus, and of Hilaira, Phœbe, and Arsinoe. There are paintings also of Æsculapius, (the son of Arsinoe according to the tradition of the Messenians,) and Machaon and Podalirius, for they also had a share in the expedition to Ilium. These paintings were executed by Omphalion, the pupil of Nicias the son of Nicomedes: some say that he was also the slave of Nicias and his favourite.

CHAPTER XXXII.

The temple at Messene called the Sacrificial Chamber has statues of the gods generally worshipped among the Greeks, and also an effigy of Epaminondas in brass. There are also some ancient tripods, such as Homer describes as not having experienced fire. And the statues in the gymnasium are the work of Egyptians, and are Hermes Hercules and Theseus, who are wont to be held in honour at gymnasiums and palæstras by all Greeks and by many barbarians. I also noticed a statue of Æthidas who was a contemporary of mine but older, and as he was very wealthy the Messenians paid him honours as a hero. None of the people of Messene deny that Æthidas was wealthy, but some say it is not that Æthidas who has a statue on the pillar, but a namesake and ancestor. And this earlier Æthidas was they say the General of the Messenians, when Demetrius the son of Philip and his army stole into the town by night when they little expected it.

There is here also the tomb of Aristomenes, and not a mere cenotaph, if their account is correct. But when I inquired how and from what place they brought home Aristomenes’ remains, they replied that they sent for them from Rhodes, obeying the direction of the God at Delphi. They also informed me of the sacrifices at this tomb. The bull they intend to sacrifice they bring to the tomb, and fasten it to a pillar near the tomb. And it being wild and unused to bonds is reluctant to remain there. And if by its struggles and mad bounds the pillar is moved, it is an auspicious omen to the people of Messene, but if it is not moved it is an omen of misfortune. And they amuse themselves with the fancy that Aristomenes though no longer alive was present at the fight at Leuctra, and they say he fought for the Thebans, and was the main cause of the Lacedæmonian defeat. I know that the Chaldæan and Indian astrologers were the first who taught that the soul of man is immortal, and several Greeks credited their assertion, and notably Plato the son of Aristo. And whoever are willing to believe this cannot deny the fact that the hatred of Aristomenes to the Lacedæmonians was eternal. And what I heard in Thebes lent probability to the tradition at Messene, though it does not altogether agree with their account. The Thebans say that on the eve of the battle at Leuctra they sent to several oracles, and among others to that of Trophonius at Lebadea. The answers are extant which were received from Ismenian and Ptoan Apollo, as also from Abæ and Delphi. But the response of Trophonius was in 4 hexameter verses. “Before contending with the foe erect a trophy, decking out the shield, which the ardent Aristomenes of Messene placed in my temple. I will assuredly destroy the host of hostile warriors.” And on the arrival of this oracular response they say that Epaminondas prevailed with Xenocrates to send for the shield of Aristomenes, and he decked it out as a trophy in a place where it would be visible to the Lacedæmonians. And some of them recognized the shield as they had seen it in time of peace at Lebadea, and all knew of it by report. And after the Thebans won their victory, they offered Aristomenes’ shield again to Trophonius as a votive offering. There is also a brazen statue of Aristomenes in the race-course at Messene. And not far from the theatre is the temple of Serapis and Isis.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

And as you go towards the hill of Ithome, where the Messenians have their citadel, is the spring called Clepsydra. However willing one may be it is a matter of no small difficulty to enumerate all the people who put in the claim that Zeus was born and bred among them. The people of Messene have this tradition among others. They say that Zeus was reared among them, and that Ithome and Neda were his nurses, and that Neda gave her name to the river, and Ithome hers to the mountain. And these Nymphs they say, when Zeus was stolen away by the Curetes from fear of Cronos, washed him here at Clepsydra, and the spring got its name from the theft of the Curetes: and every day they take water from this spring to the temple of Zeus of Ithome. And the statue of Zeus is the work of Ageladas, and was made originally for the Messenians that dwelt at Naupactus. And a priest chosen annually keeps the statue in his house. And they have an annual feast at Ithome, and originally they had a musical contest, as one may infer from other sources, but especially from the lines of Eumelus, which are part of his Processional Hymn at Delos, “Welcome to Zeus of Ithome was the pure muse with free sandals.” I think from these verses that Eumelus knew that they had a musical contest at the Feast of Zeus of Ithome.

At the gates in the direction of Megalopolis in Arcadia there is a statue of Hermes of Athenian design: the busts of Hermes among the Athenians are square, and others have borrowed this design from them. And if you go about 30 stades down from these gates you come to the river Balyra. It was so called they say because Thamyris threw his lyre away there in his blindness, Thamyris the son of Philammon and the nymph Argiope. Argiope they say lived at Parnassus for a while, but when she became pregnant removed to Odrysæ, because Philammon would not marry her. And this is the reason why they call Thamyris Odrysian and Thracian. And the rivers Leucasia and Amphitus are tributaries of the Balyra.

After you have crossed these you come to the plain called the plain of Stenyclerus; this Stenyclerus was a hero. And right opposite the plain is what was called of old Œchalia, but in our day the Carnasian grove, mostly of cypress trees. And the gods who have statues are Carnean Apollo and Hermes carrying a ram. And the daughter of Demeter is here called the Virgin, and near her statue water wells from a spring. But the rites of the Great Goddesses, who have their Mysteries at the Carnasian grove, I must not reveal: but they are in my opinion second only in sanctity to the Eleusinian Mysteries. I am also prevented by a dream from revealing to the public all about the cinerary urn of brass found by the Argive General, in which the remains of Eurytus the son of Melaneus are kept. And the river Charadrus flows along the Carnasian grove, and as you go on about 8 stades to the left you come to the ruins of Andania. That the town was so named from a woman called Andania is admitted by the antiquarians: I know however nothing about her parents, or who she married. And on the road from Andania to Cyparissiæ you come to a place called Polichne, where the rivers Electra and Cœus flow. Perhaps the names of these rivers refer to Electra the daughter of Atlas and to Cœus the father of Leto, or Electra and Cœus are possibly some local heroes.

And after crossing the Electra you come to the well called Achaia, and the ruins of the city Dorium. And it is here at Dorium that Homer has described Thamyris as having been stricken blind, because he said he could excel the Muses in singing. But Prodicus the Phocæan, (if the poem called the Minyad is indeed his), says that punishments were reserved for Thamyris in Hades because of his boastful language to the Muses. But I am of opinion that Thamyris lost his eyesight through disease: as indeed happened to Homer subsequently. But Homer went on composing all his life, for he did not yield to his misfortune, whereas Thamyris wooed the Muse no longer, completely overcome by his ever-present trouble.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

From Messene to the mouth of the Pamisus is about 80 stades, and the Pamisus flows clear and limpid through arable land, and is navigable some 10 stades inland. And some sea fish swim up it especially at the season of spring, as they do also up the rivers Rhenus and Mæander: but mostly do they swim up the river Achelous, which has its outlet near the islands called the Echinades. And the fish that swim up the Pamisus are finer in appearance, because the water is clear, and not full of mud like the other rivers I have mentioned. And mullets, being fishes that love mud, are fond of muddy rivers. Now the Greek rivers do not seem to produce beasts dangerous to man’s life, like the Indus, and the Nile in Egypt, and the Rhenus, the Ister, the Euphrates, and the Phasis. For they produce beasts that devour man, in appearance like the Glanides at Hermus and Mæander, except that they have a darker skin and more strength. In these respects the Glanides are deficient. And the Indus and Nile both furnish crocodiles, and the Nile hippopotamuses also, which are as destructive to man as the crocodile. But the Greek rivers are not formidable for wild beasts, for even in the river Aous, that flows through the Thesprotian mainland, the dogs are not river dogs but sea dogs that swim up from the sea.

On the right of the Pamisus is Corone, a town near the sea, and under the mountain Mathia. And on the road to it is a place near the sea, which they think is the temple of Ino: for they say that the goddess landed here from the sea, and was worshipped by the name of Leucothea instead of Ino. And at no great distance the river Bias discharges itself into the sea, which river took its name they say from Bias the son of Amythaon. About 20 stades from the road is the well Plataniston, the water flows from a plane-tree, broad and hollow inside, and like a small cave, and fresh water flows from thence to Corone. The name of the town was of old Æpea, but after the Messenians were restored to the Peloponnese by the Thebans, they say that Epimelides, who was sent to rebuild it, called it Coronea, after Coronea in Bœotia where he came from, but the Messenians mispronounced the name Corone from the first, and in process of time their mistake became prevalent. There is also another tradition that when they were digging the foundations of their walls they found a brass crow. The gods here who have temples are Artemis called the Rearer of children, and Dionysus, and Æsculapius. The statues of Æsculapius and Dionysus are of stone, and there is a brazen statue of Zeus Soter in the market-place. There is also a brazen statue of Athene in the citadel in the open air, with a crow in her hand. I also saw the tomb of Epimelides. Why they call the harbour the harbour of the Achæans I do not know.

As you go on about 80 stades from Corone you come to a temple of Apollo, near the sea, which is held in high honour: according to the Messenian tradition it is the most ancient of all Apollo’s temples, and the god heals diseases. They call the god Corydus. His statue here is of wood, but there is a brazen statue the work of Argeotas, a votive offering they say of the Argonauts. And near the town of Corone is Colonides. Its inhabitants say they were not Messenians but were brought by Colænus from Attica, who according to an oracle followed the crested lark there. And in process of time they picked up the Dorian dialect and customs. And the town of Colonides is on a height not far from the sea.

And the people of Asine were originally neighbours of the Lycoritæ, and dwelt near Mount Parnassus. They were then called Dryopes from their founder, which name they retained when they came to the Peloponnese. But in the third generation afterwards, when Phylas was king, the Dryopes were beaten in battle by Hercules, and were taken to Delphi and offered to Apollo. And being brought back to the Peloponnese by the oracle which the god gave Hercules, they first occupied Asine near Hermion, and, having been expelled thence by the Argives, they dwelt in Messenia by permission of the Lacedæmonians, and when in process of time the Messenians were restored they were not turned out by them from Asine. And the account the people of Asine themselves give is as follows. They admit they were conquered in battle by Hercules, and that their town on Mount Parnassus was captured, but they deny that they were led captive to Apollo, but when their walls were taken by Hercules, they left their town they say and fled for refuge to the heights of Parnassus; and afterwards crossing over in ships to the Peloponnese became suppliants of Eurystheus, and he being a bitter enemy of Hercules gave them Asine in Argolis to dwell in. And the Asinæi are the only descendants of the Dryopes that still plume themselves on that name, very unlike the Eubœans that live at Styra. For they too are Dryopes by origin, who did not participate in the contest with Hercules but dwelt at some distance from the town. But they despise the name Dryopes, just as the inhabitants of Delphi object to be called Phocians. Whereas the Asinæi rejoice in the name of Dryopes, and have evidently made the holiest of their temples an imitation of those they formerly erected at Mount Parnassus. They have not only a temple of Apollo, but a temple and ancient statue of Dryops, whose mysteries they celebrate annually, and say that he was the son of Apollo. And Asine lies by the sea just as the old Asine in Argolis did, and the distance from Colonides is about 40 stades, and at about the same distance in the other direction is the Promontory of Acritas, just in front of which is the deserted island of Theganussa. And not far from Acritas is the harbour of Phœnicus and some islands called Œnussæ opposite the harbour.

CHAPTER XXXV.

And Mothone, which before the expedition against Troy and even subsequently to that war was called Pedasus, afterwards changed its name to Mothone from the daughter of Œneus as the inhabitants say: for Œneus the son of Porthaon after the capture of Ilium retired they say with Diomede to the Peloponnese, and had by a concubine a daughter Mothone. But in my opinion the Rock called Mothon gave its name to Mothone, a rock which constitutes a natural harbour, for being much of it sunken under the water it narrows the entrance for ships, and at the same time is a kind of breakwater against the violence of the waves. I have already described how the Lacedæmonians, in the days when Damocratidas was king at Argos, gave Mothone to the people of Nauplia, who had been expelled from their city for their Laconian proclivities; and how even after the restoration of the Messenians they were not interfered with. The people of Nauplia were I imagine in ancient times Egyptians, and, having come to Argolis in their ships with Danaus, they formed three generations afterwards a colony at Nauplia under Nauplius the son of Amymone. And the Emperor Trajan granted the people of Mothone a free constitution. But in older days they alone of all the Messenians had the following serious misfortune. Thesprotia in Epirus was in a ruinous condition from anarchy. For Deidamia the daughter of Pyrrhus had no children, and on her death handed over the government to the people. She was the daughter of Pyrrhus, the son of Ptolemy, the son of Alexander, the son of Pyrrhus: of this last Pyrrhus the son of Æacides I have given an account earlier in my description of Attica. Procles the Carthaginian has given Alexander the son of Philip more praise for his good fortune and the lustre of his exploits, but for the disposition of an army and strategical tactics in the face of an enemy he says Pyrrhus was the better man. And when the people of Epirus became a democracy, they shewed a want of ballast in several respects, and entirely disregarded their rulers: and the Illyrians that dwelt north of Epirus by the Ionian sea became their masters by sudden attack. For we know of no democracy but Athens that ever rose to greatness. The Athenians indeed rose to their zenith by democracy: but in native intelligence they were superior to the other Greeks, and obeyed the laws more than democracies generally do.

And the Illyrians, when they had once tasted the sweets of conquest, longed for more and still more, and equipped a fleet, and made piratic excursions everywhere, and sailed to Mothone and anchored there as with friendly intent, and sent a messenger into the town and asked for some wine for their ships. And when a few men brought this wine, they paid for it the price the people of Mothone asked for it, and sold them in turn some of their cargoes. And on the following day more came from the city and a brisker traffic ensued. And at last women and men came down to the ships, and sold wine and received goods in turn from the barbarians. Then the Illyrians in the height of their daring captured many men and still more women, and clapped them on board, and sailed away for the Ionian sea, having half stripped the town of its population.