grew up, he was brought back to Messene by the Arcadians,
and by the Dorians of Laconia and Argos, and, having re-
covered the throne, he took vengeance on the murderers of
his father. iEpytus became so famous that the royal family
were named from him the ^Epytids.
About three centuries and a half had elapsed since the
* Paus. iv. 3, 4.
THE MESSENIAN WARS. 43
Dorian conquest, when feud and enmity broke out between
the Dorians of Laconia and of Messene. The most probable
cause is, that the Spartans, having now fully reduced the
Achaeans of Laconia, began to cast a longing eye on the fer-
tile plains of Messene : the first occasions of enmity are thus
transmitted to us.*
On the confines of Laconia and Messene was a temple
of Artemis Limnatis ( Of-the-Lake) common to the two na-
tions. Hither, when the Spartan maidens repaired one time
to keep the festival, they were violated by some young
Messenians. The Spartan king, Teleclus, attempting to de-
fend them, was slain ; and the maidens, unable to bear dis-
grace, put an end to themselves. So said the Spartans.
The Messenian account was, that when several of their
principal men had visited the temple, Teleclus sent to them
some beardless youths, disguised as maidens, and armed
with daggers, hoping, by removing them, to conquer the
country more easily. The Messenians, discovering his de-
sign, slew both himself and the youths ; and the Spartans
were so conscious of being in the wrong, that they sought
no satisfaction for the murder of Teleclus.
Nothing further occurred at this time. In the next gen-
eration a new cause of enmity arose. A wealthy Messenian,
named Polychares, sent some of his kine to graze on the
lands of a Spartan named Euaephnus. The Spartan was
to have a share of the produce of the cows; but, not content
with this, he secretly sold them to some foreign traders, and
then, coming to Polychares, told him that pirates had landed,
and carried oif both herds and herdsmen. Just then one
of Polychares' slaves, whom Euaephnus had sold with the
cattle, having made his escape, came and told the truth ;
and Euaephnus, being thus convicted, implored forgiveness,
and offered to pay the full value of the cattle if Polychares'
son would accompany him home. The youth set out with
him ; but, as soon as they were on Laconian ground, the
* Pans. iv. 4 24.
44 HISTORY OF GREECE.
treacherous Spartan fell on and slew him. Polychares,
having vainly sought justice at Sparta, became desperate,
and he put to death every Spartan that fell into his hands.
The Spartans now sent an embassy, demanding the sur-
render of Polychares. The two kings of Messene, Andro-
cles and Antiochus, were of opposite opinions, the former
wishing to comply with, the latter to reject, the demand
of the Spartans. It came to blows, and Androcles and his
principal friends fell in the civil conflict ; Antiochus sent
to Sparta, offering to submit the matter to the judgment
of the Argives, their common kinsmen, or to the court of
Areiopagus at Athens. The Spartans made no reply. An-
tiochus died, and was succeeded by his son Euphaes ; and
then the Spartans, without any declaration of war, having
secretly bound themselves by oath never to rest till they were
masters of Messene, made an irruption by night into that
country, and surprised the town of Amphia, which was situa-
ted on a lofty hill near the borders. All the inhabitants were
put to the sword, a few only escaping.
King Euphaes, having summoned an assembly of the peo-
ple to Stenyclaros, advised them not to be cast down, and
exhorted them to apply diligently to the practice of arms,
and, relying on the gods and the justice of their cause, to pre-
pare for the war. Three years passed away in preparation,
during which the Spartans plundered, but did not injure, the
land which they hoped would be theirs ; and the Messenians
made descents on the coast of Laconia, and ravaged the
cornfields on Mount Taygeton. At length, when Euphaes
thought his people sufficiently prepared, he summoned them
to his standard, and led them against the Spartans, followed
by a number of servants carrying timber and all things
necessary for the construction of a rampart. The armies
met in a plain where there was a deep gulf in the earth :
the heavy-armed stood separated by it, while the horse and
the light-armed engaged each other above it. Meantime the
servants raised a rampart round the rear and flanks of the
Messenians, and during the night they completed it in front;
THE MESSENIAN WARS. 45
the Spartans > seeing their enemies thus secured, deemed it
not prudent to remain, and retired home.
The following year, the Spartans, shamed by the re-
proaches of their old men, invaded Messene, and a battle
was fought, which was terminated by night, victory remain-
ing with neither side. The Messenians, however, soon
found that they were losers, on the whole, as they had spent
all their money, their slaves had deserted in great numbers
to the enemy, and a contagious disease had broken out in
the country. They therefore resolved to abandon all their
towns in the plain, and betake them to the nearly impregna-
ble hill of Ithome, which stands detached on the confines of
the Stenyclarian plain, and there to make their stand.
When this was done, they sent to consult the god at Delphi.
The Messenian envoy, (deojgbg,) whose name was Tisis, was
waylaid, on his return, by the Spartans from Amphia; and as
he would not surrender, they wounded and would have slain
him, when a voice, they knew not whence, called out, "Let
go the oracle-bearer ! " Tisis reached Ithome, and, having
delivered the oracle to the king, died of his wounds.
Euphaes read the response to the assembled people, and it
was found that the god directed that a virgin of the blood
of the yEpytids should be sacrificed at night to the sub-
terrene deities. If she whose lot was drawn should escape,
any other ^Epytid might give his daughter voluntarily. The
lot fell on the daughter of Lyciscus; but the soothsayer
Epebolus, gained by her father, declared that she was a sup-
posititious child, and forbade the sacrifice. Lyciscus then
made his escape with his daughter, and fled to Sparta. The
people, learning this, were in consternation, but Aristodemus,
an iEpytid, came forward and offered to sacrifice his maiden
daughter for the good of his country. Her lover for she
was betrothed in agony, denied that her father had now
the right to dispose of her : then, foiled in this attempt, he
boldly asserted that he had enjoyed a husband's privilege,
and that she was no longer a maid, and would be ere long a
mother. Aristodemus, stung to madness by this imputation
46 HISTORY OF GREECE.
on the honor of his house, slew his hapless child with his
own hand, and, ripping her open, proved the falsehood of her
lover's assertion. Epebolus called for some other iEpytid
to give his daughter, for Aristodemus had murdered Jiis, and
not sacrificed her to the gods, as directed. The people
rushed to take vengeance on the lover, but Euphaes, whose
friend he was, declared the oracle fulfilled ; the ^Epytids all
joyfully assented ; the assembly was dissolved, and the sacri-
ficial feast was held. The Spartans lost spirit when they
heard what had been done in Ithome.
Six years afterwards, in the thirteenth of the war, the
Spartans again invaded Messene, and, in the battle which
ensued, King Euphaes, fighting with the utmost heroism,
received a mortal wound. As he left no children, the Mes-
senians proceeded to elect a king : the candidates were
Aristodemus, Cleonnis, and Damis. The soothsayers Epeb-
olus and Ophioneus were unanimous in declaring that the
dignity of iEpytus should not be given to a man stained with
the blood of his own child. The people, however, would have
him, and he was chosen king. In his high office he was
just and generous, and he held in particular esteem his
rivals for the throne.
For four years the war was confined to pillaging incur-
sions into each other's territory. In the fifth year, the allies
on both sides appeared. The Arcadians and some compa-
nies of Argives and Sicyonians joined the Messenians ; the
Spartans were only aided from Corinth. Aristodemus drew
up his army at the foot of Ithome : he gave chief commands
to Cleonnis and Damis. His arrangements were judicious,
and a signal victory that day crowned the Messenian arms.
The Spartans now sent, in their turn, to consult the ora-
cle, and the god directed them to employ art as well as
force ; for Messene was originally acquired, and would be
acquired again, by stratagem. Stratagem was then tried,
but in vain ; equally vain were the attempts to detach the
allies of the Messenians.
In the twentieth year of the war, the Messenians sent to
THE MESSENIAN WARS. 47
Delphi, and the god replied that victory would be with those
who first placed one hundred tripods round the altar of
Zeus Ithomates. As this altar was within the walls of
Ithome, they were now certain of success, and, having no brass,
they resolved to make the tripods of wood. But a Del-
phian had sent the reponses to Sparta. The council there
could decide on nothing ; but a man of no note, named
CEbalus, formed one hundred tripods of clay, and, putting
them in a bag, and taking a hunting-net with him, entered
Ithome with the peasants in the evening ; and having, during
the night, placed them about the altar, he hastened home to
tell what he had done. The Messenians, when they saw
the tripods, knew it was an artifice of the enemy ; Aristode-
mus, however, bade them be of good cheer, and they set the
wooden ones round the altar.
But the end of Messene was now at hand, and signs and
prodigies came to announce it. The shield fell from the
hand of the armed statue of Artemis, and the rams which
Aristodemus was about to offer to Zeus Ithomates, dashed
their heads against the altar and died. The dogs in the
town assembled and kept howling all through the night, and
then went off in a body to the Spartan camp. A terrific
dream came to appall the firm mind of Aristodemus. He
dreamed that he was armed, and going forth to battle ; the
entrails of the victims lay on a table before him : suddenly
his murdered daughter appeared, clad in black, and, dis-
playing her open breast and womb, she cast the entrails on
the ground, stripped him of his arms, placed a golden crown
on his head, and arrayed him in a white garment. Aristo-
demus, on awaking, judged that his death was at hand, for
such was the dress in which the Messenians bore to the
grave all persons of note. Soon after, seeing no further
hopes for his country, and aware that he had to no purpose
been the slayer of his own child, he slew himself on her
grave. Struck by this event, the Messenians thought on
surrender, but nobler sentiments soon prevailed : they chose
Damis for their leader, and went forth to battle ; but fortune
48 HISTORY OF GREECE.
still was adverse ; their leaders and men of note all fell, and,
after sustaining hunger and siege for five months longer, they
abandoned Ithome and their country. Thus terminated the
first Messenian war, (01. 14, 1.,) after a continuance of
twenty years.
Such of the Messenians as had jyroxenics * iu Argos, Si-
cyon, and Arcadia, retired to these places. Those who re-
mained were reduced to the most oppressive state of Helot-
ism, being obliged to yield their Spartan lords one half of
the annual produce of their lands, and to mourn for their
kings like the Helots of Laconia, etc.
During thirty-eight years, the Messenians remained in this
state of thraldom. A generation had arisen which knew
not the evils of the former war, and it was resolved to make
an effort for independence. An alliance was secretly formed
with the Aigives and Arcadians, and (Ol. -3, 4.) the stand-
ard of revolt was raised. The foremost in this movement
were the people of Andania, (the district north-east of Steny-
claros,) headed by Aristomenes, a valiant youth of the race
of the jEpytids, to whom popular tradition assigned a divine
origin ; for a god, it was said, had visited the chamber of his
mother Nicoteleia, (Yictory-complitfr.)
It was at Derae, a place on their own territory, that the
Messenians first ventured to meet their oppressors in arms.
The battle was indecisive ; at the close of it, the Messenians
elected Aristomenes king ; but he declined royalty, satisfied
with the office of commander-in-chief. He shortly after-
wards secretly entered, Sparta by night, and, next morning,
the haughty Dorians saw on the temple of the Chalcirecos a
shield bearing the inscription, " Aristomenes to the goddess
from the Spartans/'
The Spartans, as was their wont, sent to Delphi, and the
god directed them to fetch a counsellor from Athens. The
Athenians, when applied to, feared to disobey the god, and
they wished not to see the power of the Spartans increased ;
* The proxeny (inol^.a) was an engagement of mutual hospitality.
THE MESSENIAN WARS. 49
they therefore sent a lame poet, of no great repute for wis-
dom, named Tyrtaeus. Events showed their expectation that
he would be of no advantage to be a vain one.
Next year the allies on both sides appeared : Arcadians,
Eleians, Argives, and Sicyonians, joined the Messenians ;
the Corinthians were with the Spartans. The armies met in
the Stenyclarian Plain, at a spot named the Wild-Boar's
Monument, (xdrroou a\ua :) the soothsayers, on both sides,
urged to battle ; Tyrtseus encouraged the rear of the Spar-
tans, the priests of the Great Goddesses (Demeter and the
Kora) that of the Messenians, to vigorous exertion. Aris-
tomenes, at the head of eighty picked men of his own age,
rushed against the Spartan king Anaxander : the contest was
long and bloody ; at length the Spartans fled ; the Mes-
senian band attacked and routed the enemy wherever they
made a stand. The soothsayer Theocles had warned Aris-
tomenes not to pass a wild pear-tree on which the Dioscuri *
were sitting, the invisible spectators of the conflict ; but, in
the ardor of pursuit, he neglected the warning ; at the tree
he dropped his shield, which the Twins conveyed away un-
seen, and while he sought it the remaining foes escaped.
The hero came victorious back to Andania, and the women
strewed ribbons and flowers before him, while they sang
verses celebrating his glorious deeds.
Anxious to recover his shield, Aristomenes went to Del-
phi ; and, by the directions of the Pythia, he visited the cavern
of Trophonius in Lebadeia. Here he found his buckler,
and, returning home, placed himself at the head of his chosen
band, and one evening took and plundered the town of
Pharae in Laconia. Soon after he penetrated by night into
Sparta itself, but was repelled by an apparition of Helena
and the Dioscuri. He then lay in wait for the Spartan
damsels, who were dancing in honor of Artemis at Caryae,
and carried off those of highest rank among them. At night
he halted in a village of Messene ; and here some of his
* The Twin-gods Castor and Pollux.
5 G
50 HISTORY OF GREECE.
comrades, having drunk too much, went to offer violence to
their captives. Finding remonstrance vain, the hero slew
the most violent with his own hand, and he returned the
virgins uninjured to their parents on receiving the usual
ransom.
He next made an attempt on iEgila, where the women
were celebrating the feast of Demeter ; but they defended
themselves so well with knives and spits, that they drove off
the Messenians, and made Aristomenes himself a prisoner.
But the priestess of the goddess, who loved him, gave him
his liberty that night, and asserted to the Spartans that he
had contrived to burn his bonds.
In the third year, the Messenians, strongly aided by the
Arcadians, met their oppressors at a place named the Great
Ditch. The Spartans, dubious of victory, had recourse to
corruption ; they bribed Aristocrates, the commander of the
Arcadians, and he induced his troops to fly as the engage-
ment was commencing ; the Spartans then easily surrounded
the Messenians, and, in spite of all the efforts of Aristom-
enes and his devoted band, a total defeat was the lot of the
patriots.
Assembling those who had escaped on this fatal day, the
Messenian hero advised to abandon Andania and all other
towns, and make their last stand at Eira, a mountain north-
west of Stenyclaros, on the river Neda, and not far from the
sea, whence they might get supplies. Thither they accord-
ingly retired, followed by their persevering foes. Aided by
the people of Pylos and Mothone, the Messenians ravaged
alike by sea their own country and Laconia ; and Aristom-
enes, having augmented his chosen band to three hundred
men, did such mischief by plundering excursions, that the
Spartans made a decree to let all the lands within his reach
lie waste. Famine ensued at Sparta, and then rose a se-
dition, which was stilled by the strains of Tyrtseus.
Late one evening, Aristomenes set out with his trusty
band, and ere day he reached the town of Amyclae, near
Sparta, which he took and plundered. He retired before aid
THE MESSENIAN WARS. 51
could arrive from Sparta; but, continuing to scour the
country, he fell in with a large body of the Spartans, who were
in pursuit of him. Numbers overwhelmed the brave Mes-
senians ; and fifty of them, with their leader, who was stunned
by the blow of a stone on the head, were made prisoners.
On reaching Sparta, they were thrown into the pit called the
Kaias : all perished in the fall but Aristomenes, whom, as
the legend told, an eagle supported on his wings, and bore
safely to the bottom.* Awaiting his death from hunger, he
lay patiently enveloped in his cloak ; on the third day, hear-
ing a noise, he uncovered his face, and saw a fox come to
prey on the bodies ; he caught the animal by the tail when
it came near him, and ran as it ran till he saw the light
from the hole through which it used to enter the cavern, t
This hole he widened sufficiently to admit him to pass
through, and soon the Spartans learned, to their dismay, that
Aristomenes was once more at Eira.
A body of Corinthians, coming to the aid of the Spartans
before Eira, were fallen on in the night, and cut to pieces by
Aristomenes, who now offered, for the second time, a heca-
tomphony f to Zeus Ithomates. As the Hyacinthia was at
hand, the Spartans made a truce for forty days to celebrate
the festival, and went home. Aristomenes came out of Eira,
relying on the truce ; but he was waylaid and seized by seven
Cretan archers in the pay of the Spartans : they bound him
with their bowstrings: two of them ran with the joyful
news to Sparta ; the rest, as it was evening, took him to a
cottage, in which were dwelling only a widow and her
daughter. This maiden had, the night before, had a dream,
in which she saw wolves bringing her a lion bound, without
* It is ludicrous to see the manner in which Gillies endeavors to
extract truth out of this evident fiction. He says, the shield of Aris-
tomenes, on which was the figure of an eagle, broke his fall, etc.
never once thinking of the improbability of such a circumstance.
t The fox was the emblem of Messene, (see above, p. 21,) hence
the legend.
t A sacrifice offered for having slain a hundred enemies.
52
HISTORY OF GREECE.
claws : she had in her dream loosed the lion and given him
claws, and he had torn the wolves; she now saw its mean-
ing ; she made the Cretans drunk, cut the captive's bonds
with one of their swords, and with it he then slew them all.
To reward the maiden, Aristomenes united her in marriage
with his son Gorgos.
The eleventh year of the siege was come. Aristomenes
and the soothsayer Theoclus had, after the defeat of the
Great Ditch, gone to Delphi, where the Pythia told them
that Messene would be lost when the buck-goat [rgdyog)
drank of the Neda. They thought only of the animal :
the god meant differently ; for, in this year, as Theoclus was
walking along the river, he saw a wild fig-tree, which the
Messenians call Buck-goat, (rQ&yog,) growing so as to dip
its leaves in the water : he secretly brought his friend to
the spot, and pointed out the tree. Aristomenes saw that
the end of Messene was at hand ; he therefore took the
sacred pledge on which the hopes of its recovery rested,
and when night came, he set out and buried it in the most
desert part of the Ithome.
A runaway slave of a Spartan of rank, who carried on an
intrigue with a Messenian woman, used to visit her when
her husband was on guard at the Acropolis of Eira. One
night it rained tremendously, and as Aristomenes was
confined by a wound, and there seemed no danger of the
Spartans making an attempt in such weather, the guards
resolved to go home to their houses. The adulteress had her
lover with her when her husband came : she concealed him,
and he heard the Messenian tell her how they had left the
citadel unguarded : he stole out, and ran to the Spartan
camp, where his master happened to have the chief com-
mand. The occasion was not to be lost : heedless of the
storm, the Spartans set forth, and occupied the deserted
citadel: a terrific howling set up by the dogs told the
Messenians that the enemies were within, and they flew to
arms. During the night, nothing was done on either side.
With day, Aristomenes and Theoclus, though they knew
THE MESSENIAN WARS. 53
all was over, exhorting the Messenians to do valiantly,
led them on ; the women also, bearing arms, resolved to die
rather than be slaves. The rain still poured, the thunder
roared, and lightning flamed; the Messenians fought un-
dismayed; the conflict was sustained day and night. On
the third day, Theoclus called to Aristomenes to fight no
longer in vain, but to save himself and the Messenians;
then, rushing amid the foe, he cried out that Messene would
not always be theirs, and fell covered with wounds. Aris-
tomenes recalled his men from the fight, and directed them
to form in a body, placing the women and children in the
centre : he advanced at their head, intimating that he de-
manded a passage : the Spartans, deeming it imprudent to
drive them to despair, made way, and the last champions
of independence abandoned Eira, (01. 28, 1.)
The exiles directed their steps toward Arcadia. At
Mount Lycaeon they found an abundant supply of food and
raiment provided for them by the Arcadians, who had only
been prevented from going to their aid by the treachery of
Aristocrates. They offered to divide their lands and houses
with them. Shortly after, Aristomenes selected five hun-
dred chosen Messenians, and proposed in the assembly of
the Arcadians to fall with these on the town of Sparta, now
without defenders : if they succeeded, they might get their
own country again in exchange ; if they failed, they would
die the death of heroes. The assembly approved, and three
hundred Arcadians offered to join him ; but the royal traitor
sent intelligence to the Spartan king. Some of the Arca-
dians, who suspected him, waylaid his messenger on his
return, and found on him a letter thanking Aristocrates for
his services. The traitor was stoned to death, and his body
cast out of the land, unburied.
The people of Pylos and Mothone also quitted their
country. Getting on shipboard, they came to the port of
Cyllene in Elis, whence they sent to the Messenian exiles,
inviting them to come and join them in forming a colony.
They joyfully consented : some were for seizing the Isle of
5*
%
54 HISTORY OF GREECE.
Zacynthus, and thence harassing the Spartans; others for
going to Sardinia. Meantime, envoys came from Anaxilas,
prince of the Dorian colony at Rhegion in Italy, inviting
them to come and aid him against the Zanclaeans of Sicily.
They went, conquered the Zanclaeans, then coalesced with
them, and named the town, instead of Zancle, Messana,
a name which, slightly altered, it still retains.
Aristomenes, still hoping to be able to do injury to the
Spartans, would not join the colony. Some time after,
Damagetes, prince of Jalysus in Rhodes, consulting the
oracle, was directed to marry the daughter of the bravest
man in Greece. As none could dispute the palm with the
hero of Messene, the Rhodian prince became his son-in-law,
and the illustrious warrior ended his days in tranquillity at
Rhodes.
Those who are versed in mythic narrative, will at once
discern the semi-mythic character of these Messenian wars,
which are only less marvellous than those of Thebes and
Troy, because the gods do not personally and visibly appear
in them.* The details are not given by Herodotus ; they