Description of Greece

After declining the leadership of the men setting forth to found a colony, Aristomenes gave his sister Hagnagora in marriage to Tharyx at Phigalia, and his daughters, both the eldest and the next in age, to Damothoidas of Lepreum and Theopompus of Heraea. He himself went to Delphi to enquire of the god. The reply that was given to Aristomenes is not recorded,

but when Damagetus the Rhodian, who reigned at Ialysos, came to Apollo and asked whence he should take a wife, the Pythia bade him take a daughter of the bravest of the Greeks. As Aristomenes had a third daughter, he married her, considering that Aristomenes was by far the bravest of the Greeks of that age. Aristomenes, coming to Rhodes with his daughter, purposed to go up from there to Sardis to Ardys the son of Gyges, and to Ecbatana of the Medes to king Phraortes.

But ere that he was overtaken by illness and death, for no further misfortune was to befall the Lacedaemonians at the hands of Aristomenes. On his death Damagetus and the Rhodians built him a splendid tomb and paid honor to him thenceforward. I omit what is recorded of the Diagoridae in Rhodes, as they are called, a line sprung from Diagoras the son of Damagetus, son of Dorieus, who was the son of Damagetus and of the daughter of Aristomenes, lest it should seem to be irrelevant.

Now the Lacedaemonians, gaining possession of Messenia, divided it all among themselves, except the land belonging to the people of Asine; but they gave Mothone to the men of Nauplia, who had recently been driven from their town by the Argives.

The Messenians who were captured in the country, reduced by force to the position of serfs, were later moved to revolt from the Lacedaemonians in the seventy-ninth Olympiad, when Xenophon the Corinthian was victorious. Archimedes was archon at Athens. The occasion which they found for the revolt was this. Certain Lacedaemonians who had been condemned to death on some charge fled as suppliants to Taenarum but the board of ephors dragged them from the altar there and put them to death.

As the Spartans paid no heed to their being suppliants, the wrath of Poseidon came upon them, and the god razed all their city to the ground. At this disaster all the serfs who were of Messenian origin seceded to Mount Ithome. Against them the Lacedaemonians, amongst other allies, called to their assistance Cimon the son of Miltiades, their patron in Athens, and an Athenian force. But when the Athenians arrived, they seem to have regarded them with suspicion that they were likely to promote revolution, and as a result of this suspicion to have soon dismissed them from Ithome.

The Athenians, realizing the feelings of the Lacedaemonians towards them, made friends therefore with the Argives, and gave Naupactus to the Messenians besieged in Ithome, when they were allowed to depart under a truce. They had taken Naupactus from the Locrians adjoining Aetolia, called the Ozolian. The retirement of the Messenians from Ithome was secured by the strength of the place; also the Pythia announced to the Lacedaemonians that assuredly they would be punished if they committed a crime against the suppliant of Zeus of Ithome. For this reason then they were allowed to go from Peloponnese under a truce.

When they occupied Naupactus it was not enough for them to have received a city and country at the hands of the Athenians, but they were filled with a strong desire to show that they had won something notable with their own hands. Knowing that the Acarnanians of Oeniadae possessed a good land and were continually at war with the Athenians, they marched against them. They had no numerical advantage, but defeating them by their superior courage, they shut them up in the fortress and besieged them.

They neglected no human invention in the matter of siege-craft, tried to carry the town by raising scaling-ladders, mined the walls, and by bringing up such engines as could be made ready at short notice proceeded with the destruction of the fortifications. The inhabitants, fearing that if the city were taken they would be put to death and their wives and children enslaved, elected to withdraw on terms.

The Messenians held the town and occupied the country for about a year. In the following year the Acarnanians collected a force from all their towns and discussed an attack on Naupactus. They rejected this, as they saw that their line of march would be through the Aetolians, who were always their enemies; moreover they suspected that the men of Naupactus possessed a fleet, which was the fact; and while they commanded the sea, it was impossible to achieve anything of importance with a land force.

So they changed their plans and at once turned on the Messenians in Oeniadae and prepared to besiege them, for they never supposed that men so few in number would show such desperate courage as to fight against the full levy of the Acarnanians. The Messenians had previously prepared food and all else that was requisite, expecting to stand a long siege.

But they were determined before the siege was formed to fight a battle in the open, and being Messenians, who had not been surpassed in valor even by Lacedaemonians, but in fortune only, were determined not to be dismayed at the horde which had come from Acarnania. They recalled the achievement of the Athenians at Marathon, how thirty myriad Persians had been destroyed by men not numbering ten thousand.

So they joined battle with the Acarnanians, and the course of the battle is said to have been thus. The enemy, being far superior in numbers, had no difficulty in surrounding the Messenians, except where prevented by the gates in the Messenian rear and by the zealous help of their men posted on the wall. Here they could not be surrounded, hut the Acarnanians enveloped both their flanks and shot volleys at them from all sides.

The Messenians, in close formation, whenever they charged the Acarnanians in a body, threw the enemy at that point into confusion, killing and wounding many of them, but they could not effect a complete rout. For wherever the Acarnanians saw a part of their own line being broken by the Messenians they went to the support of their harassed troops at this point and checked the Messenians, overwhelming them by numbers.

The Messenians, beaten back and again attempting to pierce the massed troops of the Acarnanians at another point, would meet with the same result. Wherever they attacked, they threw the enemy into confusion and drove them a short distance, but as the Acarnanians again streamed eagerly to this point, they were driven back against their will. The battle was evenly contested until evening, but when at nightfall the Acarnanians received reinforcements from their cities, the blockade of the Messenians was formed.

They had no fear of the wall being taken by assault, either by the Acarnanians scaling it or by themselves being forced to abandon their posts. But in the eighth month all their provisions alike had been consumed.

They shouted to the Acarnanians from the wall in mockery that their supplies would not fail them until the tenth year of the siege, but they themselves sallied out of Oeniadae at the time of the first sleep. Their escape became known to the Acarnanians and they were compelled to fight, losing some three hundred and killing still more of the enemy. But the greater part of them got through the Acarnanians, and reaching the territory of the Aetollans, who were their friends, arrived safely at Naupactus.

Afterwards, as at all times, they were stirred by their hatred against the Lacedaemonians, and provided the most striking example of their hostility towards them in the war which took place between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. For they offered Naupactus as a base against Peloponnese, and Messenian slingers from Naupactus helped to capture the Spartans cut off in Sphacteria.

When the Athenian reverse at Aegospotami took place, the Lacedaemonians, having command of the sea, then drove the Messenians from Naupactus; they went to their kinsmen in Sicily and to Rhegium, but the majority came to Libya and to the Euesperitae there, who had suffered severely in war with barbarian neighbors and were inviting any Greek to join them. So the majority of the Messenians went to them, their leader being Comon, who had commanded them in Sphacteria.

A year before the victory of the Thebans at Leuctra, heaven foretold their return to Peloponnese to the Messenians. It is said that in Messene on the Straits the priest of Heracles saw a vision in a dream: it seemed that Heracles Manticlus was bidden by Zeus as a guest to Ithome. Also among the Euesperitae Comon dreamt that he lay with his dead mother, but that afterwards she came to life again. He hoped that as the Athenians had recovered their seapower, they would be restored to Naupactus. But the dream really indicated the recovery of Messene.

Not long afterwards the Lacedaemonians suffered at Leuctra the disaster that had long been due. For at the end of the oracle given to Aristodemus, who reigned over the Messenians, are the words:Act as fate wills, destruction comes on this man before that,signifying that he and the Messenians must suffer evil at the present, but that hereafter destruction would overtake Lacedaemon.

Then after their victory at Leuctra the Thebans sent messengers to Italy, Sicily and to the Euesperitae, and summoned the Messenians to Peloponnese from every other quarter where they might be, and they, with longing for their country and through the hatred which had ever remained with them for the Lacedaemonians, assembled quicker than could have been expected.

To Epaminondas it seemed in no way easy to found a city that could resist the Lacedaemonians, nor could he discover where in the land to build it. For the Messenians refused to settle again in Andania and Oechalia, because their disasters had befallen them when they dwelt there. To Epaminondas in his difficulty it is said that an ancient man, closely resembling a priest of Demeter, appeared in the night and said: “My gift to thee is that thou shalt conquer whomsoever thou dost assail; and when thou dost pass from men, Theban, I will cause thy name to be unforgotten and give thee glory. But do thou restore to the Messenians their fatherland and cities, for now the wrath of the Dioscuri against them hath ceased.”

This he said to Epaminondas, and revealed this to Epiteles the son of Aeschines, who had been chosen by the Argives to be their general and to refound Messene. He was bidden by the dream, wherever he found yew and myrtle growing on Ithome, to dig between them and recover the old woman, for, shut in her brazen chamber, she was overcome and well-nigh fainting. When day dawned, Epiteles went to the appointed place, and as he dug, came upon a brazen urn.

He took it at once to Epaminondas, told him the dream and bade him remove the lid and see what was within. Epaminondas, after sacrifice and prayer to the vision that had appeared, opened the urn and having opened it found some tin foil, very thin, rolled like a book. On it were inscribed the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, and this was the pledge deposited by Aristomenes. They say that the man who appeared to Epiteles and Epaminondas in their sleep was Caucon, who came from Athens to Messene the daughter of Triopas at Andania.

The wrath of the sons of Tyndareus against the Messenians began before the battle in Stenyclerus, and arose, I think, for the following reason. Panormus and Gonippus of Andania, young men in the bloom of youth, were close friends in all things, and marched together into battle and on raids into Laconia.

The Lacedaemonians were keeping a feast of the Dioscuri in camp and had turned to drinking and sports after the midday meal, when Gonippus and Panormus appeared to them, riding on the finest horses and dressed in white tunics and scarlet cloaks, with caps on their heads and spears in their hands. When the Lacedaemonians saw them they bowed down and prayed, thinking that the Dioscuri themselves had come to their sacrifice.

When once they had come among them, the youths rode right through them, striking with their spears, and when many had been killed, returned to Andania, having outraged the sacrifice to the Dioscuri. It was this, in my view, that roused the Dioscuri to their hatred of the Messenians. But now, as the dream declared to Epaminondas, the Dioscuri no longer opposed the return of the Messenians.

Epaminondas was most strongly drawn to the foundation by the oracles of Bacis, who was inspired by the Nymphs and left prophecies regarding others of the Greeks as well as the return of the Messenians:Then indeed shall the bright bloom of Sparta perish and Messene again shall be inhabited for all time.I have discovered that Bacis also told in what manner Eira would be captured, and this too is one of his oracles:The men of Messene o'ercome by the thunder's roll and spouting rain.

When the mysteries were recovered, all who were of the priestly family set them down in books. As Epaminondas considered the spot where the city of the Messenians now stands most convenient for the foundation, he ordered enquiry to be made by the seers if the favour of the gods would follow him here. When they announced that the offerings were auspicious, he began preparations for the foundation, ordering stone to be brought, and summoning men skilled in laying out streets and in building houses, temples, and ring-walls.

When all was in readiness, victims being provided by the Arcadians, Epaminondas himself and the Thebans then sacrificed to Dionysus and Apollo Ismenius in the accustomed manner, the Argives to Argive Hera and Nemean Zeus, the Messenians to Zeus of Ithome and the Dioscuri, and their priests to the Great Goddesses and Caucon. And together they summoned heroes to return and dwell with them, first Messene the daughter of Triopas, after her Eurytus, Aphareus and his children, and of the sons of Heracles Cresphontes and Aepytus. But the loudest summons from all alike was to Aristomenes.

For that day they were engaged in sacrifice and prayer, but on the following days they raised the circuit of the walls, and within built houses and the temples. They worked to the sound of music, but only from Boeotian and Argive flutes, and the tunes of Sacadas and Pronomus were brought into keen competition. The city itself was given the name Messene, but they founded other towns. The men of Nauplia were not disturbed at Mothone,

and they allowed the people of Asine to remain in their home, remembering their kindness when they refused to join the Lacedaemonians in the war against them. The men of Nauplia on the return of the Messenians to Peloponnese brought them such gifts as they had, and while praying continually to the gods for their return begged the Messenians to grant protection to themselves.

The Messenians returned to Peloponnese and recovered their own land two hundred and eighty-seven years after the capture of Eira, in the archonship of Dyscinetus at Athens and in the third year of the hundred and second Olympiad, when Damon of Thurii was victorious for the second time. It was no short time for the Plataeans that they were in exile from their country, and for the Delians when they settled in Adramyttium after being expelled from their island by the Athenians.

The Minyae, driven by the Thebans from Orchomenos after the battle of Leuctra, were restored to Boeotia by Philip the son of Amyntas, as were also the Plataeans. When Alexander had destroyed the city of the Thebans themselves, Cassander the son of Antipater rebuilt it after a few years. The exile of the Plataeans seems to have lasted the longest of those mentioned, but even this was not for more than two generations.

But the wanderings of the Messenians outside the Peloponnese lasted almost three hundred years, during which it is clear that they did not depart in any way from their local customs, and did not lose their Doric dialect, but even to our day they have retained the purest Doric in Peloponnese.

After their return they had nothing to fear at first from the Lacedaemonians. For the Lacedaemonians, restrained by fear of the Thebans, submitted to the foundation of Messene and to the gathering of the Arcadians into one city. But when the Phocian or, as it is called, the Sacred War caused the Thebans to withdraw from Peloponnese, the Lacedaemonians regained courage and could no longer refrain from attacking the Messenians.

The Messenians maintained the war with the help of the Argives and Arcadians, and asked the Athenians for help. They refused to join in an attack on Laconia, but promised to render assistance in person if the Lacedaemonians began war and invaded Messenia. Finally the Messenians formed an alliance with Philip the son of Amyntas and the Macedonians; it was this, they say, that prevented them from taking part in the battle which the Greeks fought at Chaeroneia. They refused, however, to bear arms against the Greeks.

After the death of Alexander, when the Greeks had raised a second war against the Macedonians, the Messenians took part, as I have shown earlier in my account of Attica. They did not join the Greeks against the Gauls, as Cleonymus and the Lacedaemonians refused to grant them a truce.

Not long afterwards the Messenians occupied Elis, employing strategy and daring alike. The Eleians in the earliest times were the most law-abiding of the Peloponnesians, but when Philip the son of Amyntas did all the harm to Greece that has been related, he also bribed the leading men in Elis; the Eleians were divided by factions for the first time and came to blows, it is said.

Henceforward it was likely to be more easy for quarrels to arise among men whose counsels were divided on account of the Lacedaemonians, and they arrived at civil war. Learning this, the Lacedaemonians were preparing to assist their partisans in Elis. While they were being organized in squadrons and distributed in companies, a thousand picked Messenian troops arrived hurriedly at Elis with Laconian blazons on their shields.

Seeing their shields, all the Laconising party in Elis thought their supporters had arrived and received them into the fortress. But having obtained admission in this way, the Messenians drove out the supporters of the Lacedaemonians and made over the city to their own partisans.

The trick is Homer's, but the Messenians plainly imitated it opportunely, for Homer represents Patroclus in the Iliad clad in the arms of Achilles, and says that the barbarians were filled with the belief that it was Achilles attacking them, and that their front ranks were thrown into confusion. Other stratagems are the invention of Homer, the coming of the two Greek spies by night among the Trojans, instead of one and later a man coming to Troy, who pretends to be a deserter but actually is to find out their secrets.

Again, the Trojans who, through youth or years were not of fighting age, he posted as garrison of the walls, while the men of military age were encamped against the Greeks. The wounded Greeks in Homer arm the fighting men, so that even they may not be altogether idle. Indeed Homer's ideas have proved useful to men in every matter.

Not long after the affair at Elis, the Macedonians and Demetrius the son of Philip, son of Demetrius, captured Messene. I have already, in my account of Sicyon, narrated most of the crimes of Perseus against Philip himself and against Demetrius the son of Philip. These are the facts relating to the capture of Messene.

Philip was in need of money, and as it was necessary to raise it at all costs, he sent Demetrius with a fleet to Peloponnese. He put in to one of the less frequented harbors of the Argolid, and at once marched his army by the shortest route to Messene. With an advance guard consisting of all the light-armed troops who knew the road to Ithome, he succeeded just before dawn in scaling the wall unnoticed at a point where it lay between the city and the peak of Ithome.

When day dawned and the inhabitants had realized the danger that beset them, they were at first under the impression that the Lacedaemonians had forced an entry into the town, and attacked them more recklessly owing to their ancient hatred. But when they discovered from their equipment and speech that it was the Macedonians and Demetrius the son of Philip, they were filled with great fear, when they considered the Macedonian training in warfare and the good fortune which they saw that they enjoyed in all their ventures.

Nevertheless the magnitude of the present evil caused them to display a courage beyond their strength, also they were inspired with hope for the best, since it seemed not without divine help that they had accomplished their return to Peloponnese after so long an absence. So the Messenians in the town went against the Macedonians full of courage, and the garrison on the acropolis attacked from the high ground above.

In like manner the Macedonians, brave and experienced troops, at first offered a firm resistance. But worn out by their march, attacked by the men and bombarded with tiles and stones by the women, they took to flight in disorder. The majority were pushed over the precipices and killed, for Ithome is very steep at this point. A few escaped by throwing away their arms.

The Messenians refrained at first from joining the Achaean league for the following reason, I think. When Pyrrhus the son of Aeacides made war on the Lacedaemonians, they came unasked to their assistance, and as a result of this service a more peaceful disposition towards them came to be established at Sparta. Therefore they were unwilling to revive the feud by joining the league, which was openly declared the bitterest enemy of the Lacedaemonians.

I realize, as of course did the Messenians, that even without their joining the league the policy of the Achaeans was hostile to the Lacedaemonians. For the Argives and the Arcadian group formed not the smallest element in the league. However, in the course of time they joined the league. And not long afterwards Cleomenes the son of Leonidas, son of Cleonymus, captured the Arcadian Megalopolis in peace-time.

Of the people of Megalopolis who were caught in the city, some were killed at the time of its capture, but Philopoemen the son of Craugis and all who withdrew with him (the number of the citizens who escaped is said to have been more than two-thirds) were received by the Messenians, who for the sake of the former services rendered by the Arcadians in the time of Aristomenes and again at the founding of Messene now repaid the like.