Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

[4.9.9] When the seer said this, the multitude of the Messenians rushed on the girl’s lover to kill him, since he had fixed the guilt of bloodshed on Aristodemus to no purpose, and had made their hopes of safety doubtful. But as he was a close friend of Euphaes, Euphaes persuaded the Messenians that the oracle was fulfilled by the death of the girl and that the deed done by Aristodemus sufficed for them.

  [4.9.10] When he said this, all the members of the house of the Aepytidae said that he spoke truth, for each was eager to be rid of the terror threatening his daughter. The people took the advice of’ the king and broke up the assembly and thereupon turned to sacrifices to the gods and feasting.

  [4.10.1] X. But the Lacedaemonians, when they heard the oracle given to the Messenians, were in despair, both they and their kings, and for the future shrank from offering battle.

  But five years after the escape of Lyciscus from Ithome, the victims being auspicious, the Lacedaemonians marched against Ithome. The Cretans were no longer with them. The allies of the Messenians also were late, for the Spartans had now incurred the suspicion of others of the Peloponnesians, especially of the Arcadians and Argives. The Argives intended to come without the knowledge of the Lacedaemonians, and by private enterprise rather than by public declaration. The expedition was openly proclaimed among the Arcadians, but they did not arrive either. For the Messenians were induced by the credit placed in the oracle to face the risk without allies.

  [4.10.2] This engagement did not differ in most points from the first, as on this occasion too daylight failed the combatants, but they record that on neither side was a wing or division broken, as they did not maintain the formation in which they were originally posted, champions on either side meeting in the middle, and there supporting the whole combat.

  [4.10.3] Euphaes, who showed more eagerness than a king should and recklessly attacked Theopompus’ bodyguard, received a number of mortal wounds. When he swooned and fell, the Lacedaemonians did their utmost to drag him into their own ranks, as he still breathed. But the Messenians were roused by the affection which they felt for their king and by the reproach which would be theirs. It seemed better to die for their kings and sacrifice their lives than that he should be abandoned while one of them escaped.

  [4.10.4] So the fall of Euphaes prolonged the battle and called forth further deeds of daring on both sides. He came to himself later and saw that his men had not had the worst of the fight, but he died in a few days, having reigned thirteen years over the Messenians, and having been at war with the Lacedaemonians for the whole of his reign.

  [4.10.6] Euphaes, having no children, left his kingdom to the man chosen by the people. Cleonnis and Damis came forward to dispute it with Aristodemus, as they were considered superior to him in war and all else. Antander had been killed by the enemy, risking his life for Euphaes in the battle. The views of both the seers, Epebolus and Ophioneus, were identical, that they should not give the honors of Aepytus and his descendants to a man who was accursed and polluted by the murder of his daughter. Nevertheless Aristodemus was chosen and became king.

  [4.10.6] This Ophioneus, the Messenian seer, was blind from birth and practised the following method of divination. By learning the facts relevant to each case, both private and public, he thus foretold the future. This then was the way he practised his art. Aristodemus, becoming king, constantly was ready to show all reasonable favour to the people, and held all the nobles in honor, especially Cleonnis and Damis. He maintained good relations with the allies, sending gifts to the Arcadian leaders and to Argos and Sicyon.

  [4.10.7] They carried on the war during his reign by means of constant forays with small parties, and made incursions into one another’s country at harvest time, the Messenians being supported by the Arcadians in their raids into Laconia. The Argives did not think fit to declare their hatred for the Lacedaemonians beforehand, but prepared to take part in the contest when it came.

  [4.11.1] XI. In the fifth year of the reign of Aristodemus, being exhausted by the length of the war and by their expenditure, after due notice that a battle would be fought, both sides were joined by their allies, the Lacedaemonians by the Corinthians alone of the Peloponnesians, the Messenians by the full muster of’ the Arcadians and by picked troops from Argos and Sicyon. The Lacedaemonians entrusted their center to the Corinthians, Helots and all the neighboring peoples who were serving with them; they themselves and the kings were posted on the wings in a deeper and closer formation than ever before.

  [4.11.2] The dispositions of Aristodemus and his men were as follows: he selected the most serviceable of the arms for all the Arcadians and Messenians who were physically strong and stout hearted but did not possess powerful weapons, and as the matter was urgent, posted them with the Argives and Sicyonians, extending the line that they might not be surrounded by the enemy. He also took care that they should be drawn up with Mount Ithome in their rear. Placing Cleonnis in command of these troops,

  [4.11.3] he himself and Damis remained in reserve with the light troops consisting of a few slingers or archers, the bulk of the force being physically suited to rapid assaults and retirements and lightly armed. Not all of them possessed a breastplate or shield, but those who lacked them were protected with the skins of goats and sheep, some of them, particularly the Arcadian mountaineers, having the hides of wild beasts, wolves and bears.

  [4.11.4] Each carried several javelins, and some of them spears. While these were in ambush in a part of Ithome where they were least likely to be visible, the heavy-armed troops of the Messenians and their allies withstood the first assault of the Lacedaemonians, and continued after this to show courage in every way. They were inferior in numbers to the enemy, but were picked men fighting against levies, not selected troops like themselves, and so, by their bravery and training were more able to maintain a lengthy resistance.

  [4.11.5] Then the mobile Messenian force, when the signal was given to them, charged the Lacedaemonians and enveloping them threw javelins on their flanks. All who were of higher courage ran in and struck at close quarters. The Lacedaemonians, faced simultaneously with a second and unforeseen danger, were not demoralized, but turning on the light troops, tried to defend themselves. But, as the enemy with their light equipment drew off without difficulty, the Lacedaemonians were filled with perplexity and, as a consequence, with anger.

  [4.11.6] Men are apt to be most annoyed by what they regard as beneath them. So then the Spartans who had already been wounded and all who after the fall of their comrades were the first to meet the attack of the light troops, ran out to meet them when they saw the light troops advancing and hotly extended the pursuit as they retired. The Messenian light troops maintained their original tactics, striking and shooting at them when they stood still, and outstripping them in flight when they pursued, attacking again as they tried to retire.

  [4.11.7] They did this in separate parties and at different points of the enemy’s line. The Messenian heavy-armed and their allies meantime pressed more boldly on the troops facing them. Finally the Lacedaemonians, worn out by the length of the battle and their wounds, and demoralized contrary to their custom by the light troops, broke their ranks. When they had been routed, the light troops inflicted greater damage on them.

  [4.11.8] It was impossible to reckon the Lacedaemonian losses in the battle, but I for my part am convinced that they were heavy. The rest made their retreat homewards without molestation, but for the Corinthians it was likely to be difficult, for whether they tried to retire through the Argolid or by Sicyon, in either case it was through enemy country.

  [4.12.1] XII. The Lacedaemonians were distressed by the reverse that had befallen them. Their losses in the battle were great and included important men, and they were inclined to despair of all hope in the war. For this reason they sent envoys to Delphi, who received the following reply from the Pythia:

  Phoebus bids thee pursue not only the task of war with the hand, but by guile a people holds the Messenian land, and by the same arts
as they first employed shall the people fall.

  [4.12.2] At this the kings and ephors were eager to invent stratagems, but failed. They imitated that deed of Odysseus at Troy, and sent a hundred men to Ithome to observe what the enemy were planning, but pretending to be deserters. A sentence of banishment had been openly pronounced on them. On their arrival Aristodemus at once sent them away, saying that the crimes of the Lacedaemonians were new, but their tricks old.

  [4.12.3] Failing in their attempt, the Lacedaemonians next attempted to break up the Messenian alliance. But when repulsed by the Arcadians, to whom their ambassadors came first, they put off going to Argos. Aristodemus, hearing of the Lacedaemonian intrigues, also sent men to enquire of the god. And the Pythia replied to them:

  [4.12.4]

  The god gives thee glory in war, but beware lest by guile the hated company of Sparta scale the well-built walls, for mightier is their god of war. And harsh shall be the dwellers in the circle of the dancing ground, when the two have started forth by one chance from the hidden ambush. Yet the holy day shall not behold this ending until their doom o’ertake those which have changed their nature.

  At the time Aristodemus and the seers were at a loss to interpret the saying, but in a few years the god was like to reveal it and bring it to fulfillment.

  [4.12.5] Other things befell the Messenians at that time: while Lyciscus was living abroad in Sparta, death overtook the daughter whom he carried with him on his flight from Messene. As he often visited her tomb, Arcadian horsemen lay in wait and captured him. When carried to Ithome and brought into the assembly he urged that he had not departed a traitor to his country, but because he believed the words of the seer that the girl was not his own.

  [4.12.6] His defence did not win credence until the woman who was then holding the priesthood of Hera came into the theater. She confessed that she was the mother of the girl and had given her to Lyciscus’ wife to pass off as her own. “And now,” she said, “revealing the secret, I have come to lay down my office.” She said this because it was an established custom in Messene that, if a child of a man or woman holding a priesthood died before its parent, the office should pass to another. Accepting the truth of her statement, they chose another woman to take her place as priestess of the goddess, and said that Lyciscus’ deed was pardonable.

  [4.12.7] After this, as the twentieth year of the war was approaching, they resolved to send again to Delphi to ask concerning victory. The Pythia made answer to their question:

  To those who first around the altar set up tripods ten times ten to Zeus of Ithome, heaven grants glory in war and the Messenian land. For thus hath Zeus ordained. Deceit raised thee up and punishment follows after, nor would’st thou deceive the god. Act as fate wills, destruction comes on this man before that.

  [4.12.8] Hearing this they thought that the oracle was in their favour and granted them victory; for as they themselves possessed the sanctuary of Zeus of Ithome within the walls, the Lacedaemonians could not forestall them in making the dedication. They set about making tripods of wood, as they had not money enough to make them of bronze. But one of the Delphians reported the oracle to Sparta. When they heard it, no plan occurred to them in public,

  [4.12.9] but Oebalus, a man of no repute in general, but evidently shrewd, made a hundred tripods, as best he might, of clay, and hiding them in a bag, carried nets with them like a hunter. As he was unknown even to most of the Lacedaemonians, he would more easily escape detection by the Messenians. Joining some countrymen, he entered Ithome with them, and as soon as night fell, dedicated these tripods of clay to the god, and returned to Sparta to tell the Lacedaemonians.

  [4.12.10] The Messenians, when they saw them, were greatly disturbed, thinking, rightly enough, that they were from the Lacedaemonians. Nevertheless Aristodemus encouraged them, saying what the occasion demanded, and setting up the wooden tripods, which had already been made, round the altar of the god of Ithome. It happened also that Ophioneus, the seer who had been blind from birth, received his sight in the most remarkable way. He was seized with a violent pain in the head, and thereupon received his sight.

  [4.13.1] XIII. Next, as fate was already inclining towards the conquest of the Messenians, the god revealed to them the future. For the armed statue of Artemis, which was all of bronze, let its shield fall. And as Aristodemus was about to sacrifice the victims to Zeus of Ithome, the rams of their own accord leapt towards the altar, and dashing their horns violently against it were killed by the force of the blow. A third portent befell them. The dogs assembled together and howled every night, and at last fled together to the camp of the Lacedaemonians.

  [4.13.2] Aristodemus was alarmed by this and by the following dream which came to him. He thought that he was about to go forth armed to battle and the victims’ entrails were lying before him on a table, when his daughter appeared, wearing a black robe and showing her breast and belly cut open; when she appeared she flung down what was on the table, stripped him of his arms, and instead set a golden crown on his head and put a white robe about him.

  [4.13.3] Aristodemus, who was already in despair, thought the dream foretold the end of life for him, because the Messenians used to carry out their chiefs for burial wearing a crown and dressed in white garments. Then he received news that Ophioneus the seer could no longer see but had suddenly become blind, as he was at first. Then they understood the oracle, that by the two starting forth from the ambush and again meeting their doom the Pythia meant the eyes of Ophioneus.

  [4.13.4] Then Aristodemus, reckoning up his private sorrows, that to no purpose he had become the slayer of his daughter, and seeing that no hope of safety remained for his country, slew himself upon the tomb of his child. He had done all that human calculation could do to save the Messenians, but fortune brought to naught both his achievements and his plans. He had reigned six years and a few months when he died.

  [4.13.5] The Messenians were plunged into despair, and were even ready to send to the Lacedaemonians to ask mercy, so demoralized were they by the death of Aristodemus. Their pride, however, prevented them from doing this. But they met in the assembly and chose not a king, but Damis as general with absolute power. He selected Cleonnis and Phyleus as colleagues, and even with their present resources made ready to join battle. For he was forced to this by the blockade, and above all by famine and by the consequent terror that they would be destroyed by want.

  [4.13.6] Even then the Messenians were not inferior in courage and brave deeds, but all their generals were killed and their most notable men. After this they held out for some five months, but as the year was coming to an end deserted Ithome, the war having lasted twenty years in all, as is stated in the poems of Tyrtaeus:

  But in the twentieth year they left their rich tilled lands, and fled from out the lofty mountains of Ithome. Tyrtaeus, unknown location.

  [4.13.7] This war came to an end in the first year of the fourteenth Olympiad, when Dasmon of Corinth won the short footrace. At Athens the Medontidae were still holding the archonship as a ten years’ office, Hippomenes having completed his fourth year.

  [4.14.1] XIV. All the Messenians who had ties with Sicyon and Argos and among any of the Arcadians retired to these states, but those who belonged to the family of the Priests and performed the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, to Eleusis. The majority of the common people were scattered in their native towns, as before.

  [4.14.2] The Lacedaemonians first razed Ithome to the ground, then attacked and captured the remaining towns. Of the spoils they dedicated bronze tripods to the god of Amyclae. A statue of Aphrodite stands under the first tripod, of Artemis under the second, of Kore or Demeter under the third.

  [4.14.3] Dedicating these offerings at Amyclae, they gave to the people of Asine, who had been driven out by the Argives, that part of Messenia on the coast which they still occupy; to the descendants of Androcles (he had a daughter, who with her children had fled at his death and come to Sparta) they assigned the part called Hyamia
.

  [4.14.4] The Messenians themselves were treated in this way: First they exacted an oath that they would never rebel or attempt any kind of revolution. Secondly, though no fixed tribute was imposed on them, they used to bring the half of all the produce of their fields to Sparta. It was also ordained that for the funerals of the kings and other magistrates men should come from Messene with their wives in black garments, and a penalty was laid on those who disobeyed.

  [4.14.5] As to the wanton punishments which they inflicted on the Messenians, this is what is said in Tyrtaeus’ poems:–

  Like asses worn by their great burdens, bringing of dire necessity to their masters the half of all the fruits the corn-land bears. Tyrtaeus, unknown location.

  That they were compelled to share their mourning, he shows by the following:–

  Wailing for their masters, they and their wives alike, whensoever the baneful doom of death came upon any. Tyrtaeus, unknown location.

  [4.14.6] In these straits the Messenians, foreseeing no kindness from the Lacedaemonians, and thinking death in battle or a complete migration from Peloponnese preferable to their present lot, resolved at all costs to revolt. They were incited to this mainly by the younger men, who were still without experience of war but were of high spirit and preferred death in a free country, even though slavery might bring happiness in all else.

  SECOND MESSENIAN WAR, HISTORY

  [4.14.7] Of the young men who had grown up in Messenia the best and most numerous were round Andania, and among them was Aristomenes, who to this day is worshipped as a hero among the Messenians. They think that even the circumstances of his birth were notable, for they assert that a spirit or a god united with his mother, Nicoteleia, in the form of a serpent. I know that the Macedonians tell a similar story about Olympias, and the Sicyonians about Aristodama, but there is this difference:

  [4.14.8] The Messenians do not make Aristomenes the son of Heracles or of Zeus, as the Macedonians do with Alexander and Ammon, and the Sicyonians with Aratus and Asclepius. Most of the Greeks say that Pyrrhus was the father of Aristomenes, but I myself know that in their libations the Messenians call him Aristomenes son of Nicomedes. He then, being in the full vigor of youth and courage, with others of the nobles incited them to revolt. This was not done openly at first, but they sent secretly to Argos and to the Arcadians, to ask if they were ready to help unhesitatingly and no less energetically than in the former war.