Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

  [4.15.1] XV. When all their preparations were made for the war, the readiness of their allies exceeding expectation (for now the hatred which the Argives and Arcadians felt for the Lacedaemonians had blazed up openly), they revolted in the thirty-ninth year after the capture of Ithome, and in the fourth year of the twenty-third Olympiad, when Icarus of Hyreresia won the short footrace. At Athens the archonship was now of annual tenure, and Tlesias held office.

  [4.15.2] Tyrtaeus has not recorded the names of the kings then reigning in Lacedaemon, but Rhianos stated in his epic that Leotychides was king at the time of this war. I cannot agree with him at all on this point. Though Tyrtaeus makes no statement, he may be regarded as having done so by the following; there are lines of his which refer to the first war:–

  Around it they fought unceasingly for nineteen years, ever maintaining a stout heart, the warrior fathers of our fathers. Tyrtaeus, unknown location.

  [4.15.3] It is obvious then that the Messenians went to war now in the second generation after the first war, and the sequence of time shows that the kings of Sparta at that time were Anaxander the son of Eurycrates, son of Polydorus, and of the other house Anaxidamus the son of Zeuxidamus, son of Archidamus, son of Theopompus. I go as far as the third in descent from Theopompus, because Archidamus the son of Theopompus died before his father, and the kingdom of Theopompus passed to his grandson, Zeuxidamus. But Leotychides clearly succeeded Demaratus the son of Ariston, Ariston being sixth in descent from Theopompus.

  [4.15.4] In the first year after the revolt the Messenians engaged the Lacedaemonians at a place called Derae in Messenia, both sides being without their allies. Neither side won a clear victory, but Aristomenes is said to have achieved more than it seemed that one man could, so that, as he was of the race of the Aepytidae, they were for making him king after the battle. As he declined, they appointed him general with absolute power.

  [4.15.5] It was the view of Aristomenes that any man would be ready to die in battle if he had first done deeds worthy of record, but that it was his own especial task at the very beginning of the war to prove that he had struck terror into the Lacedaemonians and that he would be more terrible to them for the future. With this purpose he came by night to Lacedaemon and fixed on the temple of Athena of the Brazen House a shield inscribed “The Gift of Aristomenes to the Goddess, taken from Spartans.”

  [4.15.6] The Spartans received an oracle from Delphi that they should procure the Athenian as counsellor. So they sent messengers to Athens to announce the oracle, asking for a man to advise what they must do. The Athenians, who were not anxious either that the Lacedaemonians should add to their possessions the best part of Peloponnese without great dangers, or that they themselves should disobey the god, made their plans accordingly. There was a man Tyrtaeus, a teacher of letters, who was considered of poor intellect and was lame in one foot. Him they sent to Sparta. On his arrival he recited his poems in elegiacs and anapaests to the nobles in private and to all whom he could collect.

  [4.15.7] A year after the fight at Derae, both sides being joined by their allies, they prepared to join battle at the Boar’s Tomb, as it is called. The Messenians had the Eleians and Arcadians and also succors from Argos and from Sicyon. They were joined by all the Messenians who had previously been in voluntary exile, together with those from Eleusis, whose hereditary task it was to perform the rites of the Great Goddesses, and the descendants of Androcles. These indeed were their most zealous supporters.

  [4.15.8] The Corinthians came to fight on the side of the Lacedaemonians, and some of the Lepreans owing to their hatred of the Eleians. But the people of Asine were bound by oaths to both sides. This spot, the Boar’s Tomb, lies in Stenyclerus of Messenia, and there, as is said, Heracles exchanged oaths with the sons of Neleus over the pieces of a boar.

  [4.16.1] XVI. Sacrifice was offered by the seers on both sides before the battle; on the Lacedaemonian side by Hecas, descendant and namesake of the Hecas who had come with the sons of Aristodemus to Sparta, on the Messenian side by Theoclus, who was descended from Eumantis, an Eleian of the house of the Iamidae, whom Cresphontes had brought to Messene. Then in the presence of the seers both sides were spurred by greater ardor for the fight.

  [4.16.2] All showed the zeal that befitted their age and strength, but Anaxander, the Lacedaemonian king, and his Spartan guard above all. On the Messenian side the descendants of Androcles, Phintas and Androcles, and their company tried to acquit themselves like brave men. Tyrtaeus and the chief priests of the Great Goddesses took no part in the action, but urged on the hindmost on their own sides.

  [4.16.3] As to Aristomenes himself he had with him eighty picked men of the Messenians of the same age as himself, each one of them thinking it the highest honor that he had been thought worthy of a place in the troop with Aristomenes. They were quick to understand each other’s movements, especially those of their leader, when he began or contemplated any manoeuvre. They themselves with Aristomenes were at first hard pressed in face of Anaxander and the Lacedaemonian champions, but receiving wounds unflinchingly and slowing every form of desperate courage they repulsed Anaxander and his men by their long endurance and valor.

  [4.16.4] As they fled, Aristomenes ordered another Messenian troop to undertake the pursuit. He himself attacked the enemies’ line where it was firmest, and after breaking it at this point sought a new point of assault. Soon successful here, he was the more ready to assail those who stood their ground, until he threw into confusion the whole line of the Lacedaemonians themselves and of their allies. They were now running without shame and without waiting for one another, while he assailed them with a terror that seemed more than one man’s fury could inspire.

  [4.16.5] There was a wild pear-tree growing in the plain, beyond which Theoclus the seer forbade him to pass, for he said that the Dioscuri were seated on the tree. Aristomenes, in the heat of passion, did not hear all that the seer said, and when he reached the tree, lost his shield, and his disobedience gave to the Lacedaemonians an opportunity for some to escape from the rout. For he lost time trying to recover his shield.

  [4.16.6] The Lacedaemonians were thrown into despair after this blow and purposed to put an end to the war. But Tyrtaeus by reciting his poems contrived to dissuade them, and filled their ranks from the Helots to replace the slain. When Aristomenes returned to Andania, the women threw ribbons and flower blossoms over him, singing also a song which is sung to this day:–

  To the middle of Stenyclerus’ plain and to the hilltop Aristomenes followed after the Lacedaemonians. Unknown.

  [4.16.7] He recovered his shield also, going to Delphi and descending into the holy shrine of Trophonius at Lebadeia, as the Pythia bade. Afterwards he took the shield to Lebadeia and dedicated it, and I myself have seen it there among the offerings. The device on it is an eagle with both wings outspread to the rim. Now on his return from Boeotia having learnt of the shield at the shrine of Trophonius and recovered it, he at once engaged in greater deeds.

  [4.16.8] Collecting a force of Messenians, together with his own picked troop, he waited for night and went to a city of Laconia whose ancient name in Homer’s Catalogue is Pharis, but is called Pharae by the Spartans and neighboring people. Arriving here he killed those who offered resistance and surrounding the cattle started to drive them off to Messene. On the way he was attacked by Lacedaemonian troops under king Anaxander, but put them to flight and began to pursue Anaxander; but he stopped the pursuit when wounded in the buttocks with a javelin; he did not, however, lose the booty which he was driving away.

  [4.16.9] After waiting only for the wound to heal, he was making an attack by night on Sparta itself, but was deterred by the appearance of Helen and of the Dioscuri. But he lay in wait by day for the maidens who were performing the dances in honor of Artemis at Caryae, and capturing those who were wealthiest and of noblest birth, carried them off to a village in Messenia, entrusting them to men of his troop to guard, while he rested for the night.

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bsp; [4.16.10] There the young men, intoxicated, I suppose, and without any self-control, attempted to violate the girls. When Aristomenes attempted to deter them from an action contrary to Greek usage, they paid no attention, so that he was compelled to kill the most disorderly. He released the captives for a large ransom, maidens, as when he captured them.

  [4.17.1] XVII. There is a place Aegila in Laconia, where is a sanctuary sacred to Demeter. Aristomenes and his men knowing that the women were keeping festival there . . . the women were inspired by the goddess to defend themselves, and most of the Messenians were wounded with the knives with which the women sacrificed the victims and the spits on which they pierced and roasted the meat. Aristomenes was struck with the torches and taken alive. Nevertheless he escaped to Messenia during the same night. Archidameia, the priestess of Demeter, was charged with having released him, not for a bribe but because she had been in love with him before; but she maintained that Aristomenes had escaped by burning through his bonds.

  [4.17.2] In the third year of the war, when an engagement was about to take place at what is called The Great Trench, and the Messenians had been joined by Arcadians from all the cities, the Lacedaemonians bribed Aristocrates the son of Hicetas of Trapezus, who was then king and general of the Arcadians. The Lacedaemonians were the first of whom we know to give bribes to an enemy, and the first to make victory in war a matter of purchase.

  [4.17.3] Before the Lacedaemonians committed this crime in the Messenian war in the matter of the treachery of Aristocrates the Arcadian, the decision in battle was reached by valor and the fortune of heaven. Again it is clear that at a later date, when they were lying opposite the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami, the Lacedaemonians bought Adeimantus and other Athenian generals.

  [4.17.4] However in course of time the punishment of Neoptolemus, as it is called, came upon the Lacedaemonians themselves in their turn. Now it was the fate of Neoptolemus the son of Achilles, after killing Priam on the altar of Zeus Herkeios (Of the Courtyard), himself to be slain by the altar of Apollo in Delphi. Thenceforward to suffer what a man has himself done to another is called the Punishment of Neoptolemus.

  [4.17.5] So in the case of the Lacedaemonians, when they were at the height of their power after the destruction of the Athenian fleet, and Agesilaus had already reduced the greater part of Asia, they were unable to capture the whole empire of the Persians but the barbarian overreached them with their own invention, sending money to Corinth, Argos, Athens and Thebes as the result of this bribery the so-called Corinthian war broke out, compelling Agesilaus to abandon his conquests in Asia.

  [4.17.6] Thus it was the purpose of heaven to turn the trick employed by the Lacedaemonians against the Messenians to their own destruction. After receiving the money from Lacedaemon, Aristocrates concealed his plot from the Arcadians for the present, but when they were about to come into action, he alarmed them by saying that they were caught in a difficult place and there would be no means of retreat for them, if defeated, also that the offerings had not been satisfactory. He ordered everyone therefore to take to flight when he gave the signal.

  [4.17.7] When the Lacedaemonians were about to close and the Messenians were occupied on their own front, then Aristocrates withdrew the Arcadians as the battle began, leaving the Messenian left and center without troops. For the Arcadians occupied both positions in the absence of the Eleians from the battle and of the Argives and Sicyonians. To complete his work Aristocrates caused his men to fly through the Messenians.

  [4.17.8] They were amazed at the unexpected state of affairs, and moreover were thrown into confusion by the passage of the Arcadians through their ranks, so that they almost forgot what lay before them; for instead of the advance of the Lacedaemonians they watched the Arcadian retirement, some begging them to stand by them, others cursing them for traitors and scoundrels.

  [4.17.9] It was not difficult for the Lacedaemonians to surround the Messenians thus isolated, and they won without trouble the easiest of victories. Aristomenes and his men held together and tried to check the fiercest of the Lacedaemonian assaults but, being few in number, were unable to render much assistance. So great were the numbers of the people of the Messenians slain that in lieu of their former thoughts of becoming the masters instead of the slaves of the Lacedaemonians they now despaired of safety itself. Among the chieftains killed were Androcles and Phintas, and Phanas after the most glorious resistance. He had previously been victorious in the long foot race at Olympia.

  [4.17.10] Aristomenes collected the Messenian survivors after the battle and persuaded them to desert Andania and most of the other towns that lay in the interior and to settle on Mount Eira. When they had been driven to this spot, the Lacedaemonians sat down to besiege them, thinking that they would soon reduce them. Nevertheless the Messenians maintained their resistance for eleven years after the disaster at the Trench.

  [4.17.11] The length of the siege is proved by these lines of the poet Rhianus, regarding the Lacedaemonians:–

  In the folds of the white mountain were they encamped, for two and twenty winters and green herbs. Rhianus, unknown location.

  He reckons winters and summers, by “green herbs” meaning the green corn or the time just before harvest.

  [4.18.1] XVIII. Settling on Eira and cut off from the rest of Messenia, except in so far as the people of Pylos and Mothone maintained the coastal districts for them, the Messenians plundered both Laconia and their own territory, regarding it now as enemy country. The men taking part in the raids were drawn from all sources, and Aristomenes raised the number of his chosen troop to three hundred.

  [4.18.2] They harried and plundered whatever Lacedaemonian property they could; when corn, cattle and wine were captured, they were consumed, but movable property and men were sold. The Lacedaemonians, as their labours were more profitable to the men at Eira than to themselves, accordingly resolved that Messenia and the neighboring part of Laconia should be left uncultivated during the war.

  [4.18.3] As a result scarcity arose in Sparta, and with it revolution. For those who had property here could not endure its lying idle. Their differences were being composed by Tyrtaeus, when Aristomenes and his troop, starting in the late evening and by rapid movement reaching Amyclae before sunrise, captured and plundered the town, retiring before a force from Sparta could come to its relief.

  [4.18.4] He continued to overrun the country afterwards, until in an engagement with more than half the Lacedaemonian infantry and both the kings he received various wounds while defending himself and was struck on the head by a stone, so that his eyes became dizzy. When he fell a number of the Lacedaemonians closed upon him and took him alive with some fifty of his followers. The Lacedaemonians resolved to fling them all into the Ceadas, into which they throw men punished for the greatest crimes.

  [4.18.5] The rest of the Messenians were killed at once as they fell, but Aristomenes now as on other occasions was preserved by one of the gods. His panegyrists say that, when Aristomenes was thrown into the Ceadas, an eagle flew below him and supported him with its wings, bringing him to the bottom without any damage to his body and without wound. Even from here, as it seems, it was the will of heaven to show him a means of escape.

  [4.18.6] For when he came to the bottom of the chasm he lay down, and covering himself with his cloak awaited the death that fate had surely decreed. But after two days he heard a noise and uncovered, and being by this time able to see through the gloom, saw a fox devouring the dead bodies. Realizing that the beast must have some entrance, he waited for the fox to come near him, and then seized it. Whenever it turned on him he used one hand to hold out his cloak for it to bite. For the most part he kept pace with it as it ran, but over the more difficult ground he was dragged along by it. At last he saw a hole big enough for a fox to get through and daylight showing through it.

  [4.18.7] The fox, when released by Aristomenes, made of presumably, to its earth. But Aristomenes enlarged the hole, which was not large enough to let
him through, with his hands and reached his home at Eira in safety, having undergone a remarkable chance in the matter of his capture, for his courage and prowess were so high that no one would have expected Aristomenes to be made a prisoner. Still more remarkable, and a convincing example of divine assistance, was his escape from the Ceadas.

  [4.19.1] XIX. The Lacedaemonians at once received information from deserters that Aristomenes had returned in safety. Though they thought it as incredible as the news that anyone had risen from the dead, their belief was ensured by the following action on the part of Aristomenes himself. The Corinthians were sending a force to assist the Lacedaemonians in the reduction of Eira.

  [4.19.2] Learning from his scouts that their march discipline was lax and that their encampments were made without precaution, Aristomenes attacked them by night. He slew most of them while the rest were still sleeping, and killed the leaders Hypermenides, Achladaeus, Lysistratus and Sidectus. And having plundered the generals’ tent, he made it clear to the Spartans that it was Aristomenes and no other Messenian who had done this.

  [4.19.3] He also made the sacrifice called the Offering for the hundred slain to Zeus of Ithome. This was an old-established custom, all Messenians making it who had slain their hundred enemies. Aristomenes first offered it after the battle at the Boar’s Tomb, his second offering was occasioned by the slaughter of the Corinthians in the night. It is said that he made a third offering as the result of his later raids.