Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

  [4.19.4] Now the Lacedaemonians, as the festival of Hyacinthus was approaching, made a truce of forty days with the men of Eira. They themselves returned home to keep the feast, but some Cretan archers, whom they had summoned as mercenaries from Lyctus and other cities, were patrolling Messenia for them. Aristomenes then, in view of the truce, was at a distance from Eira and was advancing somewhat carelessly, when seven of these archers laid an ambush for him. They captured him and bound him with the thongs which they had on their quivers, as evening was coming on.

  [4.19.5] So two of them went to Sparta, bringing the glad news that Aristomenes had been captured. The rest went to one of the farms in Messenia, where there dwelt a fatherless girl with her mother. On the previous night the girl had seen a dream. Wolves brought a lion to their farm bound and without talons; but she herself loosed the lion from his bonds and found and gave to him his talons, and thus it seemed that the wolves were torn in pieces by the lion.

  [4.19.6] And now when the Cretans brought in Aristomenes, the girl realized that the dream of the night had come true, and asked her mother who he was. On learning she was encouraged, and looking intently at him understood what she had been bidden to do. Accordingly she plied the Cretans with wine, and when they were overcome with drunkenness she stole away the dagger of the man who was sleeping most heavily. Then the girl cut the bonds of Aristomenes, and he took the sword and despatched the men. This maiden was taken to wife by Gorgus the son of Aristomenes. Aristomenes gave him to the girl as a recompense for saving his life, for Gorgus had not yet completed his eighteenth year when he wedded her.

  SECOND MESSENIAN WAR, HISTORY CONT.

  [4.20.1] XX. But in the eleventh year of the siege it was fated that Eira should be taken and the Messenians dispersed, and the god fulfilled for them an oracle given to Aristomenes and Theoclus. They had come to Delphi after the disaster at the Trench and asked concerning safety, receiving this reply from the Pythia:

  Whensoever a he-goat drinks of Neda’s winding stream, no more do I protect Messene, for destruction is at hand.

  [4.20.2] The springs of the Neda are in Mount Lycaeus. The river flows through the land of the Arcadians and turning again towards Messenia forms the boundary on the coast between Messenia and Elis. Then they were afraid of the he-goats drinking from the Neda, but it appeared that what the god foretold to them was this. Some of the Greeks call the wild fig-tree olynthe, but the Messenians themselves tragos (he-goat). Now at that time a wild fig-tree growing on the bank of the Neda had not grown straight up, but was bending towards the stream and touching the water with the tips of its leaves.

  [4.20.3] When the seer Theoclus saw it, he guessed that the goat who drinks of the Neda foretold by the Pythia was this wild fig-tree, and that their fate had already come upon the Messenians. He kept it secret from the rest, but led Aristomenes to the fig-tree and showed him that their time of safety had gone by. Aristomenes believed that it was so and that there was no delaying their fate, and made provision such as circumstances demanded.

  [4.20.4] For the Messenians possessed a secret thing. If it were destroyed, Messene would be overwhelmed and lost for ever, but if it were kept, the oracles of Lycus the son of Pandion said that after lapse of time the Messenians would recover their country. Aristomenes, knowing the oracles, took it towards nightfall, and coming to the most deserted part of Ithome, buried it on the mountain, calling on Zeus who keeps Ithome and the gods who had hitherto protected the Messenians to remain guardians of the pledge, and not to put their only hope of return into the power of the Lacedaemonians.

  [4.20.5] After this, as formerly for the Trojans, the beginning of the Messenian misfortunes was in adultery. The Messenians commanded the mountain of Eira and its slopes as far as the Neda, some of them having their dwellings outside the gates. The only deserter that came to them from Laconia was a herdsman, slave of Emperamus, bringing his master’s cattle. Emperamus was a man of repute in Sparta.

  [4.20.6] This herdsman, who kept his cattle not far from the Neda, saw the wife of one of the Messenians, who had their dwellings outside the wall, as she came to draw water. Falling in love with her, he dared to speak with her and seduced her with gifts. Thenceforward he marked the time when her husband went away to mount guard, garrison duty on the acropolis being undertaken by the Messenians in turn. For it was at this point that they were most afraid of the enemy making their way into the town. Whenever he went away, then the herdsman used to visit the lady.

  [4.20.7] Now once when it happened that the turn for duty fell to him and others in the night, it chanced that there was heavy rain, and the Messenians deserted their post. For they were overcome by the density of the rain that streamed from heaven, as there were no battlements or towers erected on the wall owing to the hurried nature of its building; moreover they did not expect the Lacedaemonians even to stir on a moonless night that was so stormy.

  [4.20.8] A few days earlier a merchant from Cephallenia, who was a friend of Aristomenes and was bringing to Eira all that they needed, had been captured by the Lacedaemonians and archers from Aptera, commanded by Euryalus the Spartan; Aristomenes rescued him and recovered all the goods that he was bringing, but had himself been wounded and was unable to visit rounds, as was his custom. This was the main reason that the acropolis was deserted.

  [4.20.9] All of them left their posts and with them the husband of the woman seduced by the herdsman. She was entertaining the herdsman at the time but heard her husband coming and at once hid the man away as quickly as possible. When the husband entered, she treated him with greater affection than ever before and asked him what was the reason of his return. But knowing that she was unfaithful or that the herdsman was in the house, he told her the truth, that owing to the violence of the rain he and all the rest had deserted their post.

  [4.20.10] The herdsman listened to him speaking, and learning the exact position, again deserted from the Messenians to the Lacedaemonians. The Kings were absent at the time from the Lacedaemonian camp, but Emperamus, his master, who was commandant, was conducting the siege of Eira. Coming to him he first begged forgiveness for his crime of deserting and then showed him that now was the time for them to take Eira, recounting everything that he had learnt from the Messenian.

  [4.21.1] XXI. His story seemed to be reliable, and he led the way for Emperamus and the Spartans. Their march was difficult, as it was dark and the rain never ceased. Nevertheless they accomplished it in their eagerness, and arriving before the acropolis of Eira, mounted by raising ladders and in any other way that was possible. Various indications of the trouble that was upon them were given to the Messenians, especially by the dogs barking, not in their usual fashion, but uttering more loud and continuous howls. realizing that the supreme and most desperate crisis had come upon them, they did not wait to collect all their arms but snatched whatever lay ready to the hand of each, to defend the fatherland that alone was left to them of all Messenia.

  [4.21.2] The first to realize that the enemy were within and to go against them were Gorgus the son of Aristomenes, Aristomenes himself, Theoclus the seer and Manticlus his son, and with them Euergetidas a man of high repute in Messenia who had attained to greater honor through his wife for he was wedded to Hagnagora, the sister of Aristomenes. Then the rest, though understanding that they were caught as in a net, nevertheless derived some hope even from their present plight.

  [4.21.3] But Aristomenes and the seer knew that there was no putting off destruction for the Messenians, for they knew the riddle of the oracle which the Pythia had uttered concerning the goat. Nevertheless they would not declare it, and kept it secret from the rest. As they hastened through the city, visiting all, they exhorted those whom they encountered, when they saw that they were Messenians, to be brave men, and summoned from the houses those who still remained.

  [4.21.4] During the night nothing worthy of mention was done on either side; for their ignorance of the ground and the daring of Aristomenes gave pause to the Lacedaemo
nians, while the Messenians had not previously received a watchword from their generals, and the rain would put out torches or any other light that they kindled.

  [4.21.5] When it was day and they could see one another Aristomenes and Theoclus tried to rouse the fury of despair in the Messenians, setting forth all that suited the occasion and reminding them of the valor of the men of Smyrna, how, though an Ionian people, by their valor and courage they had driven out Cyges the son of Dascylus and the Lydians, when they were in occupation of their town.

  [4.21.6] The Messenians, when they heard, were filled with desperate courage, and mustering as they happened to be gathered rushed on the Lacedaemonians. Women too were eager to fling tiles and what they could upon the enemy, yet the violence of the rain prevented them from doing this and from mounting to the house-tops. But they dared to take arms, and they too further inflamed the ardor of the men, when they saw their women preferring to perish with their fatherland rather than be taken as slaves to Lacedaemon, so that they might yet have been able to escape their fate.

  [4.21.7] But the god caused the rain to descend more densely, with loud claps of thunder, and dazzled their eyes with lightning flashing in their faces. All this put courage in the Lacedaemonians, who said that heaven itself was-helping them and as the lightning was on their right, Hecas the seer declared the sign of good omen.

  [4.21.8] It was he who devised the following plan. The Lacedaemonians far outnumbered the Messenians, but as the battle was not being fought on open ground with troops in line, but they were fighting over different quarters of the town, the rearmost of each detachment were rendered useless. Hecas ordered these to retire to the camp, take food and sleep, and return before evening to relieve their own men who were to remain on duty.

  [4.21.9] The Lacedaemonians, by resting and fighting by turns, held out the longer, but the Messenians were faced with difficulties on all sides. They fought continuously day and night until the third day with none to relieve them. When the next day dawned, worn out by lack of sleep and by the rain and cold from heaven, they were assailed by hunger and thirst. The women especially, unaccustomed to war, were exhausted by the continuous suffering.

  [4.21.10] So the seer Theoclus came to Aristomenes’ side and said: “Why vainly maintain this toil? The decree of fate stands fast that Messene should fall; long since the Pythia declared to us the disaster now before our eyes, and lately the fig-tree revealed it. On me the gods have laid one doom with my country, but do thou save the Messenians with what power thou hast and save thyself.” When he had spoken to Aristomenes he rushed upon the enemy, and these were the words that he was constrained to fling at the Lacedaemonians. “Yet not for all time shall you enjoy the fruits of Messenia with impunity.”

  [4.21.11] Then falling upon the men who faced him he killed them and himself was wounded, and having sated his passion with the slaughter of his foes, he breathed his last. But Aristomenes called the Messenians back from the fight, except those who by virtue of their courage were fighting to cover them. These he allowed to remain at their post. The rest he ordered to receive the women and children within their ranks and follow him wherever he should show a passage.

  [4.21.12] He appointed Gorgus and Manticlus to command the rear, he himself ran to the head of the company and by the gestures of his head and movement of his spear signified that he asked a passage and had resolved to depart. Emperamus and the Spartans present were pleased to let the Messenians pass, without further inflaming men who had reached the bounds of frenzy and despair. Moreover Hecas the seer ordered them to act thus.

  [4.22.1] XXII. As soon as the Arcadians heard of the Capture of Eira, they at once ordered Aristocrates to lead them to the rescue of the Messenians or to death with them. But he, being in receipt of bribes from Lacedaemon, refused to lead them, and said that he knew that no Messenian survived for them to help.

  [4.22.2] When they obtained more certain news, that they survived and had been forced to desert Eira, they themselves proposed to receive them at Mount Lycaeus after preparing clothing and food, and sent some of their leading men to comfort the Messenians and also to be their guides on the way. After their safe arrival at Mount Lycaeus, the Arcadians entertained them and treated them kindly in every way, offering to distribute them among their towns and to make a new distribution of their land on their account.

  [4.22.3] But Aristomenes’ grief for the sack of Eira and his hatred of the Lacedaemonians suggested to him the following plan. He chose from the body of the Messenians five hundred men whom he knew to be the most unsparing of themselves, and asked them in the hearing of Aristocrates and the rest of the Arcadians if they were ready to die with him, avenging their country He did not know that Aristocrates was a traitor, for he thought that he had fled from the battle formerly from lack of courage and through cowardice, not for any knavery; so he asked the five hundred in his presence.

  [4.22.4] When they said that they were ready, he revealed the whole plan, that he proposed at all costs to lead them against Sparta during the following evening. For now was the time when the majority of the Lacedaemonians was away at Eira, and others were scouring Messenia for booty and plunder. “If we can capture and occupy Sparta,” said Aristomenes, “we can give back to the Lacedaemonians what is theirs and receive our own. If we fail, we shall die together, having done a deed for posterity to remember.”

  [4.22.5] When he said this, as many as three hundred of the Arcadians were ready to share his enterprise. For the time they delayed their departure, as the victims were unfavorable, but on the following day they learnt that the Lacedaemonians had been forewarned of their secret, and that they themselves had been a second time betrayed by Aristocrates. For Aristocrates had at once written the designs of Aristomenes in a letter, and having entrusted it to the slave whom he knew to be most loyal, sent him to Anaxander in Sparta.

  [4.22.6] As the slave was returning, he was intercepted by some of the Arcadians, who had formerly been at variance with Aristocrates and regarded him then with some suspicion. Having intercepted the slave they brought him before the Arcadians and made known to the people the answer from Lacedaemon. Anaxander was writing that his retreat from the Great Trench formerly had not gone unrewarded on the part of the Lacedaemonians and that he would receive an additional recompense for his information on the present occasion.

  [4.22.7] When this was declared to all, the Arcadians themselves stoned Aristocrates and urged the Messenians to join them. They looked to Aristomenes. But he was weeping, with his eyes fixed on the ground. So the Arcadians stoned Aristocrates to death and flung him beyond their borders without burial, and set up a tablet in the precinct of Zeus Lycaeus with the words:–

  Truly time hath declared justice upon an unjust king and with the help of Zeus hath easily declared the betrayer of Messene. Hard it is for a man forsworn to hide from God. Hail, king Zeus, and keep Arcadia safe.

  [4.23.1] XXIII. All the Messenians, who were captured about Eira or anywhere else in Messenia, were reduced by the Lacedaemonians to serfdom. The people of Pylos and Mothone and all who occupied the maritime district retired in ships on the capture of Eira to Cyllene, the port of the Eleians. Thence they sent to the Messenians in Arcadia, proposing to unite their forces and seek a new country to dwell in, enjoining Aristomenes to lead them to a colony.

  [4.23.2] But he said that while he lived, he would make war on the Lacedaemonians, as he knew well that trouble would always be brewing for Sparta through him, but he gave them Gorgus and Manticlus as leaders. Euergetidas too had retired to Mount Lycaeus with the rest of the Messenians. From there, when he saw that Aristomenes’ plan to seize Sparta had failed, he persuaded some fifty of the Messenians to go back with him to Eira and attack the Lacedaemonians,

  [4.23.3] and coming upon them while they were still plundering, he turned their celebrations of victory to grief. He then met his doom there, but Aristomenes ordered all the Messenians who wished to take part in the colony to join the leaders at Cyllene
. And all took part except those debarred by age or lack of funds for journeying abroad. These remained here with the Arcadians.

  [4.23.4] Eira was taken, and the second war between the Lacedaemonians and Messenians completed in the archonship of Autosthenes at Athens, and in the first year of the twenty-eighth Olympiad, when Chionis the Laconian was victorious.

  [4.23.5] When the Messenians assembled at Cyllene, they resolved to winter there for that season, the Eleians providing a market and funds. With the spring they began to debate where they should go. It was the view of Gorgus that they should occupy Zacynthos off Cephallenia, becoming islanders instead of mainlanders, and raid the coasts of Laconia with their ships and ravage the land. But Manticlus bade them forget Messene and their hatred of the Lacedaemonians, and sail to Sardinia and win an island which was of the largest extent and greatest fertility.

  [4.23.6] Meantime Anaxilas sent to the Messenians and summoned them to Italy. He was tyrant of Rhegium, third in descent from Alcidamidas, who had left Messene for Rhegium after the death of king Aristodemus and the capture of Ithome. So now this Anaxilas summoned the Messenians. When they came, he said that the people of Zancle were at war with him, and that they possessed a prosperous land and city well placed in Sicily; and these he said he was ready to give them and help them to conquer. When they accepted the proposal, Anaxilas then transported them to Sicily.

  [4.23.7] Zancle was originally occupied by pirates, who, as the land was uninhabited, walled off the harbor and used it as a base for their raids and cruises. Their leaders were Crataemenes a Samian and Perieres of Chalcis. Later Perieres and Crataemenes resolved to introduce other Greek settlers.

  [4.23.8] Anaxilas defeated the Zanclaeans, when they put to sea to oppose him, and the Messenians did the like by land, and the Zanclaeans, blockaded on land by the Messenians and from the sea by the fleet of the Rhegines, when their wall was carried, fled for refuge to the altars of the gods and to the temples. Anaxilas, however, advised the Messenians to put to death the suppliant Zanclaeans and to enslave the rest together with the women and children.