The Historians' History of the World 03

The poet Tyrtæus was himself engaged on the side of the Spartans in the second war, and it is from him that we learn the few indisputable facts respecting both the first and the second. If the Messenians had never been re-established in Peloponnesus, we should probably never have heard any further details respecting these early contests. That re-establishment, and the first foundation of the city called Messene on Mount Ithome, was among the capital wounds inflicted on Sparta by Epaminondas, in the year B.C. 369,—between three hundred and two hundred and fifty years after the conclusion of the Second Messenian War. The descendants of the old Messenians, who had remained for so long a period without any fixed position in Greece, were incorporated in the new city, together with various helots and miscellaneous settlers who had no claim to a similar genealogy. The gods and heroes of the Messenian race were reverentially invoked at this great ceremony, especially the great hero Aristomenes; and the site of Mount Ithome, the ardour of the newly established citizens, the hatred and apprehension of Sparta, operating as a powerful stimulus to the creation and multiplication of what are called traditions, sufficed to expand the few facts known respecting the struggles of the old Messenians into a variety of details. In almost all these stories we discover a colouring unfavourable to Sparta, contrasting forcibly with the account given by Isocrates in his discourse called Archidamus, wherein we read the view which a Spartan might take of the ancient conquests of his forefathers. But a clear proof that these Messenian stories had no real basis of tradition, is shown in the contradictory statements respecting the prime hero Aristomenes. Wesseling thinks that there were two persons named Aristomenes, one in the first and one in the second war. This inextricable confusion respecting the greatest name in Messenian antiquity, shows how little any genuine stream of tradition can here be recognised.

Pausanias states the First Messenian War as beginning in B.C. 743 and lasting till B.C. 724,—the Second, as beginning in B.C. 685 and lasting till B.C. 668. Neither of these dates rest upon any assignable positive authority; but the time assigned to the first war seems probable, that of the second is apparently too early. Tyrtæus authenticates both the duration of the first war, twenty years, and the eminent services rendered in it by the Spartan king Theopompus. He says, moreover, speaking during the second war, “the fathers of our fathers conquered Messene;” thus loosely indicating the relative dates of the two.

The Spartans (as we learn from Isocrates, whose words date from a time when the city of Messene was only a recent foundation) professed to have seized the territory, partly in revenge for the impiety of the Messenians in killing their king, the Heraclid Cresphontes, whose relative had appealed to them for aid,—partly by sentence of the Delphian oracle. Such were the causes which had induced them first to invade the country, and they had conquered it after a struggle of twenty years. The Lacedæmonian explanations, as given in Pausanias, seem for the most part to be counter-statements arranged after the time when the Messenian version, evidently the interesting and popular account, had become circulated.b

Within the limits of Messenia there was a temple of Diana Limnatis, which was alone common to the Messenians among the Dorians, and to the Lacedæmonians. The Lacedæmonians asserted, that the virgins whom they sent to the festival were violated by the Messenians; that their king, Teleclus, was slain through endeavouring to prevent the injury, and that the violated virgins slew themselves through shame.

The Messenians, however, relate this affair differently; that stratagems were raised by Teleclus against those persons of quality that came to the temple in Messene. For when the Lacedæmonians, on account of the goodness of the land desired to possess Messenia, Teleclus adorned the beardless youths after the manner of virgins, and so disposed them, that they might suddenly attack the Lacedæmonians with their daggers as they were sitting. The Messenians, however, running to their assistance, slew both Teleclus and all the beardless youths. But the Lacedæmonians, as they were conscious that this action was perpetrated by public consent, never attempted to revenge the death of their king. And such are the reports of each party, which every one believes, just as he is influenced by his attachment to each. After this event had taken place, and when one generation had passed away, a hatred commenced between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians.c

FIRST MESSENIAN WAR