CHAPTER XXVI.
And from this time forward their hostility to the Lacedæmonians increased, as they notably shewed in the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians. For they made Naupactus a base against the Peloponnese, and when the Spartans were cut off at Sphacteria some Messenian bowmen from Naupactus assisted the Athenians. But after the reverse of the Athenians at Ægos-potamoi, the Lacedæmonians being masters of the sea drove the Messenians from Naupactus, and some went into Sicily to their kinsmen at Zancle and Rhegium, but most to Libya to the Euesperitæ, who being hard pressed in war by some of the neighbouring barbarians invited in the Greeks as colonists. To them went most of the Messenians under Comon, who had been their General at Sphacteria.
And a year before the Theban victory at Leuctra, the god foretold to the Messenians their return to the Peloponnese. For the priest of Hercules (they say) in Messene at the Sicilian Strait saw in a dream Hercules Manticlus invited in a friendly way by Zeus to Ithome. And among the Euesperitæ Comon dreamt that he had dealings with his dead mother, and that subsequently his mother came to life again. And he hoped as the Athenians were now powerful at sea that they would be restored to Naupactus: and the dream seemed to indicate that Messene would revive. And no long time after came to the Lacedæmonians at Leuctra the disaster that had long been fated: for the concluding words of the oracle given to Aristodemus the king of the Messenians were,
“Do as fate bids: woe comes to all in turn.”
As at that time it was fated for him and the Messenians to be unfortunate, so in after time was it fated for Lacedæmon when her day had come. And now the Thebans after the victory of Leuctra sent messengers to Italy and Sicily and to the Euesperitæ, to recall the Messenians from their wanderings to the Peloponnese. And they gathered together quicker than anyone would have thought, from yearning affection to their fatherland, and from their abiding hate to the Lacedæmonians. And Epaminondas was in doubt what city he should build as a base against the Lacedæmonians, or where he should find a site, for the Messenians would not dwell again at Andania and Œchalia, because they had been so unlucky when they lived there before. As he was in this doubt they say an old man, very like a priest of the mysteries, appeared to him in a vision of the night, and said to him, “My gift to you is universal conquest in war: and when you shall leave this earth I will make your name, O Theban, immortal and ever glorious. But do you in return restore to the Messenians their country and cities, for the wrath of Castor and Pollux towards them is now appeased.” These were his words to Epaminondas, who revealed the dream to Epiteles the son of Æschines, whom the Argives chose as their General and the restorer of Messene. This man was bidden in a dream, in the place where he should find at Ithome an ivy and myrtle tree growing, to dig between them and recover an old woman who was ill and confined there in a brass coffin and already near to death’s door. And Epiteles when day broke went to the appointed place, and dug up a cinerary urn of brass, and took it at once to Epaminondas and narrated his dream, and he told him to remove the lid and see what was in it. And he after sacrifice and prayer to the person who had sent him this dream opened the urn, and found some tin beaten very thin, and rolled up like a book. On it were written the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, and it was in fact what Aristomenes had buried. And they say the person who appeared to Epiteles and Epaminondas in their dreams was Caucon, who formerly came from Athens to Andania to Messene the daughter of Triopas.