CHAPTER XXVIII.
On their return no apprehension was felt by them at first about the Lacedæmonians: for they, being afraid of the Thebans, did not interfere with the rebuilding of Messene, nor the gathering of the Arcadians into one town. But when the Phocian War, otherwise called the Holy War, withdrew the Thebans from the Peloponnese, then the Lacedæmonians pricked up their courage, and could no longer keep their hands off the Messenians. And the Messenians bore the brunt of the war alone, except the assistance they got from the Argives and Arcadians; they also begged for help from the Athenians,—but they replied that they could not join them in an incursion into Laconia, but if the Lacedæmonians were the aggressors and carried the war into Messenia, then they promised that they would not fail them. And eventually the Messenians got the help of Philip, the son of Amyntas, and the Macedonians, and this they say prevented them from participation in the struggle of the Greeks at Chæronea. Not that they would ever have been inclined to take up arms against the Greeks. But after the death of Alexander, when the Greeks commenced a second war against the Macedonians, the Messenians took their part in this, as I have before shewn in my account of Attica. But they did not join the Greeks in fighting against the Galati, as Cleonymus and the Lacedæmonians would not make a treaty with them.
And not long afterwards the Messenians occupied Elis, partly by cunning partly by audacity. The people of Elis in ancient times were the most orderly of all the Peloponnesians, but when Philip the son of Amyntas did all that harm to Greece that we have mentioned, and corrupted by bribes the most influential of the people of Elis, then for the first time in their history the people of Elis took up arms and became factious. And after they had taken the first plunge, they were likely with less reluctance to go into future civil strife, inasmuch as through the Lacedæmonians their policy had been shifted, and they had drifted into civil war. And the Lacedæmonians hearing of the factions at Elis made preparations to assist those who were for their party. And while they were drilling and mobilizing their forces, about 1000 picked men of the Messenians secretly approached Elis, with Lacedæmonian colours on their shields. And when the men in Elis who were friendly to the Spartans saw their shields, they concluded they had come to help them and admitted them within the walls. But when the Messenians got in, in the way I have described, they expelled from the town the Lacedæmonian party, and entrusted the town to their own friends. Their stratagem was Homeric, and the Messenians seem to have imitated Homer for the nonce, for Homer has represented in the Iliad Patroclus wearing the armour of Achilles, and how the Trojans, thinking that Achilles was leading the attack, were thrown into confusion in their van. Other stratagems of war are found in Homer, as when he describes two Greek spies coming to the Trojans by night instead of one, and afterwards a supposed deserter coming to Troy really to spy out the weak points. Moreover he represents those Trojans who were either too young or too old to fight as manning the walls, while those of a suitable age took the field against the Greeks. And those of the Greeks that were wounded gave their armour to other fighting men, that their services too might not be altogether lost. Thus Homer’s ideas have been generally useful to mankind.