The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

Chapter VII.

§ 1. Sources of the early history of Peloponnesus. § 2. Quoit of Iphitus, Registers of Victors at the Olympic and Carnean Games, Registers at Sicyon and Argos. § 3. Registers of the Spartan Kings. § 4. Spartan Rhetras, Land-marks. § 5. Lyric Poets, Oral Tradition, and Political Institutions. § 6. Mythical character of Lycurgus. § 7. Lycurgus founder of the sacred armistice of Olympia. § § 8. and 9. Messenian wars: sources of the history of them. § 10. First Messenian war. § 11. Second Messenian war. § 12. Influence in Arcadia obtained by the Spartans. § 13. Limited ascendancy of Argos in Argolis. § 14. Disputes between Argos and Sparta. § 15. Pheidon of Argos. § 16. Further struggles between Argos and Sparta.

1. Before we begin to collect and arrange the accounts extant concerning the early history of Peloponnesus, it will be first necessary to ascertain what are our sources of information respecting the events of this period. For the epic poets, who carried on an uninterrupted series of traditions on the events of the mythical ages, and have thus thrown over this dark period some faint glimmerings which may in many places be condensed into a distinct and useful light, only touch on a few points of the period whose history we are about to examine. On the other hand, indeed, the art of writing was during this time introduced among the Greeks through their intercourse with Asia; but that a long time elapsed before it [pg 143] came into general use, is evident from the almost surprising imperfection of those written documents which have been preserved to us of a date anterior to the 60th Olympiad, in comparison with the great perfection of the works of Grecian art. For this reason, writing was long regarded in Greece as a foreign craft, and letters were considered (for example in the Tean curses) as Phœnician symbols. Nevertheless, these few and scanty registers are the first materials for real history and chronology now extant. As such, the following have been made known to us from Peloponnesus.

2. The Quoit of Iphitus, upon which was inscribed in a circle the formula for proclaiming the sacred armistice of Elis, and in which Iphitus and Lycurgus were mentioned as the founders of it.[529] There is no reason for doubting its genuineness, which was recognised by Aristotle, and the institution which it mentioned was considered by all ancient writers as a real fact.[530] Secondly, the lists of the conquerors at the Olympic games brought down uninterruptedly from the victory of Chorœbus,[531] which always recorded the conquerors in the foot-race, and in later times at least those in the other games.[532] It is probable that they were originally engraved on single pillars, and afterwards collected under the inspection of the Hellanodicæ.[533] Similar catalogues of conquerors in other [pg 144] games, besides the four great ones, were also probably not uncommon, but they were generally inscribed on separate pillars, and were therefore of little use to the historian.[534] The names of the conquerors at the Carnean games at Sparta were also registered, so that Hellanicus was enabled to compose from them a work called Καρνεονῖκαι. The register at Sicyon contained a list of the priestesses of Here at Argos, and the poets and musicians of the games.[535] But this also contained fabulous accounts: for example, the invention of playing and singing on the harp by Amphion. Nor were the catalogues of the priestesses of Here, which were probably kept at Argos, altogether free from fable, as may be perceived from the fragments of Hellanicus's chronological work on these priestesses, which was probably founded on the official catalogues.[536]

3. There were also at Lacedæmon public registers, in which Plutarch found mention of the daughters of Agesilaus;[537] and in those of the earliest times the same author discovered the Pythian oracle concerning Lycurgus,[538] the same that Herodotus refers to in his first book. These doubtless contained the names of all the kings, and probably also the years of their reigns, as far back as Procles, who, according to a statement noticed above, died one year before his [pg 145] brother Eurysthenes.[539] This fact could hardly have been derived from any other source than some national annals, though it is not impossible that it was first transferred to them from oral narrative; in which case, however, it is difficult to understand how tradition, contrary to its general character, preserved dates. It was without doubt from these registers that Charon of Lampsacus, before the time of Herodotus, composed his work entitled, “The Prytanes, or Rulers, of Lacedæmon;”[540] in which he also noticed the sacred offerings and monuments of ancient times.[541] With respect to the chronological labours of Timæus, Polybius[542] says that “this writer compared the ephors with the kings of Lacedæmon from the beginning, and the archons at Athens and priestesses at Argos with the conquerors at the Olympic games, and noted the errors which the cities had made in the registration, even when they only differed by three months.” Eratosthenes and Apollodorus founded their chronology, especially before the Olympiads, upon the same list of the kings;[543] they both nearly agreed in reckoning 327 or 328 years from the expedition of the Heraclidæ to the first Olympiad (776 B.C.),[544] which calculation would have been impossible [pg 146] if the duration of each king's reign had not been known; for if this computation is made by generations, reckoning about three to a century, quite a different number comes out.[545] Lycurgus, however, was placed by Eratosthenes 108 years before the first Olympiad;[546] in which computation he certainly went on the authority of the Quoit of Iphitus; which agrees with the statement of Apollodorus, that Homer, who according to this chronologist flourished 148 years before the first Olympiad, was a contemporary of Lycurgus when the latter was a young man.[547]—It appears, however, that the name of Lycurgus was not preserved in any register of the kings, since in that case it would have been impossible that he should have been called by Herodotus the guardian of his nephew Labotas the Eurysthenid,[548] by Simonides (who lived in great intimacy with king Pausanias)[549] the son of Prytanis and brother of Eunomus the Proclid, and by others the son of Eunomus and guardian of his nephew Charilaus,[550] had there existed any genealogy of [pg 147] him which was sufficiently accredited. Hence we must infer that these catalogues only contained the names of the kings, and not even of the royal guardians or protectors, such as Lycurgus. On the other hand, the variations in the enumeration of the kings are unimportant, being confined to this, that in the pedigree of the Proclidæ Herodotus[551] (or his transcribers) leaves out the name of Soüs, which occurs in all the rest, and, contrary to Pausanias, changes the order of Eunomus and Polydectes. Since the name of Polydectes is entirely wanting in Simonides and Eusebius, it is probable that Polydectes and Eunomus are only different names of the same king; and that Polydectes was the proper name, and Eunomus a title of honour.[552] Upon this hypothesis we obtain the following series of kings of the Proclid line—Prytanis, Polydectes, Charilaus, with tolerable certainty. There must also have been registers of the names and years of the princes of Corinth, and the family of the Bacchiadæ, since no one could have had the boldness to invent them.[553] Indeed there were altogether many [pg 148] pedigrees, particularly of the Heraclidæ: as, for example, of families at Cyrene,[554] and the Ptolemies;[555] their authority, however, could not have been very great; in the latter, indeed, we cannot fail to recognise the unscrupulous hand of Alexandrine flatterers. The ancient chronicles of Elis, which Pausanias saw, appear to have contained complete pedigrees from Oxylus down to Iphitus;[556] although the descendants of the former were not kings. The father of Iphitus was there stated to have been also named Iphitus, in contradiction to the common account.[557]

4. None of these registers appear to have contained anything beyond the names of conquerors at the games (which have seldom any reference to history), and princes with the years of their reigns. If anything more was noted down, it was perhaps here and there an oracle, as those belonging to the history of Sparta in Herodotus,[558] which were without doubt brought by the Pythians to Sparta in writing, at a very early period. To these may be perhaps added some ancient rhetras;[559] under which term the ancient Dorians included all political documents, laws, and treaties. The most ancient instance of the last kind [pg 149] is the treaty between the Eleans and the inhabitants of Heræa, discovered by sir William Gell,[560] the writing of which is so extremely rude as to prove that they were little practised in that art when it was engraved. It is however very doubtful how the Spartan rhetras of Lycurgus were drawn up. By some it has been supposed that they were originally composed in metre, in order to be chanted by the youth of Sparta;[561] but this is contradicted by the certain testimony[562] that Terpander of Antissa, whom the Spartans so highly esteemed, was the first who set these laws to music, and first gave them a metrical and poetical form; and Terpander did not live till after the 26th Olympiad, or 672 B.C.[563] But the rhetra which Plutarch has preserved as the genuine constitutional formula bears a truly archaic character, since it contains a command of the Pythian Apollo to the lawgiver in the infinitive mood, and does not fall into verse. I do not perceive why it might not have been written, as well as the contemporaneous inscription on the Quoit of Iphitus, and the ancient oracles cited by Herodotus; at least we cannot in any other way account for the preservation of the words. The original rhetras, however, were very few, and formed merely the nucleus of a system of laws, more as a help to the memory than as a perfect code; hence the ancients could with propriety say, that Zaleucus was the first who committed laws to writing.[564] The three rhetras, which were preserved besides the former one, were merely [pg 150] certain general formulas, and by no means explicit laws; they had the form of an oracle, as having proceeded from the Pythian god,[565] but were written entirely in prose.[566]

Next in the list of public monuments come the ὅροι, or landmarks of territory. It is well known that we are in possession of such records of a later period, belonging to the sacred territory of the Pythian Apollo (in which earlier surveys of the Amphictyonic Hieromnemons, and ancient inscriptions on boundary-stones are appealed to), belonging to Cretan towns, and likewise to Samos and Priene, in which the inhabitants of Priene cite ancient records, preserved from the time of Bias in the temple of Athene.[567] Historical works were also composed from these memorials.[568] Now there must also have been records of this kind in Peloponnesus, although the inscriptions, by which the Messenians wished to prove [pg 151] to the Romans their original boundary towards Laconia, were evidently not made till after their re-establishment by Epaminondas.[569]

5. These documents, if we were in possession of them, would afford a valuable foundation for an account of the three centuries before regular history begins; but merely an outline, which would require to be filled up from other sources. This might partly be done from the writings of the Lyric poets, who flourished at that time, as Eumelus, Thaletas, Tyrtæus, Alcman, and Terpander;[570] which writers had frequent intercourse with the Spartans, and introduced the events of the time into their poetry to a much greater degree than the epic poets. And in fact we find in the fragments of Tyrtæus and Alcman a lively representation of the feelings and manners of the period. The next source of information is oral tradition, which, though erring continually with regard to names and numbers, yet always relates something essential; and, finally, the political institutions continuing to exist in later times, which had their origin in this period.

These, and no other than these, can have been the means employed by the authors who wrote on the affairs of Laconia, in the century when history was approaching to maturity, such as Hellanicus, Charon, and Herodotus; and either directly or indirectly must have afforded materials to those who treated of the times of Lycurgus during the later age of Greek learning. But how little do we recognise the ancient [pg 152] simplicity and liveliness which characterise all the genuine remains of that time, in the historical style of Ephorus and Hermippus,[571] and their followers. The object of these writers was to assimilate, as much as possible, the notions of antiquity to those of their own time, and to attempt in some way or other to represent every act as proceeding from such motives as would have actuated their own contemporaries. They have with a truly unsparing hand rubbed off the venerable rust of ancient tradition, and, totally mistaking the most powerful springs of action then prevalent, moulded all events of which any records had been preserved, into a connected form more suited to a modern history. It is almost impossible to describe with what unlucky zeal Plutarch, where Lycurgus only embodied in laws the political feelings of his race and nation, ascribes to that legislator plans and views generally unsatisfactory, and often absolutely childish.

6. If now we apply the method above stated to the history of Lycurgus, we shall find that we have absolutely no account of him as an individual person. Tradition very properly represents him as intimately connected with the temple of Delphi (by which the Dorians, and especially the state of Sparta, were at that time entirely led), and with Crete, the earliest civilized state of the Doric race. This connexion was generally represented under the form of a journey to both places; his tomb was also shown both at Cirrha and at Pergamia in Crete. It was easy to imagine that the reforms of Lycurgus were violently [pg 153] opposed, and produced tumults and disturbances.[572] But the story of Alcander putting out one of Lycurgus's eyes (probably a popular tale) is founded on a false explanation of the title of Pallas Optiletis.[573] It was indeed an ancient tradition that he was guardian of a Spartan king; but the common report of this being Charilaus[574] is not quite certain, as we have seen above; and in order to account for both his travels and regency, he was reported to have abdicated the latter in order to avoid suspicion.[575] If we set aside all fictions of this description, which have almost the spirit of a moral tale, like the Cyropædia of Xenophon, there remains very little traditional lore. Of his legislation we will treat hereafter.[576]

7. It is very singular that historians should have mentioned so little of the action of Lycurgus, which comes next in importance to that which has been just discussed;[577] I mean the share that he had in founding the sacred armistice and games at Olympia, which event was without doubt the commencement of a more tranquil state of affairs in Peloponnesus. Lycurgus, as the representative of the Doric race, Iphitus, of the Ætolians and Eleans, and Cleosthenes,[578] the son [pg 154] of Cleonicus of Pisa, the city to which the temple of Olympia properly belonged, and which had not then lost the management of it, in conjunction perhaps with several others, drew up the fundamental law of the Peloponnesian armistice. This contained two heads. First, that the whole territory of the Eleans (who acted as masters of the games, after the expulsion of the Pisatans, every year with more exclusive power) should remain for ever free from hostile inroads and ravages, insomuch that even armed troops were only to be allowed a passage on condition of first laying down their arms;[579] secondly, that during the time of the festival a cessation of arms should also be proclaimed throughout the rest of Peloponnesus. But, since there was little agreement among the individual states in the computation of time, and as the Eleans alone were acquainted with the exact time at which the quadrennial festival came round, and perhaps also in order to make the injunction of the god more impressive, the Eleans always sent feciales round to the different states, “heralds of the season, the Elean truce-bearers of Zeus;”[580] these persons proclaimed the Olympic armistice, first to their own countrymen, and then to the other Peloponnesians: after which time no army was to invade another's territory.[581] The fine which was to have been paid by the Spartans in the Peloponnesian war for having sent [pg 155] out soldiers after this period was two minas for each hoplite, the very sum which by the agreement of the Peloponnesians was required for the ransom of prisoners of war;[582] whence it is evident that the transgressors of the truce were considered as becoming slaves of the god, and were to be ransomed again from him. The decree was pronounced by the tribunal of the temple at Elis, according to the “Olympian law.”[583] The fine was divided between the Eleans and the treasury at the temple of Olympia. To this temple also were paid all penalties incurred by the infraction of treaties;[584] nay, sometimes whole cities were bound to pay a fixed tribute every year to the god.[585] By these and similar laws was the armistice protected, which doubtless was not intended merely to secure the celebration of the games from disturbance, but also to effect a peaceable meeting of the Peloponnesians, and thus to give occasion for the settling of disputes, and the conclusion of alliances. Even in the Peloponnesian war public business was transacted at this assembly.[586] But one chief effect of the Olympian festival appears to have been the production of a more friendly connexion between the Ætolian and Doric races. This fact appears to be established by the tradition that Iphitus introduced the worship of Hercules at Elis, which therefore had previously been peculiar to the Dorians.[587] Apollo, the Doric god, was also at this time regarded as the protector of the sacred armistice of Olympia, as we shall see hereafter.[588]

8. We now proceed immediately to the Messenian wars, since it is hardly possible to find one independent event between the commencement of them and the time of Iphitus. These however are really historical, since we have in Tyrtæus a nearly contemporaneous account of the first, and one actually so of the second. The fragments and accounts of his poems are our principal guides for obtaining a correct knowledge of these transactions. And in these alone many circumstances appear in quite a different light from that in which they are represented in the romance of Pausanias. In the latter, the Spartans only are the aggressors, the Messenians only the subjects of attack; but, if we listen to Tyrtæus, the former also had to fight for their own country. But, since even the ancients possessed few remains of Tyrtæus, and as nearly all the historical part of his poems appears to have come down to us, whence did Pausanias derive his copious narrative, and the details with which he has adorned it? Was it from ancient epic poets? Yet of these there is nowhere any mention: and in general an historical event, if it could not be put into an entirely fabulous shape, like the stories of the origin and foundation of many colonies, lay altogether without the province of the early poetry. It is indeed possible that in the Naupactia, which are referred to for the mythical history of Messenia,[589] some historical notices may have occasionally occurred, perhaps too in the works of Cinæthon and Eumelus: but the ancients, who disliked the labour of compiling a history from scattered fragments, probably gave themselves very little trouble to discover them. On the other hand, [pg 157] there existed a series of traditional legends, whose character announces their high antiquity; thus, that of the Messenians, that Aristomenes had thrice offered a hecatomphonion, or sacrifice for a hundred enemies slain in battle;[590] whether or no of human victims is doubtful.[591] A share in this sacrifice was also performed by Theoclus, who is called an Elean, because he belonged to a family of the Iamidæ, which, as it appears, was settled in Messenia; but this clan, though scattered about in different places, yet always retained their rights at Olympia.[592] The same character may also be perceived in the legend of Aristomenes thrice incurring the danger of death. On the first of these occasions, when thrown into the Ceadas, he was preserved by a fox, the symbol of Messenia; on the second, whilst his guards were asleep, he turned to the fire and burnt in two the cords that bound his limbs,[593] a story more certainly derived from tradition than the love-adventure which supplies its place in Pausanias: the third time however that he fell into the hands of his enemies, they cut open his breast, and found a hairy heart.[594]

9. Traditions of this kind were probably circulating in different forms among the victorious Lacedæmonians,[595] amongst the refugee Messenians in Italy and Naupactus, the subject Messenians who remained in the country, and the other Peloponnesians, when they were recalled into existence by the re-establishment of the Messenian state by Epaminondas. Even before the battle of Leuctra, the Bœotians, on the advice of an oracle, hung up as a trophy the shield of Aristomenes,[596] the device of which was a spread eagle:[597] and when Epaminondas recalled the Messenian fugitives from Italy, Sicily, and even from Libya, and had erected them, with numerous Helots and people collected from various quarters, into a new state,[598] Aristomenes was especially invoked before the foundation of the city.[599] In this manner the ancient traditions were enabled to gain a new footing, and to be developed in a connected form. Several writers now seized upon a subject which had begun to excite so great interest, of whom Rhianus the poet and Myron the prose-writer are known to us.[600] Myron gave an account of the first Messenian war down to the death of Aristodemus; but, in the opinion of Pausanias, utterly regardless whether or no he related falsehood and incredibilities; thus, in the teeth of all tradition, he introduced Aristomenes, [pg 159] the hero of the second war, into the first; and he wrote with an evident bias against Sparta.[601] Rhianus, however, a native of Bena in Crete, celebrated the actions of Aristomenes, in the second war, from the battle near the Great Trench (Μεγάλη Τάφρος), until the end of the war, as Homer had done those of Achilles; and although Pausanias has disproved some of his statements of particular facts from Tyrtæus,[602] yet he has frequently followed him, and especially in the poetical embellishments of his narrative.[603] He never mentions any historians, such as Ephorus, Theopompus, Antiochus, or Callisthenes.[604] Rhianus, however, though he might not have exclusively adopted the Messenian account,[605] yet, as far as we can judge from Pausanias, gave the reins to his fancy, and mixed up many circumstances and usages of later times with the ancient tradition.[606] It is not therefore our intention [pg 160] either to divert the reader with a continued narration of these fictions, at the expense of truth, or fatigue him by a detailed criticism of them, but merely to lay before him the chief circumstances, as they are known with historical certainty.

10. The first war is distinctly stated by Tyrtæus to have lasted nineteen years, and in the twentieth the enemy left their country, and fled from the mountain Ithome.[607] The same authority also gives the time which elapsed between the first and second wars, viz., that the grandfathers were engaged in the first, the grandchildren in the second.[608] The date of the first war is fixed by Polychares, who is stated to have been the author of it,[609] having been conqueror in the race at the [pg 161] 4th Olympiad[610] (764 B.C.); and it agrees well with this date that Eumelus, who was contemporary with Archias the founder of Syracuse (in the 5th Olympiad), composed a poem for free Messenia. Pausanias places the commencement (we know not on what grounds) at Olymp. 9. 2, (743 B.C.) the termination nineteen years later, Olymp. 14. 1. (724 B.C.) The interval between the two wars he states (though on what authority we know not, and contrary to Tyrtæus) to have been thirty-nine years;[611] so that the second would have lasted from Olymp. 23. 4. to Olymp. 28. 1. (or from 685 to 668 B.C.)[612] We shall, however, find hereafter that the date of this war was probably later by several years, though not so late as Diodorus fixed it, according to whom the war began in Olymp. 35. 3.[613] We also know from Tyrtæus that the Spartan [pg 162] king who completed the subjugation of Messenia was Theopompus.[614] Now, with respect to the origin of this war, it may be first traced in the increase of power, which Sparta, before the beginning of the Olympiads, owed to the exertions of its king Teleclus; this prince having succeeded in subduing the neighbouring city of Amyclæ, and in reducing several other Achæan towns to a state of dependence on Sparta.[615] Indeed, if we correctly understand an insulated notice,[616] Teleclus razed the town of Nedon, on the frontiers of Messenia and Laconia,[617] and transplanted its inhabitants to the towns of Pœessa, Echeiæ, and Tragis. Hence arose border wars between the Dorians at Sparta and those at Stenyclarus. The temple of Artemis Limnatis,[618] the possession of which was disputed between the two nations (though its festival was common to both), afforded, as may be discovered from the romance of Pausanias,[619] the immediate ground for the war. For even in the reign of Tiberius the Lacedæmonians supported their claim to this temple by ancient annals and oracles;[620] while the Messenians, on the other hand, brought forward the document already quoted, according to which this temple, together with the whole territory of Dentheleatis, in which it was situated, belonged to them. Dissensions in Messenia must have [pg 163] hastened the breaking out of the war, since it is certain that Hyamia, one of the five provinces of Messenia, was given by the Spartans to the Androclidæ, a branch of the family of the Æpytidæ.[621] The history of the first war contains traces of a lofty and sublime poetical tradition: for example, that Aristodemus, though ready to appease the wrath of the gods by the blood of his own daughter,[622] yet was unable to effect his purpose; that the damsel was put to death in vain; and upon this, recognising the will of the gods that Messenia should fall, and being terrified by portentous omens, he slaughtered himself upon the tomb of his murdered child.[623] The war seems to have been confined chiefly to the vicinity of Ithome, which stronghold, situated in the midst of the country, commanded both the plain of Stenyclarus and that of the Pamisus. The reduction of this fortress necessarily entailed the subjugation of the whole country, and many of the Messenians began to emigrate. With this event the Doric colony of Rhegium is connected. Heraclides of Pontus[624] merely relates, that some Messenians (who happened to be at this time at Macistus in Triphylia, in consequence of the violation of some Spartan virgins) united themselves to the Chalcidian founders of this town (who had been sent out from Delphi). He probably means those Messenians who wished to make a reparation for the violation of the Spartan virgins in the temple of Artemis Limnatis, and were in consequence [pg 164] expelled by their own countrymen.[625] But, according to Pausanias,[626] even this body of Messenians received the district of Hyamia; and the Messenians did not migrate to Rhegium until after the taking of Ithome under Alcidamidas, and again after the second Messenian war under Gorgus and Manticlus, son of Theoclus, one of the Iamidæ.[627] Anaxilas the tyrant (who lived after Olymp. 70) afterwards derived his family from the Messenians,[628] who constituted in general the first nobility of the town of Rhegium.[629]

The establishment of Tarentum is connected with the history of the first Messenian war; but it is wrapped up in such unintelligible fables (chiefly owing perhaps to an ignorance of Lacedæmonian institutions), that all we can learn from them is, that Tarentum was at that time founded from Sparta.[630]

11. In a fragment of Tyrtæus we find some very distinct traces of the condition of the subject Messenians after the first war, which will be separately considered hereafter. The second war clearly broke out in the north-eastern part of the country, on the frontier towards Arcadia, where the ancient towns of Andania and Œchalia were situated. In all probability this tract of country had never been subjugated [pg 165] by the Spartans. Aristomenes, the hero of this war, was born at Andania,[631] from which town he harassed the Spartans by repeated inroads and attacks. In his first march he advanced as far as the plain of Stenyclarus; but after the victory at the Boar's Grave he returned to Andania. But this attempt of the Messenians to recover their independence became of serious importance by the share which the greater part of the states in Peloponnesus took in it. For Strabo,[632] quoting Tyrtæus, states, that the Eleans, Argives, Arcadians, and Pisatans[633] assisted the Messenians in this struggle. The Pisatans were led by Pantaleon the son of Omphalion, who celebrated the 34th Olympiad in the place of the Eleans;[634] which fact enables us accurately to fix the time (644 B.C.).—At the head of the Arcadians was Aristocrates, whom Pausanias calls a Trapezuntian, the son of Hicetas, and mentions [pg 166] his treachery at the battle near the Trench, on the subsequent discovery of which the Arcadians deprived his family of the sovereignty of Arcadia.[635] The same account is also given by Callisthenes,[636] and both writers quote the inscription on a pillar erected near the mountain-altar of Zeus Lycæus in memory of the traitor's detection. Now we know from good authority[637] that Aristocrates was in fact king only of Orchomenus in Arcadia,[638] of which his family was so far from losing the sovereignty, that his son Aristodamus ruled over it, and also over a great part of Arcadia. The date of Aristocrates[639] appears to have been about 680-640 B.C.[640]

The Lacedæmonians were therefore in this war really pressed by an enemy of superior force, a fact alluded to by Tyrtæus. Meanwhile Sparta was assisted by the Corinthians,[641] perhaps by the [pg 167] Lepreatans,[642] and even by some ships of the Samians;[643] but chiefly by Tyrtæus of Aphidnæ, whom an absurd and distorted fable has turned into a lame Athenian schoolmaster. The fact of Sparta seeking a warlike minstrel in Aphidnæ, may be accounted for from its ancient connexions with this borough in Attica, which is said to have been in the hands of the Dioscuri. Whether or not Aphidnæ at that time belonged to Attica, and was subject to Athens, is a question we shall leave undecided; but there does not seem to be any reason for inferring with Strabo, from the passage of Tyrtæus itself, that the whole tradition was false, and that Tyrtæus was a Lacedæmonian by birth,[644] though he doubtless became so by adoption. It is to be regretted that we have very little information concerning the war carried on by Sparta with the rest of [pg 168] the Peloponnesians;[645] but the Messenians at a later period withdrew from Andania towards Eira, which is a mountain-fortress on the Neda, the border-stream towards Arcadia, near the sea-coast. When obliged to retire from this stronghold, they were received first by the Arcadians, their ancient and faithful allies (who, according to the tradition, gave them their daughters in marriage[646]); afterwards the exiles sought an asylum with their kinsmen at Rhegium. Aristomenes himself (if he was not put to death by the Spartans) is said to have died at Rhodes, in the house of the noble family of the Eratidæ.[647]

12. Besides the possession of Messenia, nothing was of such importance to the Spartans as the influence which they gained over the towns of Arcadia. But in what manner these came into their hands is very little known.[648] During the Messenian war Arcadia was always opposed to Sparta. Hence, in the year 659 B.C., the Spartans suddenly attacked and took the town of Phigalea, in a corner of Messenia and Triphylia; but were soon driven out again by the neighbouring Oresthasians.[649] But the place chiefly dreaded [pg 169] by Sparta, as being one of the most powerful cantons in Arcadia, and commanding the principal entrance to Laconia, was Tegea. Charilaus, one of the early kings of Sparta, is said to have been compelled, by the valour of the Tegeate women, to submit to a disgraceful treaty.[650] At a later period also, in the reigns of Eurycrates and Leon the Eurysthenid,[651] Sparta suffered injury from the same state,[652] until it at last obtained the superiority under the next king, Anaxandridas. It was not, however, merely the ingenuity of a mountain-tribe, in protecting and fortifying its defiles, that made victory so difficult to the Spartans; but, although the pass which separates Tegea from Laconia, and even at the present time retains the vestiges of defensive walls, was of great service in repelling invasions from Laconia,[653] yet Tegea was also formidable in the open field from her heavy-armed troops, which in later times always maintained the second place in the allied army of Peloponnesus.[654]

13. Argos never obtained so great authority in Argolis as Sparta did in Laconia, since, in the former country, the Dorians divided themselves into several ancient and considerable towns;[655] and to deprive Dorians of their independence seems to have been [pg 170] more contrary to the principles of that race, than to expel them, as the Spartans did the Messenians. Argos was thus forced to content itself with forming, and being at the head of a league, which was to unite the forces of the country for common defence, and to regulate all internal affairs. An union of this kind really existed, although it never entirely attained its end. It was probably connected with the temple of Apollo Pythaëus, which, as we remarked above, was considered as common to the Epidaurians and Dryopians. An Argive Amphictyonic council is mentioned in the account of the Messenian war,[656] and is evidently not a fiction, although erroneously there introduced. That it still continued to exist in the 66th Olympiad is clear from the fact, that, when the inhabitants of Sicyon and Ægina furnished Cleomenes with ships to be employed against Argos, each town was condemned to pay a fine of 500 talents.[657] These penalties could not have been imposed by Argos as a single town, but in the name of a confederacy, which was weakened and injured by this act. We find that the Eleans could impose similar penalties in the name of the Olympian Zeus.[658] But the very case here adduced shows how refractory was the conduct of the members of this alliance with regard to the measures taken by the chief confederate.

14. To this internal discord were added the continual disputes with Lacedæmon. Herodotus states, [pg 171] that in ancient times (i.e. about the 50th Olympiad, or 580 B.C.) the whole eastern coast of Peloponnesus as far as Malea (comprising the towns of Prasiæ, Cyphanta, Epidaurus Limera, and Epidelium), together with Cythera, and the other islands, belonged to the Argives.[659] According to the account of Pausanias the territory of Cynuria, a valley between two ranges of mountains, on the frontiers of Laconia and Argos, inhabited by a native Peloponnesian race, had been from early times a perpetual subject of contention between the two states. The Lacedæmonians had subdued this district in the reigns of Echestratus and Eurypon.[660] During the reigns of Labotas and Prytanis, the Spartans complained of an attempt of the Argives to alienate the affections of their Periœci in Cynuria:[661] as, however, we know not by what authority this statement is supported, we shall allow it to rest on its own merits. In the reign of Charilaus the Lacedæmonians wasted the territory of Argos.[662] His son Nicander made an alliance with the Dryopians of Asine against Argos. Accordingly this people were expelled by Eratus, the Argive king, from their town,[663] and fled to their allies in Laconia; from whom they obtained, after the end of the first Messenian war, a maritime district, where they built a new Asine, and for a long time preserved their national manners,[664] as well as their connexion with the ancient religious [pg 172] worship of their kinsmen, the inhabitants of Hermione.[665]

15. A clearer point in the Argive and Peloponnesian history is the reign of Pheidon. The accounts respecting this prince having been collected and examined in another work, it is merely necessary to repeat the result.[666] Pheidon the Argive, the son of Aristodamidas, was descended from the royal family of Temenus, the power of which had indeed since the time of Medon, the son of Ceisus, been much diminished, but yet remained in existence for a long time. Pheidon broke through the restrictions that limited his power, and hence, contrary however to the ancient usage of the term, was called a tyrant. His views were at first directed towards making the independent towns of Argolis dependent upon Argos. He undertook a war against Corinth, which he afterwards succeeded in reducing. In all probability Epidaurus, and certainly Ægina, belonged to him; none of the other towns in the neighbourhood were able to withstand the bold and determined conqueror.[667] The finishing stroke [pg 173] of his achievements was manifestly the celebration of the Olympic games, over which he, as descendant of Hercules (the first conqueror at Olympia), after having abolished the Ætolian-Elean Hellanodicæ, presided, in conjunction with the inhabitants of Pisa, the ancient town of Pelops, which at this time, and many centuries after this time, had not relinquished its claims to the management of the festival. This circumstance also enables us to fix with certainty the period of his reign, since, in the Elean registers, the 8th Olympiad was marked as having been celebrated by him (747 B.C.). But it was this usurpation that united the Eleans and Lacedæmonians against him, and thus caused his overthrow. While the undertakings of Pheidon thus remained without benefit to his successors, he has been denounced by posterity as the most rapacious of tyrants in Greece; but, had he succeeded in establishing a permanent state of affairs, he would have received equal honours with Lycurgus. Yet, notwithstanding his failure, some of his institutions survived him, which adorn his memory. He is known to have equalized all weights and measures in Peloponnesus, which before his time were different in each state; he was also the first who coined money. He was enabled to undertake both with the greater success, since the only two commercial towns at that time belonging to Peloponnesus lay in his dominions, viz. Corinth (whence he is sometimes called a Corinthian) and Ægina. According to the most accurate accounts he first stamped silver-money[668] in Ægina (where at that time forges doubtless existed), and, after having circulated these, he consecrated the ancient and [pg 174] then useless bars of metal to Here of Argos, where they were exhibited in later times to strangers.[669]—Many of the most ancient drachmas of Ægina, with the device of a tortoise, perhaps belong to this period, since the Greek coins struck before the Peloponnesian war appear to indicate a progress of many centuries in the art of stamping money. Those however which we have are sufficient to show that the same standard was prevalent throughout Peloponnesus,[670] a difference in weight, measure, and standard not having been introduced till after the Peloponnesian war. This again was a second time abolished by the Achæan league, and an equality of measures restored.[671]

16. After the fall of Pheidon the old dispute with Lacedæmon still continued.[672] In the 15th Olympiad (720 B.C.) the war concerning the frontier territory of Cynuria broke out afresh;[673] the Argives now maintained it for some time,[674] and secured the possession of this district chiefly by the victory at Hysiæ in Olymp. 27. 4. (669 B.C.[675]) And they kept it until the time of Crœsus (Olymp. 58.), when they lost it by the famous battle of the three hundred, in which Othryadas, [pg 175] though faint with his wounds, erected the trophy of victory for Sparta:[676] a history the more fabulous, since it was celebrated by sacred songs at the Gymnopædia.[677] Inconsiderable in extent as was the territory[678] for which so much blood was shed, yet its possession decided which should be the leading power in Peloponnesus. It was not till after this had taken place that Cleomenes, in whose reign the boundary of Lacedæmon ran near the little river Erasinus, was enabled to attack Argos with success.

The power of Argos in the neighbourhood of the city was very insecure and fluctuating. Towards the end of the second Messenian war Argos had conquered the neighbouring town of Nauplia; the Lacedæmonians gave Methone in Messenia to the expelled inhabitants.[679] The temple of Nemea, in the mountains towards Corinth, was, from its situation, the property of the independent Doric town Cleonæ; the Argives took it from them before Olymp. 53. 1. 568 B.C.,[680] [pg 176] and henceforth celebrated the games of Zeus. The Argives however again lost it; and some time before the 80th Olympiad the Cleonæans again regulated the festival,[681] a privilege which they probably did not long retain. It is likely that about 580 B.C. the town of Orneæ, between Argos and Sicyon, which had anciently carried on wars with the latter city, was rendered subject to the former, from which circumstance the Periœci of Argos obtained the general name of Orneatans; to which class the Cynurians also belonged before the battle of Thyrea.[682] But these events properly belong to the period, on the history of which we are now about to enter, and which we will designate in general as the time of the tyrants.