CHAPTER VII. THE MESSENIAN WARS OF SPARTA
[ca. 764 B.C.]
That there were two long contests between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians, and that in both the former were completely victorious, is a fact sufficiently attested. And if we could trust the statements in Pausanias,—our chief and almost only authority on the subject,—we should be in a situation to recount the history of both these wars in considerable detail. But unfortunately, the incidents narrated in that writer have been gathered from sources which are, even by his own admission, undeserving of credit, from Rhianus, the poet of Bene in Crete, who had composed an epic poem on Aristomenes and the Second Messenian War, about B.C. 220, and from Myron of Priene, a prose author whose date is not exactly known, but belonging to the Alexandrine age, and not earlier than the third century before the Christian era.
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
In spite of the death of Teleclus, however, the war did not actually break out until some little time after, when Alcamenes and Theopompus were kings at Sparta, and Antiochus and Androcles, sons of Pintas, kings of Messenia. The immediate cause of it was a private altercation between the Messenian Polychares (victor at the fourth Olympiad, B.C. 764) and the Spartan Euæphnus. Polychares having been grossly injured by Euæphnus, and his claim for redress having been rejected at Sparta, took revenge by aggressions upon other Lacedæmonians; the Messenians refused to give him up, though one of the two kings, Androcles, strongly insisted upon doing so, and maintained his opinion so earnestly against the opposite sense of the majority and of his brother, Antiochus, that a tumult arose, and he was slain.
[ca. 750 B.C.]
The Lacedæmonians, now resolving upon war, struck the first blow without any formal declaration, by surprising the border town of Amphea, and putting its defenders to the sword. They further overran the Messenian territory, and attacked some other towns, but without success. Euphaes, who had now succeeded his father Antiochus as king of Messenia, summoned the forces of the country and carried on the war against them with energy and boldness. For the first four years of the war, the Lacedæmonians made no progress, and even incurred the ridicule of the old men of their nation as faint-hearted warriors: in the fifth year, they made a more vigorous invasion, under their two kings, Theopompus and Polydorus, who were met by Euphaes with the full force of the Messenians. A desperate battle ensued, in which it does not seem that either side gained much advantage: nevertheless the Messenians found themselves so much enfeebled by it, that they were forced to take refuge on the fortified mountain of Ithome, and to abandon the rest of the country.[b]
After this battle the affairs of the Messenians were in a calamitous situation. For, in the first place, through the great sums of money which they had expended in fortifying their cities, they had no longer the means of supplying their army. In the next place, their slaves had fled to the Lacedæmonians. And lastly, a disease resembling a pestilence, though it did not infest all their country, greatly embarrassed their affairs. In consequence, therefore, of consulting about their present situation, they thought proper to abandon all those cities which had the most inland situation, and to betake themselves to the mountain Ithome. In this mountain there was a city of no great magnitude, which, they say, is mentioned by Homer in his catalogue:
“And those that in the steep Ithome dwell.”
In this city, therefore, fixing their residence, they enlarged the ancient enclosure, so that it might be sufficient to defend the whole of its inhabitants. This place was in other respects well fortified: for Ithome is not inferior to any of the mountains within the isthmus in magnitude; and besides this, is most difficult of access.
When they were settled in this mountain, they determined to send to Delphos, and consult the oracle concerning the event of the war. Tisis, therefore, the son of Alcis, was employed on this errand; a man who, in nobility of birth, was not inferior to any one, and who was particularly given to divination. This Tisis, on his return from Delphos, was attacked by a band of Lacedæmonians belonging to the guard of Amphea, but defended himself so valiantly that they were not able to take him. It is certain, however, that they did not desist from wounding him, till a voice was heard, from an invisible cause, “Dismiss the bearer of the oracle.” And Tisis, indeed, as soon as he returned to his own people, repeated the oracle to the king, and not long after died of his wounds. But Euphaes, collecting the Messenians together, recited the oracle, which was as follows: “Sacrifice a pure virgin, who is allotted a descent from the blood of the Æpytidæ, to the infernal demons, by cutting her throat in the night: but if the virgin who is led to the altar descends from any other family, let her voluntarily offer herself to be sacrificed.” Such then being the declaration of the god, immediately all the virgins descended from the Æpytidæ awaited the decision of lots: when the lot fell upon the daughter of Lyciscus, the prophet Epebolus told them that it was not proper that she should be sacrificed, because she was not the genuine daughter of Lyciscus: but that the wife of Lyciscus, in consequence of her barrenness, had falsely pretended that this was her daughter.
The Futile Sacrifice of the Daughter of Aristodemus
[ca. 750-725 B.C.]
In the meantime, while the prophet was thus dissuading the people, Lyciscus privately took away the virgin and fled to Sparta. But the Messenians being greatly dejected as soon as they perceived that Lyciscus had fled, Aristodemus, a man descended from the Æpytidæ, and who was most illustrious in warlike concerns and other respects, offered his own daughter as a voluntary sacrifice. Destiny, however, no less absorbs the alacrity of mankind, than the mud of a river the pebbles which it contains. For the following circumstance became a hindrance to Aristodemus, who was then desirous of saving Messene by sacrificing his daughter: A Messenian citizen whose name is not transmitted to us happened to be in love with the daughter of Aristodemus, and was just on the point of making her his wife. This man from the first entered into a dispute with Aristodemus, asserting that the virgin was no longer in the power of her father, as she had been promised to him in marriage, but that all authority over her belonged to him as her intended husband. However, finding that this plea was ineffectual, he made use of a shameful lie in order to accomplish his purpose, and affirmed that he had lain with the girl, and that she was now with child by him. But in the end, Aristodemus was so exasperated by this lie, that he slew his daughter, and having cut open her womb, plainly evinced that she was not with child.
Upon this, Epebolus, who was present, exhorted them to sacrifice the daughter of some other person, because the daughter of Aristodemus, in consequence of having been slain by her father in a rage, could not be the sacrifice to those dæmons which the oracle commanded. In consequence of the prophet thus addressing the people, they immediately rushed forth in order to slay the suitor of the dead virgin, as he had been the means of Aristodemus becoming defiled with the blood of his offspring, and had rendered the hope of their preservation dubious. But this man was a particular friend of Euphaes; and in consequence of this, Euphaes persuaded the Messenians that the oracle was accomplished in the death of the virgin, and that they ought to be satisfied with what Aristodemus had accomplished. All the Æpytidæ, therefore, were of the opinion of Euphaes, because each was anxious to be liberated from the fear of sacrificing his daughter. In consequence of this, the advice of the king was generally received, and the assembly dissolved. And after this they turned their attentions to the sacrifices and festival of the gods.[c]
The war still continued, and in the thirteenth year of it another hard-fought battle took place, in which the brave Euphaes was slain, but the result was again indecisive. Aristodemus, being elected king in his place, prosecuted the war strenuously: the fifth year of his reign is signalised by a third general battle, wherein the Corinthians assist the Spartans, and the Arcadians and Sicyonians are on the side of Messenia; the victory is here decisive on the side of Aristodemus, and the Lacedæmonians are driven back into their own territory. It was now their turn to send envoys and ask advice from the Delphian oracle; and the remaining events of the war exhibit a series, partly of stratagems to fulfil the injunctions of the priestess, partly of prodigies in which the divine wrath is manifested against the Messenians. The king Aristodemus, agonised with the thought that he has slain his own daughter without saving his country, puts an end to his own life. In the twentieth year of the war, the Messenians abandoned Ithome, which the Lacedæmonians razed to the ground: the rest of the country was speedily conquered, and such of the inhabitants as did not flee either to Arcadia or to Eleusis, were reduced to complete submission.
Such is the abridgement of what Pausanias gives as the narrative of the First Messenian War. Most of his details bear the evident stamp of mere late romance: and it will easily be seen that the sequence of events presents no plausible explanation of that which is really indubitable—the result. The twenty years’ war, and the final abandonment of Ithome, are attested by Tyrtæus, and beyond all doubt, as well as the harsh treatment of the conquered. “Like asses worn down by heavy burthens” (says the Spartan poet) “they were compelled to make over to their masters an entire half of the produce of their fields, and to come in the garb of woe to Sparta, themselves and their wives, as mourners at the decease of the kings and principal persons.” The revolt of their descendants, against a yoke so oppressive, goes by the name of the Second Messenian War.
The Hero Aristomenes and the Second Messenian War
[ca. 750-668 B.C.]
Had we possessed the account of the First Messenian War as given by Myron and Diodorus, it would evidently have been very different from the above, because they included Aristomenes in it, and to him the leading parts would be assigned. As the narrative now stands in Pausanias, we are not introduced to that great Messenian hero,—the Achilles of the epic of Rhianus,—until the second war, in which his gigantic proportions stand prominently forward. He is the great champion of his country in the three battles which are represented as taking place during this war: the first, with indecisive result, at Deræ; the second, a signal victory on the part of the Messenians, at the Boar’s Grave; the third, an equally signal defeat, in consequence of the traitorous flight of Aristocrates, king of the Arcadian Orchomenus, who, ostensibly embracing the alliance of the Messenians, had received bribes from Sparta. Thrice did Aristomenes sacrifice to Zeus Ithomates the sacrifice called Hecatomphonia, reserved for those who had slain with their own hands a hundred enemies in battle. At the head of a chosen band he carried his incursions more than once into the heart of the Lacedæmonian territory, surprised Amyclæ and Pharis, and even penetrated by night into the unfortified precinct of Sparta itself, where he suspended his shield, as a token of defiance, in the temple of Athene Chalciœcus. Thrice was he taken prisoner, but on two occasions marvellously escaped before he could be conveyed to Sparta.[b] Pausanias thus describes one of his escapes:
“Aristomenes continued to plunder the Spartan land, nor did he cease his hostilities till, happening to meet with more than half of the Lacedæmonian forces, together with both the kings, among other wounds which he received in defending himself, he was struck so violently on the head with a stone, that his eyes were covered with darkness, and he fell to the ground. The Lacedæmonians, on seeing this, rushed in a collected body upon him, and took him alive, together with fifty of his men. They likewise determined to throw all of them into the Ceadas, or a deep chasm, into which the most criminal offenders were hurled. Indeed, the other Messenians perished after this manner; but some god who had so often preserved Aristomenes, delivered him at that time from the fury of the Spartans. And some who entertain the most magnificent idea of his character, say, that an eagle flying to him bore him on its wings to the bottom of the chasm, so that he sustained no injury by the fall.
“Indeed, he had not long reached the bottom before a dæmon shewed him a passage, by which he might make his escape; for as he lay in this profound chasm wrapped in a robe, expecting nothing but death, he heard a noise on the third day, and uncovering his face (for he was now able to look through the darkness) he saw a fox touching one of the dead bodies. Considering, therefore, where the passage could be through which the beast had entered, he waited till the fox came nearer to him, and when this happened seized it with one of his hands, and with the other, as often as it turned to him, exposed his robe for the animal to seize. At length, the fox beginning to run away, he suffered himself to be drawn along by her, through places almost impervious, till he saw an opening just sufficient for the fox to pass through, and a light streaming through the hole. And the animal, indeed, as soon as she was freed from Aristomenes, betook herself to her usual place of retreat. But Aristomenes, as the opening was not large enough for him to pass through, enlarged it with his hands, and escaped safe to Ira. The fortune, indeed by which Aristomenes was taken, was wonderful, for his spirit and courage were so great, that no one could hope to take him; but his preservation at Ceadas is far more wonderful, and at the same time it is evident to all men that it did not take place without the interference of a divine power.”[c]
[ca. 668 B.C.]
The fortified mountain of Ira on the banks of the river Nedon, and near the Ionian Sea, had been occupied by the Messenians, after the battle in which they had been betrayed by Aristocrates the Arcadian; it was there that they had concentrated their whole force, as in the former war at Ithome, abandoning the rest of the country. Under the conduct of Aristomenes, assisted by the prophet Theoclus, they maintained this strong position for eleven years. At length, they were compelled to abandon it; but, as in the case of Ithome, the final determining circumstances are represented to have been, not any superiority of bravery or organisation on the part of the Lacedæmonians, but treacherous betrayal and stratagem, seconding the fatal decree of the gods. Unable to maintain Ira longer, Aristomenes, with his sons, and a body of his countrymen, forced his way through the assailants, and quitted the country—some of them retiring to Arcadia and Elis, and finally migrating to Rhegium. He himself passed the remainder of his days in Rhodes, where he dwelt along with his son-in-law, Damagetus, the ancestor of the noble Rhodian family, called the Diagorids, celebrated for its numerous Olympic victories.
Such are the main features of what Pausanias calls the Second Messenian War, or of what ought rather to be called the Aristomeneïs of the poet Rhianus. That after the foundation of Messene, and the recall of the exiles by Epaminondas, favour and credence was found for many tales respecting the prowess of the ancient hero whom they invoked in their libations,—tales well-calculated to interest the fancy, to vivify the patriotism, and to inflame the anti-Spartan antipathies, of the new inhabitants,—there can be little doubt. And the Messenian maidens of that day may well have sung, in their public processional sacrifices, how “Aristomenes pursued the flying Lacedæmonians down to the mid-plain of Stenyclarus, and up to the very summit of the mountain.” From such stories, traditions they ought not to be denominated, Rhianus may doubtless have borrowed; but if proof were wanting to show how completely he looked at his materials from the point of view of the poet, and not from that of the historian, we should find it in the remarkable fact noticed by Pausanias: Rhianus represented Leotychides as having been king of Sparta during the Second Messenian War; now Leotychides, as Pausanias observes, did not reign until near a century and a half afterwards, during the Persian invasion.
THE POET TYRTÆUS
[ca. 668-648 B.C.]
To the great champion of Messenia, during this war, we may oppose, on the side of Sparta, another remarkable person, less striking as a character of romance, but more interesting, in many ways, to the historian—the poet Tyrtæus, a native of Aphidnæ in Attica, an inestimable ally of the Lacedæmonians during most part of this second struggle. According to a story—which however has the air partly of a boast of the later Attic orators—the Spartans, disheartened at the first successes of the Messenians, consulted the Delphian oracle, and were directed to ask for a leader from Athens.[b] “At the same time,” Pausanias writes, “the Lacedæmonians received an oracle from Delphos, which commanded them to make use of an Athenian for their counsellor. Hence, when by ambassadors they had informed the Athenians of the oracle, and at the same time required an Athenian as their adviser, the Athenians were by no means willing to comply: for they considered, that the Lacedæmonians could not without great danger to the Athenians take possession of the best part of Peloponnesus; and at the same time, they were unwilling to disobey the commands of the god.
View of Delphi, Seat of the Delphian Oracle
“At last they adopted the following expedient: There was at Athens a certain teacher of grammar, whose name was Tyrtæus, who appeared to possess the smallest degree of intellect, and who was lame in one of his feet. This man they sent to Sparta, who at one time instructed the principal persons in what was necessary for them to do, and at another time instructed the common people by singing elegies to them, in which the praise of valour was contained, and verses called anapæsti.”[c]
[ca. 660-610 B.C.]
This seems to be a colouring put upon the story by later writers, and the intervention of the Athenians in the matter in any way deserves little credit. It seems more probable that the legendary connection of the Dioscuri with Aphidnæ, celebrated at or near that time by the poet Alcman, brought about, through the Delphian oracle, the presence of the Aphidnæan poet at Sparta. Respecting the lameness of Tyrtæus, we can say nothing: but that he was a schoolmaster (if we are constrained to employ an unsuitable term) is highly probable, for in that day, minstrels, who composed and sung poems, were the only persons from whom the youth received any mental training. Moreover, his sway over the youthful mind is particularly noted in the compliment paid to him, in after-days, by king Leonidas: “Tyrtæus was an adept in tickling the souls of youth.” We see enough to satisfy us that he was by birth a stranger, though he became a Spartan by the subsequent recompense of citizenship conferred upon him; that he was sent through the Delphian oracle; that he was an impressive and efficacious minstrel, and that he had, moreover, sagacity enough to employ his talents for present purposes and diverse needs; being able, not merely to reanimate the languishing courage of the baffled warrior, but also to soothe the discontents of the mutinous. That his strains, which long maintained undiminished popularity among the Spartans, contributed much to determine the ultimate issue of this war, there is no reason to doubt; nor is his name the only one to attest the susceptibility of the Spartan mind in that day towards music and poetry. The first establishment of the Carneian festival, with its musical competition, at Sparta, falls during the period assigned by Pausanias to the Second Messenian War: the Lesbian harper, Terpander, who gained the first recorded prize at this solemnity, is affirmed to have been sent for by the Spartans pursuant to a mandate from the Delphian oracle, and to have been the means of appeasing a sedition. In like manner, the Cretan Thaletas was invited thither during a pestilence, which his art, as it is pretended, contributed to heal (about 620 B.C.); and Aleman, Xenocritus, Polymnastus, and Sacadas, all foreigners by birth, found favourable reception, and acquired popularity, by their music and poetry. With the exception of Sacadas, who is a little later, all these names fall in the same century as Tyrtæus, between 660 B.C.-610 B.C. The fashion which the Spartan music continued for a long time to maintain, is ascribed chiefly to the genius of Terpander.
That the impression produced by Tyrtæus at Sparta, therefore, with his martial music, and emphatic exhortations to bravery in the field, as well as union at home, should have been very considerable, is perfectly consistent with the character both of the age and of the people; especially as he is represented to have appeared pursuant to the injunction of the Delphian oracle. From the scanty fragments remaining to us of his elegies and anapæsts, however, we can satisfy ourselves only of two facts: first, that the war was long, obstinately contested, and dangerous to Sparta as well as to the Messenians; next, that other parties in Peloponnesus took part on both sides, especially on the side of the Messenians. So frequent and harassing were the aggressions of the latter upon the Spartan territory, that a large portion of the border-land was left uncultivated: scarcity ensued, and the proprietors of the deserted farms, driven to despair, pressed for a redivision of the landed property in the state. It was in appeasing these discontents that the poem of Tyrtæus, called Eunomia, “Legal Order,” was found signally beneficial. It seems certain that a considerable portion of the Arcadians, together with the Pisatæ and the Triphylians, took part with the Messenians; there are also some statements numbering the Eleans among their allies, but this appears not probable. The state of the case rather seems to have been, that the old quarrel between the Eleans and the Pisatæ, respecting the right to preside at the Olympic games, which had already burst forth during the preceding century, in the reign of the Argeian Pheidon, still continued. The Second Messenian War will thus stand as beginning somewhere about the 33rd Olympiad, or 648 B.C., between seventy and eighty years after the close of the first, and lasting, according to Pausanias, seventeen years; according to Plutarch, more than twenty years.
[ca. 660-580 B.C.]
Many of the Messenians who abandoned their country after this second conquest are said to have found shelter and sympathy among the Arcadians, who admitted them to a new home and gave them their daughters in marriage; and who, moreover, punished severely the treason of Aristocrates, king of Orchomenos, in abandoning the Messenians at the battle of the Trench.
The Second Messenian War was thus terminated by the complete subjugation of the Messenians. Such of them as remained in the country were reduced to a servitude probably not less hard than that which Tyrtæus described them as having endured between the first war and the second. In after-times, the whole territory which figures on the map as Messenia,—south of the river Nedon, and westward of the summit of Taygetus,—appears as subject to Sparta, and as forming the western portion of Laconia. Nor do we hear of any serious revolt from Sparta in this territory until a hundred and fifty years afterwards, subsequent to the Persian invasion—a revolt which Sparta, after serious efforts, succeeded in crushing. So that the territory remained in her power until her defeat at Leuctra, which led to the foundation of Messene by Epaminondas.
Imperfectly as these two Messenian wars are known to us, we may see enough to warrant us in saying that both were tedious, protracted, and painful, showing how slowly the results of war were then gathered, and adding one additional illustration to prove how much the rapid and instantaneous conquest of Laconia and Messenia by the Dorians, which the Heraclid legend sets forth, is contradicted by historical analogy.
The relations of Pisa and Elis form a suitable counterpart and sequel to those of Messenia and Sparta. Unwilling subjects themselves, the Pisatæ had lent their aid to the Messenians, and their king Pantaleon, one of the leaders of this combined force, had gained so great a temporary success, as to dispossess the Eleans of the agonothesia or administration of the games for one Olympic ceremony, in the 34th Olympiad. Though again reduced to their condition of subjects, they manifested dispositions to renew their revolt. These incidents seem to have occurred about the 50th Olympiad, or B.C. 580; and the dominion of Elis over her Periœcid territory was thus as well assured as that of Sparta. The Lacedæmonians, after the close of the Peloponnesian War had left them undisputed heads of Greece, formally upheld the independence of the Triphylian towns against Elis, and seem to have countenanced their endeavours to attach themselves to the Arcadian aggregate, which, however, was never fully accomplished. Their dependence on Elis became loose and uncertain, but was never wholly shaken off.[b]
