Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

The Lacedæmonian account is that they went to war because Polychares was not given up to them, and because of the murder of Teleclus, and because they were suspected earlier still of having had a hand in the villany of Cresphontes about the lots. But the Messenians contradict what I have already said about Teleclus, and point to the fact that Æpytus the son of Cresphontes was restored by the sons of Aristodemus, which they would never have done had they been at variance with Cresphontes. And they say that they did not give up Polychares to the Lacedæmonians for punishment, because neither would they give up Euæphnus, but they were willing that sentence should be given by the Argives (who were the kinsmen of both) at Amphictyonia, or that the case should be submitted to the Court at Athens called the Areopagus, because that court seemed from ancient times appointed for murder cases. They also say that the Lacedæmonians did not go to war on this account, but in consequence of their ambition plotted against their land and did various things, alleging at one time the condition of Arcadia, at another the state of Argos, for they were never satisfied with slicing off from time to time the territory of both of those people. And they were the first to become friends of the barbarian Crœsus who sent them gifts, at the time when he reduced to slavery all the Greeks in Asia Minor, and all the Dorians that dwelt in the mainland of Caria. And they declare that, when the Phocian leaders plundered the temple at Delphi, the kings at Sparta and other noblemen privately, and the Ephors and senators publicly, had a hand in it. And above all, to shew that the Lacedæmonians would stick at nothing for lucre, they twitted them with their alliance with Apollodorus the tyrant of Cassandrea. Why indeed the Messenians consider this such a bitter taunt, I cannot now discuss: for except that the courage of the Messenians and the length of time they fought differed from the tyranny of Apollodorus, they suffered nearly as much as the people of Cassandrea. These are the causes which each nation assign for the war.

And now an embassy of Lacedæmonians came to demand the extradition of Polychares. The kings of the Messenians however answered the embassy that after deliberation with the people they would send an answer to Sparta, and accordingly after the departure of the embassy they convened the citizens to a general assembly. And different opinions were bandied about; Androcles thought they ought to give up Polychares as having acted impiously and most savagely, Antiochus took the opposite view, and maintained that it would be most distressing if Polychares should suffer before the eyes of Euæphnus, and enumerated the harrowing details of what his punishment would be. And eventually the rival parties of Androcles and Antiochus proceeded to such lengths that they took up arms. However their strife was not long continued, for the party of Antiochus, being far superior in numbers, slew Androcles and the most illustrious of his partizans. And Antiochus being now the only king sent letters to Sparta, to say that he would submit the matter to the arbitration of the courts I have mentioned. But the Lacedæmonians are said to have given no answer to the bearers of these letters. And not many months afterwards Antiochus died, and Euphaes his son succeeded him. And the Lacedæmonians not only sent no herald to proclaim war with the Messenians, nor openly renounced friendship with them, but made their preparations as secretly as possible, and previously bound themselves by oath that neither for length of war (if it should not be decided speedily), nor for reverses (if they should meet with even great ones), would they leave off till they had won Messenia by the fortune of war. After taking this oath they made a night-attack on Amphea, having appointed Alcamenes the son of Teleclus as their General. Amphea is a small town in Messenia but near Laconia, situated on a high hill, and well supplied with water. And in other respects Amphea seemed a very convenient base for their war. So they captured the town, the gates being open and no garrison there, and killed all the Messenians that they took in the town, some even in their beds, and others as they found them sitting as suppliants at the temples and altars of the gods, and only a few escaped. This was the first attack the Lacedæmonians made upon Messenia, in the second year of the ninth Olympiad, in which Xenodocus the Messenian was victor in the race. And at Athens there were not as yet yearly magistrates appointed by lot: for the descendants of Melanthus, who were called Medontidæ, had at first much of their power taken away by the people, and instead of a kingdom their power became limited, and afterwards their authority was definitely restricted to ten years. At the time of the capture of Amphea Æsimides, the son of Æschylus, was in the fifth year of his government over the Athenians.

CHAPTER VI.

But before I write the history of this war, and the actions and sufferings entailed by it upon both parties by Providence, I wish to relate in their order the exploits of Aristomenes the Messenian hero. For this war between the Lacedæmonians and their allies and the Messenians and their mercenaries did not get its name from the attacking force, as the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, but was called the Messenian war from the disasters which befell the Messenians, just as the war at Ilium got called Trojan and not Grecian, so it was in this war, which Rhianus of Bene and Myron of Priene have celebrated, the former in poetry, the latter in prose. Neither of them however have narrated fully the events of the war from beginning to end, but Myron has described the capture of Amphea and its consequences up to the death of Aristodemus, and Rhianus has not touched at all the commencement of the war, but only what eventually happened to the Messenians in consequence of their quarrel with the Lacedæmonians, and he has not described even the whole of this, but only what took place after the battle which they fought at what was called the great trench; and the hero Aristomenes on whose account only I mentioned Rhianus and Myron, and who was the first and foremost in bringing the name of Messene to honour, this hero (I say) has been introduced by Myron into his history, and by Rhianus into his poem, in which Aristomenes is as much lauded as Achilles by Homer in the Iliad. As these two have given such different accounts, I am obliged to accept one of them and not both together. Rhianus appears to me to speak more probably about the age of Aristomenes. But Myron, as one can learn in other particulars and not least in the history of this Messenian war, does not with sufficient accuracy test the truth or at least probability of what he relates. For he states that Aristomenes slew Theopompus, the king of the Lacedæmonians, a little before the death of Aristodemus, whereas we know that Theopompus did not die in battle or in any other way before the end of the war. And in fact Theopompus concluded the war, as the elegiac lines of Tyrtæus bear me out,

‘To our king Theopompus god-beloved,

Through whom we took Messene spacious town.’

Aristomenes therefore in my opinion was in the second Messenian war, and I shall relate in detail all about him when I come to that part of my subject.

Now the Messenians, when they heard all that had happened at Amphea from those who escaped from its capture, convened delegates from all their towns at Stenyclerus. And when the people were gathered together in the assembly, several of those in authority, and last of all the king, exhorted them not to be dejected at the fall of Amphea as if all the war were decided thereby, and not to fear the preparations of the Lacedæmonians as more formidable than their own, for although they had had longer experience in war, yet the Messenians would find necessity a great spur to brave men, and would meet with greater favour from the gods as defending their country, and not commencing hostilities.

CHAPTER VII.

With these words Euphaes dismissed the assembly, and from that time forward kept all the Messenians under arms, compelling those that did not know to learn the art of war, and making those that did practise more frequently than before. And the Lacedæmonians made incursions into Messenia, but did not injure the country inasmuch as they considered it their own, neither did they cut down trees nor pull down houses; but they drove off whatever cattle they found, and carried off the corn and all fruit. They likewise made attacks on some of the towns but took none, inasmuch as they were strongly fortified and carefully guarded, and after much loss they desisted from the attempt, and ceased attacking them. And the Messenians plundered the maritime parts of Laconia, and all the farms in the neighbourhood of Mount Taygetus. And in the 4th year after the capture of Amphea Euphaes, full of zeal from the ardour of the Messenians who were boiling over with rage at the Lacedæmonians, and at the same time thinking their training complete, ordered a march, and bade the slaves follow with wood and all other things necessary for entrenching a camp. And the Lacedæmonians heard from the garrison at Amphea that the Messenians were on the march, and they too marched out to battle. And at a place in Messenia very convenient for a battle, with a deep ravine in front of it, Euphaes drew up the Messenians in battle array, having appointed Cleonnis to the chief command: the cavalry and light-armed troops, which were both less than 500, were under Pytharatus and Antander. And when the two armies engaged the ravine prevented the heavy-armed troops from encountering, though they advanced against one another eagerly and impetuously in their mutual hatred, but the cavalry and the light-armed troops engaged above the ravine, and they were equally matched in numbers and skill, and consequently the battle was evenly poised. But while these were engaged, Euphaes ordered the slaves first to fortify the rear of the army and then the flanks with stockades. And when night overtook them and the battle was stayed, then they fortified also the front of the camp opposite the ravine, so that next day the tactical skill and foresight of Euphaes dawned upon the Lacedæmonians, and they found that they could not fight against the Messenians if they would not come out of their entrenchments, and they despaired of besieging them as they had no siege train.