CHAPTER II.
Aristomenes.[29]—Hereward le Wake.—Wallace.
Sparta had not long acquired strength under the institutions of Lycurgus, before she discovered that thirst of dominion which distinguished her after–history. The neighbouring state of Messenia was the first to suffer. As usual, it is hard to say which party gave the first provocation; but if the Lacedæmonians were ever in the right, they lost that advantage when, in time of peace, with studied secrecy they bound themselves never to return home until Messenia was conquered; and when, without the formality of a declaration of war, they stormed by night Ampheia, a frontier town, and put the unprepared inhabitants to the sword. Their enterprise succeeded better than its iniquity merited; for after a vigorous and protracted defence Messenia was subdued, and continued in servitude for forty years. At the end of that time a new race had grown up, ignorant of the evils of war, and too high–spirited to bear their degradation tamely. A gallant leader is seldom wanting to gallant men engaged in a good cause; and Aristomenes might serve as a type for all later heroes, whose exploits belong to the debateable ground which lies between truth and fiction. He was a young Messenian of the royal line, according to the report of his countrymen; but other Greeks, with a more unbounded admiration, related that the hero Pyrrhus,[30] son of Achilles, was his father. His valour, at least, did not disgrace his reputed parentage; and, though daring in extremity even to desperation, was not of that blind and foolish kind which hurries unprepared into action, and sacrifices a good cause to the vanity and temerity of its supporters. Before taking the field, he secured the co–operation of Argos and Arcadia, to support and strengthen the eager spirit of his countrymen, and then, with a force entirely Messenian, attacked the Lacedæmonians at a place called Deræ. The event was doubtful; but that a conquered people should meet its masters in battle, and part from them on equal terms, was in itself equivalent to a victory. Aristomenes is said to have performed deeds beyond human prowess, and was rewarded by his grateful countrymen with a summons to the vacant throne. He declined the dignity, but accepted of the power under the title of commander–in–chief.
His next exploit was of a singular and romantic cast, such as would befit a knight of the court of Arthur, or Charlemagne, or the less fabulous, but scarce less romantic era of Froissart, better than it assorts with modern notions of a general’s or a sovereign’s duties. Considering it important to alarm the Spartans, and impress them with a formidable idea of his personal qualities, he traversed Laconia, and entered Sparta by night, which, in obedience to Lycurgus’ precepts, was unwalled and unguarded, to suspend from the temple of Pallas a shield, inscribed “Aristomenes from the Spartan spoils dedicates this to the goddess.”[31] Violence was not offered, and his object, therefore, must have been to win her favour, or at least to alarm the Spartans, lest their protecting deity should be wiled away. It is to be wished that we knew the result of this exploit, of which, unfortunately, no account remains. The year after the battle at Deræ, he again led his countrymen, supported by their allies, into battle, at a place called the Boar’s Tomb; and if upon this occasion fortune favoured the rightful cause, it was again mainly owing to his personal exertions. Supported by a chosen band of eighty men, who gloried in the privilege of risking their lives by the side of Aristomenes, he attacked and broke in detail the choice infantry of Sparta, committing to others the task of routing a disordered enemy, himself ever present where they showed the firmest front; till the Lacedæmonians forgot the precepts of their lawgiver in a hasty flight. Their disorder was complete, but the pursuit was early stopped, either by the prudence of Aristomenes, or the promptitude with which the Spartans availed themselves of local advantages. The latter is probably the real meaning of the following legend. There lay a wild pear–tree in the track of the retreating army; Theoclus, the Messenian seer, warned Aristomenes not to urge the pursuit beyond this tree, for that Castor and Pollux, the tutelary deities of Lacedæmon, were perched upon it. But Aristomenes thought as little of his friend’s advice, as Hector of Polydamas’s warning not to attack the Grecian camp, and was still hard pressing upon the enemy, when suddenly his shield disappeared. The loss of this weapon was esteemed disgraceful, and therefore we can scarcely wonder that even Aristomenes, whose character stood above detraction, should have lost time in a fruitless search, which, if improved to the full, might have broken for ever the power of his country’s oppressor. So great was the loss and dismay of Sparta, that the war was kept alive with difficulty, and that only through the influence acquired by Tyrtæus, who devoted his poetical talents to recruiting the courage and exasperating the hatred of the Lacedæmonians.[32]
The history of this man is somewhat singular. At the beginning of the war, the Lacedæmonians had been directed by the Delphic oracle to send to Athens for an adviser: they did so, and the city, unwilling either to aid in the aggrandizement of a rival, or to disobey the god, thought to extricate itself from the dilemma by making choice of one Tyrtæus, an obscure schoolmaster, halt of one leg, and esteemed to be of mean ability. From the event, a Grecian would have argued in support of the favourite doctrine, that the decrees of fate were inevitable; for to the unknown talents of one so lightly valued did Sparta, upon this and other occasions, owe the favourable issue of the war.
But the reader may be curious to know the fate of Aristomenes’ shield. Applying at Delphi, he was informed that he would find it in the cave of Trophonius,[33] at Lebadeia, in Bœotia, where he afterwards dedicated it, “and I myself have seen it there,”[34] adds Pausanias, lest any doubt should attach to a story which seems to border somewhat on the marvellous. How it came there, we are left to conjecture: and in these days of scepticism and research, may well envy the historian whose readers’ incredulity was so easily overcome. But, with one or two brilliant exceptions, it was sufficient for the Greeks that a story passed current; they cared little to investigate probabilities, or enter upon long and intricate inquiries, which in modern times have been so successfully employed in disentangling the mingled web of truth and fiction. It is curious to mark the importance attached to this miraculous loss. Aristomenes thought it of sufficient consequence to render necessary an immediate journey to Delphi; for we find that, returning from Lebadeia, he renewed the war with his recovered shield, which therefore must have been dedicated at a later period. At first he confined himself to predatory incursions. Returning from “driving a creagh,” in Laconia, he was attacked and wounded, but repelled the assailants; and, on his recovery, projected an attack upon Sparta, which, under such a leader, might have been fatal to an unfortified and unwatched city; but was deterred a second time by the interposition of Castor and Pollux. Turning aside, therefore, to Carya, he carried off a band of Spartan maidens while engaged in a religious ceremony; and on this occasion he showed that a life of warfare had not deadened the kindlier feelings of his heart, by protecting them from the drunken intemperance of his soldiers, even to the death of some who persisted in their disobedience. The captives, according to the custom of the age, were released upon ransom.
Another adventure terminated less happily, in which he attacked a quantity of matrons employed in celebrating the rites of Ceres, with similar views, but with a very different result. Armed only with spits and the implements of sacrifice, they showed the value of their Spartan breeding, animated by religious enthusiasm, in the entire defeat of the marauding party. Aristomenes, beaten down with their torches, was taken prisoner. This might have been an awkward and ill–sounding termination to a life of lofty adventure: many a hero has fallen victim to female wiles; but to be overcome and captured in open war by women armed with spits and staves, is an event not to be matched since the days of the Amazons, either in history or romance. The usual course of events, indeed, was inverted; for love was his deliverer from the dangers in which valour had involved him. Archidamia, the priestess of the goddess, who had been previously enamoured of him, forgot her patriotism, and set him free.
The Arcadians were zealous in the Messenian cause. Unhappily their prince, Aristocrates, proved treacherous, and took bribes from Sparta to betray his trust. “For the Lacedæmonians gave the first example of setting warlike prowess up to sale: prior to the transgression of Lacedæmon, and the treason of Aristocrates, combatants referred their cause to the arbitration of valour, and the fortune which Providence should allot to them. So also did they bribe the Athenian generals at Ægos–Potami:[35] but in the end the poisoned shaft recoiled upon themselves. It was through Persian gold, distributed at Corinth, Argos, Athens, Thebes, that the victorious career of Lacedæmon was stopped at its height, when, the Athenian fleet being destroyed, and a large part of Asia delivered, Agesilaus was compelled by the disturbances of Greece to lead home his victorious army. Thus did the gods turn to their own ruin the fraud which the Lacedæmonians had devised.”[36] Aristocrates kept his own counsel, until the eve of the battle of Megaletaphrus (the great ditch), and then disseminated an opinion among his countrymen that their position was bad, and offered no means of retreat if they were worsted; and, moreover, that the omens were unfavourable: finally, he advised all to betake themselves to flight, so soon as he should give the word. The Arcadians were steady friends to the Messenians, yet, strange to say, they became the abettors of their prince’s baseness, without sharing his reward. They formed the centre and left wing, and the consternation of the Messenians may be imagined, when two–thirds of their army at once deserted them. To complete his treachery, Aristocrates led the flying troops through the Messenians, and threw them into irretrievable confusion; forgetful of the battle, they betook themselves to expostulation and upbraiding of their treacherous allies; and the Lacedæmonians readily surrounded and defeated them with such slaughter, that from the hope of becoming lords of their former masters, they were reduced even to despair of safety. Aristomenes collected from all quarters the scattered remnant of his countrymen, into one new city which he founded on Mount Eira.
By this step they gave up all their territory, except a strip along the coast held by the Pylians and Methonæans. But they were not men to starve peaceably in the neighbourhood of full garners,