The Spartans kept their oath. For five hundred years their city continued one of the chief cities of Greece, and their army the most warlike and dreaded of the armies of the earth. As for Lycurgus, his countrymen worshipped him as a god, and imputed to him all that was noble in their institutions and excellent in their laws. But time brings its inevitable changes, and these famous institutions in time decayed, while the people perished from over-strict discipline or other causes till but a small troop of Spartans remained, too weak in numbers fairly to control the Helots of their fields.
In truth, the laws of Lycurgus were unnatural, and in the end could but fail. They were framed to make one-sided men, and only whole men can long succeed. Human nature will have its way, and luxury and corruption crept into Sparta despite these laws. Nor did the Spartans prove braver or more successful in war than the Athenians, whose whole nature was developed, and who were alike great in literature, art, and war.
ARISTOMENES, THE HERO OF MESSENIA.
We have told by what means the Spartans grew to be famous warriors. We have now to tell one of the ancient stories of how they used their warlike prowess to extend their dominions. Laconia, their country, was situated in the southeast section of the Peloponnesus, that southern peninsula which is attached to the remainder of Greece by the narrow neck of land known as the Isthmus of Corinth. Their capital city was anciently called Lacedæmon; it was later known as Sparta. In consequence they are called in history both Spartans and Lacedæmonians.
In the early history of the Spartans they did not trouble themselves about Northern Greece. They had enough to occupy them in the Peloponnesus. As the Romans, in after-time, spent their early centuries in conquering the small nations immediately around them, so did the Spartans. And the first wars of this nation of soldiers seem to have been with Messenia, a small country west of Laconia, and extending like it southward into the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
There were two wars with the Messenians, both full of stories of daring and disaster, but it is the second of these with which we are specially concerned, that in which the hero Aristomenes won his fame. We shall not ask our readers to believe all that is told about this ancient champion. Much of it is very doubtful. But the war in which he took part was historical, and the conquest of Messenia was the first great event in Spartan history.
Now for the story itself. In the first Messenian war, which was fought more than seven hundred years B.C., the leader of the Messenians was named Aristodemus. A quarrel had arisen between the two nations during some sacrifices on their border lands. The Spartans had laid a snare for their neighbors by dressing some youths as maidens and arming them with daggers. They attacked the Messenians, but were defeated, and the Spartan king was slain.
In the war that ensued the Messenians in time found themselves in severe straits, and followed the plan that seems to have been common throughout Grecian history. They sent to Delphi to ask aid and advice from the oracle of Apollo. And the oracle gave them one of its often cruel and always uncertain answers; saying that if they would be successful a virgin of the house of Æpytus must die for her country. To fulfil this cruel behest Aristodemus, who was of that ancient house, killed his daughter with his own hand,—much as Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter before sailing for Troy.