[726] History of the Dorians, i. 7, 10 (note). It seems that Diodorus had given a history of the Messenian wars in considerable detail, if we may judge from a fragment of the last seventh book, containing the debate between Kleonnis and Aristomenês. Very probably it was taken from Ephorus,—though this we do not know.
For the statements of Pausanias respecting Myrôn and Rhianus, see iv. 6. Besides Myrôn and Rhianus, however, he seems to have received oral statements from contemporary Messenians and Lacedæmonians; at least on some occasions he states and contrasts the two contradictory stories (iv. 4, 4; iv. 5, 1).
[727] Pausan. iv. 27, 2-3: Diodor. xv. 77.
[728] See Diodor. Fragm. lib. viii. vol. iv. p. 30: in his brief summary of Messenian events (xv. 66), he represents it as a matter on which authors differed, whether Aristomenes belonged to the first or second war. Clemens Alexand. (Prot. p. 36) places him in the first, the same as Myrôn, by mentioning him as having killed Theopompus.
Wesseling observes (ad Diod. l. c.), “Duo fuerunt Aristomenes, uterque in Messeniorum contra Spartanos bello illustrissimus, alter posteriore, priore alter bello.”
Unless this duplication of homonymous persons can be shown to be probable, by some collateral evidence, I consider it only as tantamount to a confession, that the difficulty is insoluble.
Pausanias is reserved in his manner of giving judgment,—ὁ μέντοι Ἀριστομένης δόξῃ γε ἐμῇ γέγονεν ἐπὶ τοῦ πολέμου τοῦ ὑστέρου (iv. 6). Müller (Dorians, i. 7, 9) goes much too far when he affirms that the statement of Myrôn was “in the teeth of all tradition.” Müller states incorrectly the citation from Plutarch, Agis, c. 21 (see his Note h). Plutarch there says nothing about Tyrtæus: he says that the Messenians affirmed that their hero Aristomenês had killed the Spartan king Theopompus, whereas the Lacedæmonians said, that he had only wounded the king. According to both accounts, then, it would appear that Aristomenês belonged to the first Messenian war, not to the second.
[729] Tyrtæus, Fragm. 6, Gaisford. But Tyrtæus ought not to be understood to affirm distinctly (as Pausanias, Mr. Clinton, and Müller, all think) that Theopompus survived and put a close to the war: his language might consist with the supposition that Theopompus had been slain in the war,—Ὃν δία (Theopompus), Μεσσήνην εἴλομεν εὐρύχορον.
For we surely might be authorized in saying—“It was through Epameinondas that the Spartans were conquered and humbled; or it was through Lord Nelson that the French fleet was destroyed in the last war,” though both of them perished in the accomplishment.
Tyrtæus, therefore, does not contradict the assertion, that Theopompus was slain by Aristomenês, nor can he be cited as a witness to prove that Aristomenês did not live during the first Messenian war; which is the purpose for which Pausanias quotes him (iv. 6).