[751] Pausan. vi. 12, 2; Strabo viii. p. 355, where the Νέστορος ἀπόγονοι mean the Pylians of Tryphylia.
[752] Respecting the position of the Eleians and Pisatæ during the second Messenian war, there is confusion in the different statements: as they cannot all be reconciled, we are compelled to make a choice.
That the Eleians were allies of Sparta, and the Pisatans of Messenia, and that the contests of Sparta and Messenia were mixed up with those of Elis and Pisa about the agonothesia of the Olympic games, is conformable to one distinct statement of Strabo (viii. pp. 355, 358), and to the passage in Phavorinus v. Αὐγείας, and is, moreover, indirectly sustained by the view given in Pausanias respecting the relations between Elis and Pisa (vi. 22, 2), whereby it clearly appears that the agonothesia was a matter of standing dispute between the two, until the Pisatans were finally crushed by the Eleians in the time of Pyrrhus, son of Pantaleôn. Farther, this same view is really conformable to another passage in Strabo, which, as now printed, appears to contradict it, but which is recognized by Müller and others as needing correction, though the correction which they propose seems to me not the best. The passage (viii. p. 362) stands thus: Πλεονάκις δ᾽ ἐπολέμησαν (Messenians and Lacedæmonians) διὰ τὰς ἀποστάσεις τῶν Μεσσηνίων. Τὴν μὲν οὖν πρώτην κατάκτησιν αὐτῶν φησὶ Τυρταῖος ἐν τοῖς ποιήμασι κατὰ τοὺς τῶν πατέρων πατέρας γενέσθαι· τὴν δὲ δευτέραν, καθ᾽ ἣν ἑλόμενοι συμμάχους Ἠλείους καὶ Ἀργείους καὶ Πισατὰς ἀπέστησαν, Ἀρκάδων μὲν Ἀριστοκράτην τὸν Ὀρχομένου βασιλάα παρεχομένων στρατηγὸν, Πισατῶν δὲ Πανταλεόντα τὸν Ὀμφαλίωνος· ἡνίκα φησὶν αὐτὸς στρατηγῆσαι τὸν πόλεμον τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις, etc. Here it is obvious that, in the enumeration of allies, the Arcadians ought to have been included; accordingly, both O. Müller and Mr. Clinton (ad annum 672 B. C.) agree in altering the passage thus: they insert the words καὶ Ἄρκαδας after the word Ἠλείους, so that both Eleians and Pisatans appear as allies of Messenia at once. I submit that this is improbable in itself, and inconsistent with the passage of Strabo previously noticed: the proper way of altering the passage is, in my judgment, to substitute the word Ἄρκαδας in place of the word Ἠλείους, which makes the two passages of Strabo consistent with each other, and hardly does greater violence to the text.
As opposed to the view here adopted, there is, undoubtedly, the passage of Pausanias (iv. 15, 4) which numbers the Eleians among the allies of Messenia, and takes no notice of the Pisatæ. The affirmation of Julius Africanus (ap. Eusebium Chronic. i. p. 145, that the Pisatæ revolted from Elis in the 30th Olympiad, and celebrated the Olympic games themselves until Ol. 52, for twenty-two successive ceremonies) is in contradiction,—first, with Pausanias (vi. 22, 2), which appears to me a clear and valuable statement, from its particular reference to the three non-Olympiads,—secondly, with Pausanias (v. 9, 4), when the Eleians in the 50th Olympiad determine the number of Hellanodikæ. I agree with Corsini (Fasti Attici, t. iii. p. 47) in setting aside the passage of Julius Africanus: Mr. Clinton (F. H. p. 253) is displeased with Corsini for this suspicion, but he himself virtually does the same thing; for, in order to reconcile Jul. Africanus with Pansanias, he introduces a supposition quite different from what is asserted by either of them; i. e. a joint agonothesia by Eleians and Pisatans together. This hypothesis of Mr. Clinton appears to me gratuitous and inadmissible: Africanus himself meant to state something quite different, and I imagine him to have been misled by an erroneous authority. See Mr. Clinton, F. H. ad. ann. 660 B. C. to 580 B. C.
[753] Plutarch, De Serâ Num. Vind. p. 548; Pausan. iv. 15, 1; iv. 17, 3; iv. 23, 2.
The date of the second Messenian war, and the interval between the second and the first, are points respecting which also there is irreconcilable discrepancy of statement; we can only choose the most probable: see the passages collected and canvassed in O. Müller (Dorians, i. 7, 11, and in Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hellen. vol. i. Appendix 2, p. 257).
According to Pausanias, the second war lasted from B. C. 685-668, and there was an interval between the first and the second war of thirty-nine years. Justin (iii. 5) reckons an interval of eighty years; Eusebius, an interval of ninety years. The main evidence is the passage of Tyrtæus, wherein that poet, speaking during the second war, says, “The fathers of our fathers conquered Messênê.”
Mr. Clinton adheres very nearly to the view of Pausanias; he supposes that the real date is only six years lower (679-662). But I agree with Clavier (Histoire des Premiers Temps de la Grèce, t. ii. p. 233) and O. Müller (l. c.) in thinking that an interval of thirty-nine years is too short to suit the phrase of fathers’ fathers. Speaking in the present year (1846), it would not be held proper to say, “The fathers of our fathers carried on the war between 1793 and the peace of Amiens:” we should rather say, “The fathers of our fathers carried on the American war and the Seven Years’ war.” An age is marked by its mature and even elderly members,—by those between thirty-five and fifty-five years of age.
Agreeing as I do here with O. Müller, against Mr. Clinton, I also agree with him in thinking that the best mark which we possess of the date of the second Messenian war is the statement respecting Pantaleôn: the 34th Olympiad, which Pantaleôn celebrated, probably fell within the time of the war; which would thus be brought down much later than the time assigned by Pausanias, yet not so far down as that named by Eusebius and Justin: the exact year of its commencement, however, we have no means of fixing.
Krebs, in his discussions on the Fragments of the lost Books of Diodorus, thinks that that historian placed the beginning of the second Messenian war in the 35th Olympiad (B. C. 640) (Krebs, Lectiones Diodoreæ, pp. 254-260).