But although the local traditions make it probable that the ante-Doric rulers of the country dwelt in Amyclæ and Therapne, yet Homer describes Sparta as the residence of the Pelopidæ, transferring, apparently, the circumstances of his own time to an earlier period. Homer sometimes calls Lacedæmon the abode of Menelaus; by Lacedæmon meaning the entire country, and especially the valley round Sparta, which agrees far better with the epithet of “hollow Lacedæmon,” than the district of Amyclæ, which opens down to the sea.[359] Sometimes he expressly mentions Sparta as the city in which Menelaus has fixed his abode.[360]
13. Amyclæ, however, is not the only Achæan city which was not reduced by the Dorians till a late period. Ægys, on the frontiers of Arcadia, is said to have been taken from the Achæans by Archelaus and Charilaus a short time before Lycurgus; Pharis, together with Geronthræ, by Teleclus;[361] and Helos in the plains, near the mouth of the Eurotas, by Alcamenes, the son of Teleclus.[362] So long as these places belonged to the Achæans, the Spartans were shut out from the sea, and surrounded on all sides by the possessions of a different race. It appears, however, that other places besides Sparta were held by the Dorians themselves [pg 105] previously to their obtaining possession of the whole of Laconia; such were, for instance, Bœæ near Malea,[363] and perhaps also Abia on the confines of Messenia.[364] But of the numerous contests which doubtless took place at this period, little information has come down to us, as they just lie between the provinces of mythology and history.
Thus much, however, we may with safety say, that Ephorus is clearly in error when he mentions a division of Laconia made by the Dorians, immediately after their conquest, for the sake of an undisturbed dominion over the country.[365] The same historian further states that “Sparta was reserved by the Dorians as the seat of their own empire; that Amyclæ[366] was granted to Philonomus, who had delivered the country to them by treachery, and that governors were sent into the other four divisions.” Also, that “the principal towns of these four provinces were Las, Epidaurus Limera (or Gytheium), Ægys, and Pharis; of which the first served as the citadel of Laconia,[367] the second as an excellent harbour, the third as a convenient arsenal for the wars with Arcadia, and the fourth as an internal point of union. That the periœci dwelt in these towns, and were [pg 106] dependent upon the Spartans, though without losing their freedom.” This account doubtless suited the historical style of Ephorus; but it does not agree with the isolated but genuine traditions already mentioned.
The division into six provinces is nevertheless, in my opinion, to be considered as an historical fact; only the arrangement could not have been made till a much later period. Of these provinces, the first comprehended the district of the city; the second, the mountain-chain of Taygetus, with the western coast; the third, the Laconian gulf; the fourth, perhaps the modern Zaconia, on the eastern side of the Eurotas; the fifth, the northern frontier; and the sixth, the lower valley of the Eurotas. The reality of such a division is also confirmed by the existence of a similar one in Messenia; which is spoken of by other writers besides Ephorus.[368] For this country is also said to have been divided by Cresphontes, so that Stenyclarus was the habitation of the Dorians and their king, under whose authority were placed the Messenian districts of Pylos, Rhium, Mesola, and Hyamia; of these, Pylos apparently comprehended the whole western coast; Rhium is the promontory of Methone and the neighbouring southern coast; Hyamia may perhaps be the shore of the Messenian bay nearest to the frontiers of Laconia; [pg 107] Mesola signifies the midland district[369] near the Pamisus; and Stenyclarus is the northern plain of Messenia.
14. We have now another instance of the arbitrary manner in which Ephorus composed his history by probable arguments. He proceeds upon the fact that Eurysthenes and Procles, although the founders of Sparta, were not honoured as such (as ἀρχηγέται), that they did not enjoy any divine honour, did not give their name to any tribe, &c. (Now the very first of these statements is false; for Eurysthenes and Procles, according to the native tradition, were not the founders of Sparta, as was shown above.) Hence Ephorus infers that they must have offended the Dorians; and he finds the cause of this offence in the adoption of foreign citizens, through whose assistance they had extended their power. This instance is a sufficient justification for our rejecting the historical system of Ephorus, and neglecting the results which he obtained by it.
There must have been many stories concerning Eurysthenes and Procles current in ancient times which have not come down to us. There was a general tradition of their continual discord; and we know that the military fame of Procles was as great as that of Eurysthenes was insignificant.[370] There is, however, something peculiarly worthy of notice in an incidental remark of Cicero,[371] that Procles died a year before Eurysthenes. Could there have been chronicles of so early a period, or is it possible that tradition [pg 108] should preserve such precise dates? It is also a remarkable statement that the wives of both kings were likewise twin sisters, Lathria and Anaxandra by name, daughters of Thersander king of the Cleonæans, whose descent we mentioned above.[372] Some great heroic actions of Soüs[373] (the “violent”), the son of Procles, were also celebrated in Sparta.[374] It was even said that he had carried on war against the Cleitorians; and it was related, that in the narrow valley of Cleitor, when surrounded by enemies, and oppressed by intolerable thirst, he promised to give up all his conquests, on the condition of himself and his army being allowed to drink from the fountain: that upon this he offered the crown to any one who would abstain from drinking, but, no one being willing to gain it at this price, he moistened himself with water from the fountain, and departed without drinking.[375] But a Spartan king would hardly have ventured, even some centuries afterwards, to lead an army through the hostile territory of Arcadia, to a place at so considerable a distance as Cleitor, leaving behind so many hollow defiles, ravines, and mountains.
15. In the country which from this time forth obtained the name of Messenia,[376] Pylos was before the Doric migration the most important town, whither the family of the Nelidæ had retired from the Triphylian territory.[377] The Dorians under Cresphontes[378] [pg 109] at first seated themselves in the opposite part of the country, at Stenyclarus, in the midland region; they must however have soon pressed so closely upon Pylos, that part of the inhabitants was forced to emigrate. For that many of the noble families, both at Athens and in Asia Minor, came originally from Pylos, is placed out of doubt by the agreement of many national and family traditions; and it is equally certain that they did not leave Peloponnesus long before the Ionic migration. Mimnermus, the most ancient witness to this fact, says that the founders of his native city Colophon came from the Nelean Pylos;[379] i.e., he calls Andræmon, the founder of Colophon, a Pylian; where it almost seems that the poet meant a direct migration from that place. Pylos however (though it is generally considered to have been in the possession of the Dorians from this epoch) probably remained for some time an independent town, with a limited territory; even in the second Messenian war some Nestoridæ went as allies to the Messenians;[380] and, after the defeat of the Messenians, the Pylians and the Methonæans were able to harbour them for a considerable time.[381]
16. Of the internal condition of Messenia we cannot even know so much as of that of Laconia, since, at the cessation of its political existence, its monuments, and even its inhabitants, perished; and thus all means of perpetuating a knowledge of its former state were [pg 110] entirely lost. Yet, setting aside the accounts of Ephorus, there remain some very simple circumstances from which we may form an idea of the condition of the country. It is related, that when Cresphontes was treacherously assassinated, the Arcadians, in conjunction with the kings of Sparta and Ceisus king of Argos, re-established in his place his son Æpytus,[382] who had been brought up with Cypselus the Arcadian, the father of his mother Merope,[383] and who rendered himself so celebrated, that all his descendants were called Æpytidæ. The name of Æpytus is evidently connected with Æpytis, a district on the frontiers of Arcadia and Messenia, near the ancient Andania, the earliest seat of civilization and religious worship in the country. The names of his descendants, Glaucus, Isthmius, Dotades, Sybotas (swine-herd), Phintas (or Φιλητὴς), are in remarkable contrast with those of the Lacedæmonian kings, as Eurysthenes (widely-ruling), Procles (the renowned), Agis (the general), Soüs (the violent), Echestratus (the general), Eurypon (the widely-reigning), Labotas (shepherd of the people), and so forth; for, whilst the latter signify powerful warrior princes, there sounds in the former something peaceable and pastoral. What Pausanias relates of these Messenian princes refers [pg 111] almost exclusively to a peaceful office—viz., the establishment of festivals; the gods also to whom they were consecrated agree with the same general character. Glaucus and Isthmius, we are told, established or promoted the worship of Æsculapius at Gerenia and Pharæ: Sybotas joined to the ancient worship of the great gods at Andania the funeral sacrifices of the hero Eurytus, brought over from the Thessalian to the Messenian Œchalia; and others in the same manner. In fact this Cabirian worship of Demeter at Andania, allied to that prevalent in Attica at Eleusis and Phyla, was one of the most ancient in Peloponnesus, and at that time flourished in Messenia;[384] whereas, according to Herodotus, the Dorians everywhere exterminated the ancient rites of Demeter.[385] Hence also the mystical consecration of Andania was discontinued as long as Messenia was governed by the Spartans, and it fell into oblivion, until many centuries afterwards Epaminondas solemnly re-established it, either from the mere recollection of the inhabitants, or, if the account be true, upon the authority of an inscription on a tin plate found in a brazen urn, containing some obscure words referring to ancient mystic ceremonies.[386]
The re-establishment of Æpytus may, however, have been effected by the threefold alliance of both the princes and nations of Argos, Sparta, and Messenia, by which they guaranteed their respective rights, an alliance of which Plato has preserved a faint, though [pg 112] undoubted trace, marked out in the spirit of his political philosophy.[387]
From the settlements of the Dorians within Peloponnesus, we now turn to those without that peninsula.