The fifty followers of Aristomenes were killed by the fall, but Aristomenes was saved by the gods. For, so the legend tells, an eagle with wings outspread carried him unhurt to the bottom of the pit.
For three days Aristomenes lay in the cavern surrounded by the dead bodies of his comrades. To escape seemed impossible. But when no hope was left in the heart of the brave man, he noticed something move at the foot of the cave. At once he roused himself to look more closely at the moving object; it was a fox, prowling about in search of food.
In an instant hope was alive in the heart of Aristomenes. If an animal had got into the cave, it was possible for him to get out of it.
Weak though he was for want of food, Aristomenes managed to seize the tail of the fox, and to hold it fast when the animal tried to escape.
Onward the fox struggled, until it reached a narrow hole in the rock. Then Aristomenes let his deliverer go, while he began at once to enlarge the hole.
The next day, to the joy of his countrymen and to the alarm of his enemies, Aristomenes was again in the Messenian fortress.
But there was a traitor in the camp of the Messenians, and one night, soon after the return of their leader, the mountain fortress at Ira was betrayed into the hands of the Spartans.
In the battle that followed, Aristomenes was wounded, but gathering together the bravest of his followers, he made a desperate charge through the lines of the enemy and escaped. Some time after he died in Rome, but it is told that two hundred and fifty years later, he was seen on a battlefield fighting against the Spartans.
The Second Messenian War ended, as had the first, in the triumph of the Spartans, who again treated their prisoners as slaves. In 464 B.C. war again broke out between the Messenians and Sparta. The Spartans were victorious, and the conquered people were driven from Peloponnesus. But in 369 B.C. a great Theban leader called Epaminondas restored freedom to the Messenians, and brought them back again to their own country.
The history of the Messenian War was written by the poet Tyrtaeus, whose songs were sung for many years by the Spartans as they marched to battle.