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Contents of the Fifteenth Book of Diodorus
chapter 1chapter 2chapter 3chapter 4chapter 5chapter 6chapter 7chapter 8chapter 9chapter 10chapter 11chapter 12chapter 13chapter 14chapter 15chapter 16chapter 17chapter 18chapter 19chapter 20chapter 21chapter 22chapter 23chapter 24chapter 25chapter 26chapter 27chapter 28chapter 29chapter 30chapter 31chapter 32chapter 33chapter 34chapter 35chapter 36chapter 37chapter 38chapter 39chapter 40chapter 41chapter 42chapter 43chapter 44chapter 45chapter 46chapter 47chapter 48chapter 49chapter 50chapter 51chapter 52chapter 53chapter 54chapter 55chapter 56chapter 57chapter 58chapter 59chapter 60chapter 61chapter 62chapter 63chapter 64chapter 65chapter 66chapter 67chapter 68chapter 69chapter 70chapter 71chapter 72chapter 73chapter 74chapter 75chapter 76chapter 77chapter 78chapter 79chapter 80chapter 81chapter 82chapter 83chapter 84chapter 85chapter 86chapter 87chapter 88chapter 89chapter 90chapter 91chapter 92chapter 93chapter 94chapter 95
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Now Epameinondas, whose
nature it was to aim at great enterprises and to crave everlasting fame, counselled the
Arcadians and his other allies to resettle Messene, which for many years had remained stripped
of its inhabitants by the Lacedaemonians, for it occupied a position well suited for operations
against Sparta. When they all concurred, he sought out the remnants of the Messenians, and
registering as citizens any others who so wished he founded Messene again, making it a populous
city. Among them he divided the land, and reconstructing its buildings restored a notable Greek
city and gained the widespread approbation of all men.1
[2]
Here I think it not unsuitable,
since Messene has so often been captured and razed, to recapitulate its history2 from the beginning.
In ancient times the line of Neleus and Nestor3 held it down to Trojan
times; then Orestes, Agamemnon's son, and his descendants down to the return of the
Heracleidae4; following
which Cresphontes5 received Messene as his portion and his line ruled it for a
time; but later when Cresphontes' descendants had lost the kingship, the Lacedaemonians became
masters of it.
[3]
After this, at the death of the Lacedaemonian
king Teleclus,6 the Messenians were defeated in a war by the Lacedaemonians.
This war is said to have lasted twenty years, for the Lacedaemonians had taken an oath not to
return to Sparta unless they should have captured Messene. Then it was that the children called
partheniae7 were born and founded the city of
Tarentum. Later, however, while the Messenians were in slavery to the Lacedaemonians,
Aristomenes8 persuaded the Messenians
to revolt from the Spartans, and he inflicted many defeats upon the Spartans at the time when
the poet Tyrtaeus9
was given by the Athenians as a leader to Sparta.
[4]
Some say
that Aristomenes lived during the twenty-year war. The last war10 between them was on the occasion of a great earthquake; practically all Sparta
was destroyed and left bare of men, and the remnants of the Messenians settled Ithome with the
aid of the Helots who joined the revolt, after Messene had for a long time been desolate.
[5]
But when they were unsuccessful in all their wars and were
finally driven from their homes, they settled in Naupactus,11 a city which the Athenians had given them for an
abode. Furthermore some of their number were exiled to Cephallenia, while others settled in
Messana12 in Sicily, which was named after them.
[6]
Finally at the time under discussion the Thebans, at the instigation of
Epameinondas, who gathered together the Messenians from all quarters, settled Messene and
restored their ancient land to them.Such then were the many
important vicissitudes of Messenian history.
1 See Plut. Pelopidas 24.5, Plut. Agesilaus 34.1; Paus. 4.26-27; Paus. 9.14.5; Isoc. 6.28. Apparently Xenophon, the Spartophile, could not bring himself to mention the refounding of Messene.
2 A brief account of the early history of Messene and Sparta is to be found in Holm, The History of Greece, 1.193-201. See also Wade-Gery, Cambridge Ancient History, 3.537-539, 548, 557-560.
3 Chieftains of Pylos on the coast. Cp. Book 4.68.6; and Pausanias, 4.3.1.
4 The so-called children of Heracles who formed the second wave of Dorian invasion in the Peloponnese (cp. Book 4.57 f).
5 A Heraclid who favoured the early inhabitants of Messene and was slain by the Dorians. He was introduced with his son Aepytus as a hero by Epameinondas according to Paus. 4.27.6. See Strabo 8.4.7.
6 A king of the Agid line. First Messenian War, 743-723 B.C. See Paus. 3.2.6; Paus. 4.4.2, 31.3 and Strabo 6.3.3.
7 From the union of Spartan "maidens" (hence παρθένιαι) with men left behind at Sparta while the bulk of the Spartiatae were fighting in Messene. They settled Tarentum 708 B.C. See Strabo 6.3-4.
8 Messenian hero of the Second Messenian War, 685-668 B.C.
9 Fragments of his marching songs and his poem on good government (Εὐνομία) are collected in Edmunds, Elegy and Iambus, 1.58 ff., L.C.L. See Book 8.27.2. Schmid-Stählin, Gr. Litt.-Gesch. 1.1.358 ff., doubt if a poet came out of Athens or Sparta at this period but think it quite possible that Tyrtaeus came from Miletus (cp. Suidas, Lexicon, s.v. Λάκων ἢ Μιλήσιος) along with other poets that came to Sparta from the more forward regions of Asia Minor and the islands. For other notices of his life see Edmunds, ibid. 50-58.
10 464-455 B.C. See Book 11.63.
11 Situated on a promontory on the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth; an important ally of Athens in the Peloponnesian War.
12 Formerly Zancle, settled by Siculians probably, later colonized by Chalcidians.
Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.
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References (22 total)
- Cross-references to this page
(9):
- Harper's, Tyrtaeus
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ARCA´DIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), MESSE´NE
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), MESSE´NIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PYLUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), TARENTUM
- Smith's Bio, Aristo'menes
- Smith's Bio, Phalanthus
- Smith's Bio, Tyrtaeus
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(1):
- Strabo, Geography, Strab. 8.4
- Cross-references in notes from this page
(10):
- Isocrates, Archidamus, 28
- Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4.4.2
- Pausanias, Description of Greece, 3.2.6
- Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4.26
- Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4.27.6
- Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.14.5
- Strabo, Geography, 6.3
- Strabo, Geography, 6.3.3
- Plutarch, Agesilaus, 34.1
- Plutarch, Pelopidas, 24.5
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(2):
- LSJ, ἀνοικο-δομέω
- LSJ, συναπο-στάτης
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