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This passage is interesting as the only definite reference in H. to the Messenian wars (cf. v. 49. 8). It supports the later tradition that the second Messenian war had an international character, Argos, Arcadia, and Pisa being allies of Messenia (Strabo 362), Elis (Strabo 355), Corinth, and Sicyon (Paus.iv.15) of the Lacedaemonians. Thucydides (i. 15) is thought to deny this by implication when he writes ἐκδήμους στρατείας πολὺ ἀπὸ τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἐπ᾽ ἄλλων καταστροφῇ οὐκ ἐξῇσαν οἱ Ἕλληνες, except in the Lelantine war. Busolt (i. 606 n.; cf. also p. 580 n.) therefore sees in the introduction of Corinth and Sicyon a reflection of the political grouping of the fifth century (e. g. at Mantinea 418 B. C.). But Samos would be exceedingly likely to assist the Lacedaemonians, as allies of Corinth, and Thucydides systematically depreciates the importance of Greek history before his own century.

κρητῆρος. For a description of the bowl cf. i. 70. 1. The story well illustrates H.'s tendency to confuse occasions with real causes. There is no reason to doubt that the theft of the bowl (which H. must have seen at the Heraeum) was a provocation to the Lacedaemonians; but for the attack on Polycrates the Lacedaemonians had motives of general policy: for these and for their attitude to tyranny cf. App. XVI. 10. ‘Plutarch’ (de Hdt. Mal. 21) for once makes a point when he asks ποίου γὰρ ἕνεκα θώρακος τίνος κρατῆρος ἑτέρου Κυψελίδας ἐξέβαλον κτλ. (cf., however, Grote, iii. 43 and App. u. s. for a criticism of Plutarch's list of tyrants expelled by the Lacedaemonians).

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