[62]
Not so with any city which has ever been destroyed. First, though it is to quote a rather early case, remember Troy. Who has not heard how, after being the greatest city of her time and ruling the whole of Asia, she was deserted for ever when once the Greeks had razed her? Think of Messene too, established again as a city five hundred years after from men of indiscriminate origin.1
1 If by these words Lycurgus means five hundred years after it was destroyed, as he presumably does, he is being very inaccurate. Messene was founded in 369 by Epaminondas and its previous destruction is most naturally assigned to the Second Messenian War （mid-seventh century）. Even the beginning of the First Messenian War, in which the Spartans conquered the country, cannot be placed much earlier than 720,i.e. only 350 years before. See Din. 1.73 and note.
Lycurgus. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes, 2, with an English translation by J. O. Burtt, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.
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