For Messene furnished Nestor, the wisest of all who lived in those times; Lacedaemon, Menelaus, who because of his moderation and his justice was the one man to be deemed worthy to become the son-in-law of Zeus;Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was the daughter of Zeus. See Hom. Od. 4.569 and Isoc. 10.16. and Argos, Agamemnon, who was possessed, not of one or two of the virtues merely, but of all which anyone can name
For the Lacedaemonians were not satisfied with wronging these cities and men of this character, but treated in the same way those who had set out with them from the same country, joined with them in the same expedition, and shared with them the same perilsIn the Trojan War.—I mean the Argives and the Messenians. For they determined to plunge these also into the very same misfortunes which had been visited upon their former victims.The distinction—not altogether clear—is between the older and the later inhabitants. They did not cease laying siege to the Messenians until they had driven them from their territory, and with the same object they are even now making war upon the Argives.For the conquest of Messene see Isoc. 6.26 ff. The Spartans and Argives were almost always at war. See Isoc.
When, then, the Dorians who invaded the Peloponnesus divided into three parts both the cities and the lands which they had taken from their rightful owners, those of them who received Argos and Messene as their portions ordered their affairs very much as did the Hellenes in general. But the third division of them, whom we now call Lacedaemonians, were, according to close students of their history, more embroiled in factional strife than any other people of Hellas. Moreover, the party which looked down upon the multitude, having got the upper hand, did in no wise adopt the same measures regarding the issues of that conflict as the other Hellenes who had gone through a similar experience.
but because they wish to hear how you have dealt with them. And as they think and dwell upon these deeds, they will not fail to recall also those ancient exploits through which you have glorified their ancestors,See 239 note. but will often talk of them amongst themselves; and first of all they will tell of the time when, being still Dorians, they saw their own cities to be inglorious and insignificant and in need of many things, and, feeling them to be unworthy, took the field against the leading states of the Peloponnesus—against Argos and Lacedaemon and Messene
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.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 3r from men of indiscriminate origin.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 no
mained passive, during the reign of Philip and subsequently of Alexander. But when on the death of Alexander the Macedonians chose Aridaeus to be their king, though the whole empire had been entrusted to Antipater, the Athenians now thought it intolerable if Greece should be for ever under the Macedonians, and themselves embarked on war besides inciting others to join them.
The cities that took part were, of the Peloponnesians, Argos, Epidaurus, Sicyon, Troezen, the Eleans, the Phliasians, Messene; on the other side of the Corinthian isthmus the Locrians, the Phocians, the Thessalians, Carystus, the Acarnanians belonging to the Aetolian League. The Boeotians, who occupied the Thebaid territory now that there were no Thebans left to dwell there, in fear lest the Athenians should injure them by founding a settlement on the site of Thebes, refused to join the alliance and lent all their forces to furthering the Macedonian cause.
Each city ranged under the alliance had its own general,
battle, put most of the women to the sword. To the rest they gave a common grave, but to Chorea they gave burial apart because of her high rank.
A little farther on is a sanctuary of the Seasons. On coming back from here you see statues of Polyneices, the son of Oedipus, and of all the chieftains who with him were killed in battle at the wall of Thebes. These men Aeschylus has reduced to the number of seven only, although there were more chiefs than this in the expedition, from Argos, from Messene, with some even from Arcadia. But the Argives have adopted the number seven from the drama of Aeschylus, and near to their statues are the statues of those who took Thebes: Aegialeus, son of Adrastus; Promachus, son of Parthenopaeus, son of Talaus; Polydorus, son of Hippomedon; Thersander; Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, the sons of Amphiaraus; Diomedes, and Sthenelus. Among their company were also Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, and Adrastus and Timeas, sons of Polyneices.
Not far from the statues a
brother of Tyndareus on his mother's side. The story goes on to say that he settled at Thalamae in Messenia, and that his children were born to him when he was living there.
Subsequently Tyndareus was brought back by Heracles and recovered his throne. His sons too became kings, as did Menelaus the son of Atreus and son-in-law of Tyndareus, and Orestes the husband of Hermione the daughter of Menelaus. On the return of the Heracleidae in the reign of Tisamenus, son of Orestes, both districts, Messene and Argos, had kings put over them; Argos had Temenus and Messene Cresphontes. In Lacedaemon, as the sons of Aristodemus were twins, there arose two royal houses; for they say that the Pythian priestess approved.
Tradition has it that Aristodemus himself died at Delphi before the Dorians returned to the Peloponnesus, but those who glorify his fate assert that he was shot by Apollo for not going to the oracle, having learned from Heracles, who met him before he arrived there, that the Dorian
ern headland. The war called the Messenian reached its height in the reign of this king. As to the causes of the war, the Lacedaemonian version differs from the Messenian.
The accounts given by the belligerents, and the manner in which this war ended, will be set forth later in my narrative. For the present I must state thus much; the chief leader of the Lacedaemonians in the first war against the Messenians was Theopompus the son of Nicander, a king of the other house. When the war against Messene had been fought to a finish, and Messenia was enslaved to the Lacedaemonians, Polydorus, who had a great reputation at Sparta and was very popular with the masses—for he never did a violent act or said an insulting word to anyone, while as a judge he was both upright and humane—
his fame having by this time spread throughout Greece, was murdered by Polemarchus, a member of a distinguished family in Lacedaemon, but, as he showed, a man of an unscrupulous temper. After his death Polydorus rec
eason a private person, until he took to wife Messene, the daughter of Triopas, son of Phorbas, from Argos.
Messene, being proud of her origin, for her father was the chief of the Greeks of his day ra, and the foundation of the present city of Messene under Ithome, I think that no city had the name Messene. I base this conclusion principally on Homer's lines.Hom. Il. 2.591 In the catalogue of os, Arene and other towns, but called no town Messene. In the Odyssey he shows that the Messenians t the bow of Iphitus:—They met one another in Messenein the dwelling of Ortilochus.Hom. Od. 21.15By of Ortilochus he meant the city of Pherae in Messene, and explained this himself in the visit of P country were Polycaon, the son of Lelex, and Messene his wife. It was to her that Caucon, the son his inscription shows that Caucon who came to Messene was a descendant of Phlyus, and proves my othy at Andania. And it seems natural to me that Messene should have established the mysteries where s[2 more...]
