See MESSENE.
MESSAPIANS, The.
See ŒNOTRIANS.
----------MESSENE: Start--------
MESSENE, in Peloponnesus: B. C. 369.
The founding of the city.
Restoration of the enslaved Messenians.
See MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD;
also, GREECE: B. C. 371-362.
MESSENE: B. C. 338.
Territories restored by Philip of Macedon.
See GREECE; B. C. 357-336.
MESSENE: B. C. 184.
Revolt from the Achæan League.
A faction in Messene which was hostile to the Achæan League
having gained the ascendancy, B. C. 184, declared its
secession from the League. Philopœmen, the chief of the
League, proceeded at once with a small force to reduce the
Messenians to obedience, but was taken prisoner and was foully
executed by his enemies. Bishop Thirlwall pronounced him "the
last great man whom Greece produced." The death of Philopœmen
was speedily avenged on those who caused it and Messene was
recovered to the League.
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 65._
ALSO IN:
_Plutarch,
Philopœmen._
{2155}
MESSENE (MODERN MESSINA), in Sicily.
The founding of the city.
"Zancle was originally colonised by pirates who came from Cyme
the Chalcidian city in Opicia. … Zancle was the original
name of the place, a name given by the Sicels because the site
was in shape like a sickle, for which the Sicel word is
Zanclon. These earlier settlers were afterwards driven out by
the Samians and other Ionians, who when they fled from the
Persians found their way to Sicily. Not long afterwards
Anaxilas, the tyrant of Rhegium, drove out these Samians. He
then repeopled their city with a mixed multitude, and called
the place Messene, after his native country."
_Thucydides,
History,
translated by Jowett,
book 6, section 4._
MESSENE: B. C. 396.
Destruction by the Carthaginians.
See SYRACUSE: B. C. 397-396.
MESSENE: B. C. 264.
The Mamertines.
See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
MESSINA: A. D. 1849.
Bombardment and capture by King Ferdinand.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
----------MESSENIAN WARS: Start--------
MESSENIAN WARS, The First and Second.
The Spartans were engaged in two successive wars with their
neighbors of Messenia, whose territory, adjoining their own in
the southwestern extremity of Peloponnesus, was rich,
prosperous and covetable. "It was unavoidable that the
Spartans should look down with envy from their bare rocky
ridges into the prosperous land of their neighbours and the
terraces close by, descending to the river, with their
well-cultivated plantations of oil and wine. Besides, the
Dorians who had immigrated into Messenia had, under the
influence of the native population and of a life of
comfortable ease, lost their primitive character. Messenia
seemed like a piece of Arcadia, with which it was most
intimately connected. … Hence this was no war of Dorians
against Dorians; it rather seemed to be Sparta's mission to
make good the failure of the Dorization of Messenia which had
sunk back into Pelasgic conditions of life, and to unite with
herself the remains of the Dorian people still surviving
there. In short, a variety of motives contributed to provoke a
forcible extension of Spartan military power on this
particular side."
_E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1)._
The First Messenian War was commenced B. C. 745 and lasted
twenty years, ending in the complete subjugation of the
Messenians, who were reduced to a state of servitude like that
of the Helots of Sparta. After enduring the oppression for
thirty-nine years, the Messenians rose in revolt against their
Spartan masters, B. C. 685. The leader and great hero of this
Second Messenian War was Aristomenes, whose renown became so
great in the despairing struggle that the latter was called
among the ancients the Aristomnean War. But all the valor and
self-sacrifice of the unhappy Messenians availed nothing. They
gave up the contest, B. C. 668; large numbers of them escaped
to other lands and those who remained were reduced to a more
wretched condition than before.
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 9._
See, also, SPARTA: B. C. 743-510.
MESSENIAN WARS: The Third.
"The whole of Laconia [E. C. 464] was shaken by an earthquake,
which opened great chasms in the ground, and rolled down huge
masses from the highest peaks of Taygetus: Sparta itself
became a heap of ruins, in which not more than five houses are
said to have been left standing. More than 20,000 persons were
believed to have been destroyed by the shock, and the flower
of the Spartan youth was overwhelmed by the fall of the
buildings in which they were exercising themselves at the
time."
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 17._
The Helots of Sparta, especially those who were descended from
the enslaved Messenians, took advantage of the confusion
produced by the earthquake, to rise in revolt. Having secured
possession of Ithome, they fortified themselves in the town
and withstood there a siege of ten years,—sometimes called
the Third Messenian War. The Spartans invited the Athenians to
aid them in the siege, but soon grew jealous of their allies
and dismissed them with some rudeness. This was one of the
prime causes of the animosity between Athens and Sparta which
afterward flamed out in the Peloponnesian War. In the end, the
Messenians at Ithome capitulated and were allowed to quit the
country; whereupon the Athenians settled them at Naupactus, on
the Corinthian gulf, and so gained an ardent ally, in an
important situation.
_Thucydides,
History,
book 1, sections 101-103._
Nearly one hundred years later (B. C. 369) when Thebes, under
Epaminondas, rose to power in Greece and Sparta was
humiliated, it was one of the measures of the Theban statesman
to found at Ithome an important city which he named Messene,
into which the long oppressed Messenians were gathered, from
slavery and from exile, and were organized in a state once
more, free and independent.
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 39._
ALSO IN:
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 78._
----------MESSENIAN WARS: End----------
MESSIDOR, The month,
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER) THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.
MESTIZO.
MULATTO.
A half-breed person in Peru, born of a white father and an
Indian mother, is called a Mestizo. One born of a white father
and a negro mother is called a mulatto.
_J. J. Von Tschudi,
Travels in Peru,
chapter 5._