And when the Lacedæmonians were dispirited at this blow, and were

minded to finish the war, Tyrtæus put heart into them by reciting his

verses, and got some Helots enrolled into the regiments in place of the

dead men. And when Aristomenes returned to Andania, the women welcomed

him with ribands and pelted him with flowers, and sang for him a song

not forgotten even in our days, “To the mid plain and high mountain

at Stenyclerus did Aristomenes pursue the Lacedæmonians.” And he

afterwards recovered his shield by going to Delphi, and, as the Pythian

Priestess ordered him, by descending to the sacred shrine of Trophonius

at Lebadea. And afterwards he took the shield, and hung it up as a

votive offering at Lebadea, and I have myself seen it hanging up there.

Its design is an eagle with its wings extended at the upper part of the

shield. And now Aristomenes on his return from Bœotia, having recovered

his shield at the shrine of Trophonius, immediately went in for further

action. And, having gathered together a levy of Messenians besides

his own bodyguard of picked men, he marched at nightfall to a city of

Laconia, whose old name was Pharis as in Homer’s catalogue, but it was

called Pharæ by the Spartans and other neighbouring people. Marching

there he cut to pieces those who attempted to defend themselves, and

after carrying off much booty returned to Messene. And the Lacedæmonian

hoplites under Anaxander their king attacking him on the road, he

routed them also, and was fain to pursue Anaxander. But being wounded

in his hinder quarters with a javelin he stayed the pursuit, without

losing the plunder he had got. And after waiting sufficient time for

his wound to be healed, he intended to enter Sparta by night, when he

was prevented by the apparition of Helen and Castor and Pollux, and lay

in ambush at nightfall for some maidens who were dancing to Artemis at

Caryæ, and arrested all who were remarkable for the wealth and position

of their fathers, and brought them by night to a village in Messenia

and went to rest, having committed the custody of them to some men of

his regiment. Thereupon the young men in drink I suppose, and otherwise

unable to control their passions by reason, endeavoured to violate

the maidens, and when Aristomenes forbade them to act in a manner

not customary for Greeks, they took no notice of him, so that he was

obliged to kill the most unruly of them. And the maidens he had taken

captive he let go for a good ransom with their honour safe.

CHAPTER XVII.

And there is a place in Laconia called Ægila, where is a temple of

Demeter. There Aristomenes and his soldiers, knowing that the women

were keeping festival to Demeter, wished to seize them: but as these

women inspired by the goddess made a bold defence, most of the

Messenians received wounds with the swords which they used to sacrifice

the victims with, and the sharp pointed spits on which they stuck their

meat to roast it. And Aristomenes they struck with their torches and

took him alive. However he escaped the same night to Messenia. They say

that Archidamea the priestess of Demeter had the guilt of letting him

escape. But she did not let him go for money, but was an old sweetheart

of his, and made out that Aristomenes had escaped by burning[57] his

bonds.

And in the third year of the war, when an engagement was about

to take place at what was called _The Great Trench_, and when the

Arcadians had come from all their cities to help the Messenians,

the Lacedæmonians bribed Aristocrates, the son of Icetas, a native

of Trapezus, king and general of the Arcadians at this period. The

Lacedæmonians are the first we know of that bribed an enemy, and

the first that made renown in arms a thing to be purchased by money.

For before the Lacedæmonians violated honour in their war with the

Messenians, in regard to this treason of Aristocrates the Arcadian,

their fighting men were distinguished for bravery, and good fortune

from the deity. Afterwards too at Ægos-potamoi, when they opposed the

fleet of the Athenians, they certainly bribed Adimantus and other

Athenian Admirals. But in process of time upon the Lacedæmonians came

what is called the Retribution of Neoptolemus. For Neoptolemus the

son of Achilles, having slain Priam at the altar of _Household Zeus_,

was himself also slain at Delphi at the temple of Apollo, and--in

consequence of that--suffering what one had inflicted on another got

called the Retribution of Neoptolemus. For when the Lacedæmonians

were at the zenith of their power, and had destroyed the fleet of the

Athenians, and Agesilaus had reduced most of Asia Minor, then it was

not possible to strip the Mede of all his power, because the barbarian

circumvented them by sending money to Corinth and Argos and Athens

and Thebes, and what was called the Corinthian war was brought about

by this money, so that Agesilaus was compelled to leave Asia Minor.

And so the deity made to recoil upon themselves the wiliness that

the Lacedæmonians had displayed to the Messenians. And Aristocrates

when he had received money from Lacedæmon, at first hid his plans

from the Arcadians, but when they were on the eve of an engagement,

then he threw them into consternation, by telling them they were in

difficulty and straits and had no means of retreat if they should be

beaten. He also said the sacrifices were not auspicious. He ordered

everyone therefore to run away when he gave the signal. And when the

Lacedæmonians began the engagement and the Messenians were opposite

to them, thereupon at the commencement of the battle Aristocrates

led off the Arcadians, and thus the Messenian centre and left wing

was left exposed. For the Arcadians had occupied both these parts of

the field, as the people of Elis were not present at the battle, nor

the people of Argos and Sicyon. And Aristocrates put the finishing

touch to his treason by fleeing through the Messenian lines. And they

were quite bewildered at the unexpected state of affairs, and were

disturbed by the passage of the Arcadians through their lines, so that

most of them nearly forgot what they were about: for instead of the

Lacedæmonians pressing on against the Arcadians they saw them fleeing,

and some begged them to stand their ground, others reviled them as

traitors and covenant-breakers. And for the Lacedæmonians to surround

the Messenians who were now left alone was easy enough, and with the

greatest ease they won a victory that was a foregone conclusion. And

though Aristomenes and his division bravely stood their ground against

the multitude of the Lacedæmonians that pressed against them, and

endeavoured to keep them in check, yet they were too few to avail

much. And such a quantity of Messenians were cut to pieces, that they,

who had expected to be masters of the Lacedæmonians, now instead of

having slaves had hardly any hope of safety. And of their leaders fell

Androcles and Phintas and others, and Phanas, (who fought especially

bravely, and had been victor at Olympia in the double course). And

Aristomenes after the battle collected the Messenian fugitives, and

persuaded them to leave Andania and any other towns in the heart of the

country, and to take up their residence on the mountain Eira. And when

they assembled there they were besieged by the Lacedæmonians who wished

to take them. However they resisted and held out for eleven years after

the disaster at _The Great Trench_. That that was the time the blockade

lasted is plain from the verses of Rhianus about the Lacedæmonians.

“Along the ridges of the mountain white

Twenty-two summers and winters did they fight.”

The word used for _summers_ in the line just above is a word properly

meaning the grass when it is ripe, or a little before hay harvest.

CHAPTER XVIII.

And the Messenians when they were hemmed in at Eira, and debarred the

rest of their country, except what was occupied by the people of Pylos

near the sea, and the people of Mothone, plundered Laconia and their

own country, which they now regarded as enemy’s country. And several

joined them in these raids, as chance brought it about, and Aristomenes

got together some picked men in number about 300. They harried and

carried off from the Lacedæmonians whatever they could, corn and flocks

and wine, but furniture and human beings they ransomed for money. So

that the Lacedæmonians made a decree, inasmuch as they were farming

for the benefit of the people of Eira rather than their own, not to

cultivate Messenia and the neighbouring parts of Laconia till after

the war. And from that time there was scarcity in Sparta, and with the

scarcity came riots, for those who got their money by farming could

not bear to see their lands lie fallow, but their vexation was checked

by the verses of Tyrtæus. And Aristomenes with his picked men made a

sally when the night was considerably advanced, and stole a march upon

the enemy by getting to Amyclæ before daybreak, and seized the fort and

plundered Amyclæ, and was off again before help could come from Sparta.

And he afterwards overran the whole country, till making an attack

on more than half the Lacedæmonian army under both their kings, he

received several wounds as he defended himself valiantly, and as he was

struck on the head by a stone his eyes got dizzy, and the Lacedæmonians

rushing at him all together took him alive. Fifty of his men also

were captured. These were all condemned by the Lacedæmonians to be

thrown into their underground cavern called Ceadas; where they throw

in their greatest malefactors. The other Messenians who were thrown in

were killed instantaneously: but Aristomenes had some good genius who

both now and on all occasions looked after him. Those who exaggerate

everything about him say that, when he was thrown into Ceadas, an eagle

flew under him and supported him with its wings, so that he reached

the bottom safely without a wound or scratch. The god on this occasion

must have also shown him some outlet. For when he got to the bottom of

the cavern, he sat down and muffling his head in his cloak expected

death which he felt certain. But on the third day after he heard a

noise, and unveiled his face, and when his eyes got accustomed to the

darkness, saw a fox preying on the dead carcases. And reflecting that

it must have an outlet somewhere, he waited till the fox came near and

when it came near seized hold of it, and in one of his hands, when the

fox turned on him, held his cloak that it might bite that and not him.

As it ran he ran with it, and was dragged by it along a very difficult

path. At last he saw a little hole, just big enough for a fox to pass

through, and light glimmered through it. And the fox, directly it was

liberated by Aristomenes, betook itself to its hole. And Aristomenes,

as the hole was too small to let him through, enlarged it with his

hands and got home safe to Eira, having had most remarkable good

fortune in respect to his capture, (for his spirit and bravery were

such that no one could have expected to take him alive), and stranger

still and most plainly not without divine assistance was this getting

out safe from Ceadas.

CHAPTER XIX.

And it was almost immediately reported to the Lacedæmonians by

deserters that Aristomenes had got home safe: but being considered as

incredible as if anyone were to say that a dead man had come to life

again, it was only believed in consequence of the following transaction

on the part of Aristomenes. The Corinthians sent a force to help the

Lacedæmonians to take Eira. Aristomenes, learning from his scouts

that they were marching rather carelessly, and that their camps were

negligently made up, attacked them by night, and as they were asleep

slew most of them, and among others their leaders Hypermenides, and

Achladæus, and Lysistratus, and Sidectus. He plundered also the tent of

the generals, and the Lacedæmonians soon saw that it was Aristomenes

and no other Messenian that had done all this. He sacrificed also to

Zeus of Ithome the sacrifice which they call Hecatomphonia. It was of

very remote antiquity, and any Messenian who had killed 100 enemies

had a right to offer it. And Aristomenes first offered this sacrifice

when he fought the battle at _Boar’s Memorial_, and the slaughter of

these Corinthians by night gave him the right to offer this sacrifice

a second time. They say also that he offered the sacrifice a third

time as the result of various raids. But the Lacedæmonians, as the

festival of Hyacinthus was now coming on, made a truce of 40 days with

the inhabitants of Eira, and returned home and kept the festival, and

some Cretan bowmen, who had been sent for as mercenaries from Lyctus

and other towns, made incursions into various parts of Messenia. And as

Aristomenes was at some distance from Eira, feeling perfect security

as it was truce time, seven of these bowmen lay in wait for him, and

took him prisoner, and bound him with the bands of their quivers. And

it was evening. And two of them went to Sparta, and announced the

capture of Aristomenes to the Lacedæmonians: and the remaining five

retired to a farm in Messenia, where a fatherless maiden lived with

her mother. The night before this maiden had had a dream. Some wolves

(she dreamed) brought a lion to the farm bound and without claws,

and she freed the lion from its bonds and got it claws, and then the

wolves were torn in pieces by it. And now when the Cretans brought in

Aristomenes, the maiden remembered her dream of the previous night,

and asked her mother who he was: and when she learnt who he was she

took courage, and looked earnestly at him, and understood the meaning

of the dream. She therefore poured out wine freely for the Cretans,

till drink overpowered them, and then withdrew the sword of the one who

was fastest asleep. Then she cut the bonds of Aristomenes, and he took

the sword and killed all 5. And Gorgus the son of Aristomenes took the

maiden to wife. And thus Aristomenes requited to the damsel her saving

of his life, and Gorgus was only 18 when he married her.

CHAPTER XX.

But in the 11th year of the siege it was fated that Eira should fall,

and that the Messenians should be dispersed, and the god accomplished

what had been oracularly foretold to Aristomenes and Theoclus. For

when they went to Delphi after the disaster at _the Great Trench_, and

enquired as to their safety, the Pythian Priestess replied as follows,

“When he-goat drinks of Neda’s winding stream,

I cease to guard Messene. Her end is near.”

Now the Neda rises in Mount Lycæus: and the river flows through Arcadia

and into Messenia again, and divides the maritime parts of Messenia

and Elis. And now they were afraid of their he-goats drinking of the

Neda: but the god had quite a different meaning which I will unfold.

The wild fig tree, which some of the Greeks call Olynthe, is called

by the Messenians Tragus (that is _He-Goat_). At this time there was

a wild fig tree on the banks of the river Neda which did not grow

upright, but bent into the stream and touched the water with its

topmost boughs. And the seer Theoclus having noticed it conjectured

that by the he-goat drinking of the Neda the Pythian Priestess meant

this wild fig, and that therefore the fate of Messene was imminent.

And he preserved silence on the matter to everyone else, but he took

Aristomenes to this fig tree, and pointed out to him that their period

of safety had passed. And Aristomenes was convinced by him that it was

as he said, and that that there was no room for delay, and he adopted

the following contrivance under the present conjuncture. The Messenians

had some sacred records, which if lost would ruin Messene and keep

her under for ever, but which if preserved would, according to the

oracular utterances of Lycus the son of Pandion, give the Messenians

a chance one day to recover their country, and Aristomenes knowing

these oracular utterances conveyed away by night these _arcana_:

and going to the most unfrequented part of Mount Ithome buried them

there, and prayed to Zeus of Ithome and to the gods who had hitherto

befriended the Messenians to be witnesses of this deposit, and not to

allow the Lacedæmonians to rob them of their only hope of returning

home again one day. And after this trouble came to the Messenians, as

earlier still it did to the Trojans, from adultery. They occupied the

mountainous district all round Eira as far as the Neda, and some lived

outside the gates. And no other deserter came to them from Laconia, but

a herdsman, a slave of Emperamus who was a man of some note at Sparta.

This herdsman lived not far from the Neda. There he saw the wife of one

of the Messenians who lived outside the walls coming to draw water: and

he got enamoured of her, and ventured to talk with her, and overcame

her chastity by gifts. And from that time forward this herdsman watched

when her husband went upon garrison duty. Now the Messenians had to go

on guard by turns in the citadel: it was here that they were chiefly

afraid of the enemy getting into the place. And whenever the husband

mounted guard, this herdsman used to go and visit his wife. And on one

occasion he and others had to mount guard at night, and it chanced

to be a very wet night. And the Messenians left their guard. For the

quantity of rain pouring down almost forced them in, as they had no

battlements or turrets in their improvised fortifications, and at the

same time they did not expect that the Lacedæmonians would attack them

in a night so wild and dark. And Aristomenes had been wounded a few

days previously in rescuing a Cephallenian merchant and his goods,

(he was a friend of his and used to introduce into Eira all necessary

supplies, but had been captured by the Lacedæmonians and some Apteræan

bowmen under Euryalus a Spartan), and therefore could not as usual

go his nightly rounds. This was the chief reason why the citadel was

abandoned by the guard. And as each of them went off from his post so

did the husband of the woman who had this intrigue with the herdsman.

And she at this time had the herdsman at her house, but perceiving the

return of her husband quickly concealed him, and welcomed her husband

rather more than usual, and asked him the reason of his return. And he,

ignorant that she was unfaithful to him and had her paramour there,

told her the truth, and said that, on account of the violence of

the rain, and other circumstances which he mentioned, they had left

their posts. And the herdsman overheard, and immediately, when he

understood the condition of affairs, deserted the Messenians for the

Lacedæmonians. The Lacedæmonian kings were at this time absent from

the camp: but Emperamus the master of the herdsman was commander in

chief of the forces that were besieging Eira. The herdsman then went

to his master, and first begged pardon for his absence from home,

and next showed him how they could capture Eira, mentioning all the

circumstances which he had heard from the Messenian.

CHAPTER XXI.

What the herdsman said seemed trustworthy, and he led Emperamus and

the Spartan force. Their march was difficult owing to the darkness and

steady downpour. Still they advanced with alacrity, and, as soon as

they got to the citadel of Eira, fixed scaling ladders and got over the

walls with all dispatch. And the Messenians had several indications

of their coming trouble, especially the unusual barking of the dogs,

who barked fiercely and continuously. Perceiving then that the final

struggle had come upon them, they had no time for arming themselves

properly, but each seized what weapon he could find to defend their

last possession out of all Messenia, their last inch of fatherland!

The first who noticed that the enemy had got inside the walls, and

who rushed up to the fray, were Gorgus the son of Aristomenes, and

Aristomenes himself, and Theoclus the seer and Manticlus his son,

and with them Euergetidas a man held in especial honour at Messene,

who had improved his fortunes by his marriage with Agnagora, the

sister of Aristomenes. And all the others at this time, though they

perceived that they were in a trap, yet had a little hope in spite of

the outlook: but Aristomenes and the seer knew that it was all up with

the Messenians, remembering the Pythian Priestess’ oracle about the

he-goat, but they concealed none the less the true state of affairs,

and were silent about it to everybody. And they went all round the

town energetically and exhorted every Messenian they met to play the

man, and called from their houses those that yet remained in them.

During the night nothing very notable was done on either side, for the

attacking party were hindered by their ignorance of the ground and

the boldness of Aristomenes, and the Messenians were rather backward

in taking the word from their generals, and if anyone lit a torch or

struck a light, the rain immediately put it out. And when day broke

and they could see one another clearly, then Aristomenes and Theoclus

endeavoured to nerve the Messenians to desperate courage, by giving

them the necessary directions, and reminding them of the heroism of the

people of Smyrna, who, though they were only Ionians, by their boldness

and vigour drove out of their city Gyges, the son of Dascylus, and the

Lydians who were in possession of it. And the Messenians hearing this

were animated with the courage of despair, and forming what ranks they

could rushed against the Lacedæmonians. And even the women eagerly

hurled tiles, and whatever each could lay hold of, at the enemy: but

they were partly prevented doing this from the slipperiness of the

roofs through the frequent rain: but they seized arms and thus kindled

still more the courage of the men, when they saw that even the women

preferred perishing with their country to being led off as slaves to

Lacedæmon, insomuch that had it been possible they would have given

destiny the go-by. And the downpour of rain continued all day, and

there was thunder and lightning, and they could hardly see for the

lightning that flashed in their faces. And all this inspired courage in

the Lacedæmonians, who thought that the god was visibly helping them,

and as the lightning was on their right the seer Hecas announced that

the omen was auspicious. He also devised the following stratagem. The

Lacedæmonians were far the most numerous, but inasmuch as the battle

was on a limited area and not fought tactically, but various bodies

of men fought haphazard in various parts of the city, it happened

that the rearmen of each division were useless. He therefore ordered

them to retire to the camp and get some food and sleep, and come back

again before evening to relieve their companions, who had borne the

burthen and heat of the day. And thus by fighting and resting by turns

they held out the longer, but the Messenians were getting entirely

worn out, for it was now the third night that they had been fighting

day and night continuously. And when the next morning came, and they

were suffering from sleeplessness and constant rain and cold all

combined, hunger and thirst assailed them too. Their women especially

were ready to faint by reason of being unused to war, and by the long

continuance of their efforts. Then the seer Theoclus came up and spoke

to Aristomenes. “Why do you continue in vain this struggle? It is

decreed that Messene must perish, long ago did the Pythian Priestess

foretell this imminent ruin, and lately did the wild fig tree teach the

same lesson. To me the god assigns an end with my country: but you may

save the Messenians and yourself.” When he had spoken thus to him, he

rushed against the foe, and said to the Lacedæmonians in a loud voice,

“You shall not for long joy in your conquest of Messene.” After that

he fiercely attacked those who were opposite to him and slew them, and

was himself wounded, and breathed out his last having first glutted

his soul with slaughter. And Aristomenes called all the Messenians

back from the fight, except those who were fighting with remarkable

bravery, whom he allowed to remain fighting. And the rest he ordered

to follow where he should lead, with the women and children in their

lines. To the command of this portion of the army he appointed Gorgus

and Manticlus: and himself took up a position in the front rank, and by

the motion of his head and the waving of his spear plainly showed that

he was asking for a passage through, and already meditated retreat.

Emperamus and the Spartans on the spot were right glad to let the

Messenians through their lines, and not to irritate too much men who

were mad in rage and desperate to the last degree. And Hecas the seer

also bade them act so.

CHAPTER XXII.

Directly the Arcadians heard of the capture of Eira, they at once

begged Aristocrates to lead them to save the Messenians or perish with

them. But he having been bribed by the Lacedæmonians refused to lead

them, and said that he knew none of the Messenians were alive for them

to assist. But when the Arcadians received more certain intelligence

that some survived who had been compelled to leave Eira, they set out

to meet them at Mount Lycæus, having got ready both food and raiment,

and sent certain influential persons to comfort the Messenians and

guide them on their march. And when they got safe to Mount Lycæus the

Arcadians welcomed them, and treated them kindly in other respects,

and invited them to dwell in their cities, and said they would give

them a share of the land. But Aristomenes in his grief for the capture

of Eira and his hatred to the Lacedæmonians contrived the following

plan. He selected from the whole body 500 Messenians, who he knew were

prodigal of their lives, and selected them in the hearing of the other

Arcadians and Aristocrates, not knowing that he was a traitor--for he

thought Aristocrates had fled through cowardice and want of manliness

rather than in treason--and he asked the 500 in his presence, whether

they would die with him to avenge their country. And when they said

they would he revealed his whole plan, that the following evening

he intended to lead them to Sparta. For at this time most of the

Lacedæmonians were at Eira, and others were busy in plundering the

property of the Messenians. “And if we should capture Sparta and keep

it,” continued Aristomenes, “we shall be able to exchange it for

Messene: and if we fail we shall die together, having done deeds that

posterity will not forget.” After he had made this speech, about 300

of the Arcadians wished to join him in his desperate undertaking.

And for the moment they delayed their departure, as the victims were

not auspicious. On the following day however they knew that their

secret had been revealed to the Lacedæmonians, and that they had been

betrayed by Aristocrates for the second time. For Aristocrates had

at once disclosed by letter the design of Aristomenes, and given the

letter to his most trusty slave, and sent it to Anaxander at Sparta.

And on his return this slave was intercepted by some Arcadians who had

previously been hostile to Aristocrates, and were now rather suspicious

about him. And having intercepted this slave they brought him before

the Arcadians, and showed the people the answer of Anaxander from

Lacedæmon. It was to the effect that, just as Aristocrates’ flight at

an opportune moment from _the Great Trench_ had not been unrewarded

by the Lacedæmonians, so he should not be without further reward for

his present information. And when this was reported to them all, the

Arcadians began to stone Aristocrates, and urged the Messenians to do

the same. But they looked at Aristomenes. And he looked on the ground

and wept. So the Arcadians stoned Aristocrates to death, and cast him

unburied out of their borders, and put up a pillar in the temple of

Lycæan Zeus with the following inscription. “Time is sure to bring

justice at last to an unjust king, and time with Zeus’ cooperation has

easily found out Messene’s traitor. It is difficult for a perjured man

to escape the god. Hail, royal Zeus, and save Arcadia.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

And all the Messenians that were captured at Eira, or in any other

part of Messenia, were incorporated by the Lacedæmonians among the

Helots: and the people of Pylos and Mothone and all the maritime towns

removed in ships, after the capture of Eira, to Cyllene the arsenal

of Elis. And from there they sent to the Messenians in Arcadia,

wishing them to join them in an expedition to seek some city to dwell

in, and bade them make Aristomenes the founder of the colony. But he

said that for his part as long as he lived he would fight against the

Lacedæmonians, and that he knew very well that Sparta would always have

trouble through him: but he gave them Gorgus and Manticlus as their

leaders. Euergetidas also retired to Mount Lycæus with the rest of

the Messenians: and from thence, when he saw that Aristomenes’ plan

about the capture of Sparta had fallen through, having got together

about 50 of the Messenians he made a raid against the Lacedæmonians at

Eira, and falling in with them still plundering he turned their chant

of victory into a dirge. And fate seized him there, and Aristomenes

ordered the leaders of the Messenians, and whoever wished, to take part

in the colony to go to Cyllene. And all took part in it, except those

that were prevented by old age, or were destitute of means for dwelling

abroad. And these remained where they were among the Arcadians.

Eira was taken, and the second war between the Lacedæmonians and

the Messenians finished, in the Archonship over the Athenians of

Autosthenes, in the first year of the 28th Olympiad, in which Chionis

the Laconian was victor.

And when the Messenians had got together at Cyllene, they resolved

to winter there for that winter, and the people of Elis provided them

with supplies and money: but directly Spring came they deliberated

where they should go. And the view of Gorgus was that they should

occupy Zacynthus beyond Cephallenia, and become islanders instead

of dwelling on the mainland, and should sail in their ships to the

maritime parts of Laconia and ravage their territory. Manticlus on

the other hand exhorted them to forget Messene and their animosity

to the Lacedæmonians, and sail to Sardinia and occupy that large and

fertile island. Meantime Anaxilas sent a message to the Messenians

inviting them to Italy. He was King at Rhegium, and fourth in descent

from Alcidamidas, who had migrated from Messene to Rhegium, after the

death of King Aristodemus and the capture of Ithome. This Anaxilas then

invited the Messenians, and when they went to Rhegium he told them

that the people of Zancle were at variance with him, and that they had

a fertile country and a city in the rich part of Sicily, all which he

said he would give them, and help them in conquering the country. And

as they eagerly accepted his offer, Anaxilas conveyed them over into

Sicily. Now Zancle was a place which had originally been occupied by

pirates, and, as the land there was then unoccupied, they built a fort

near the harbour, and made Zancle their headquarters for expeditions

both by land and sea: and their leaders were Cratæmenes the Samian

and Perieres from Chalcis. And eventually Perieres and Cratæmenes

resolved to invite in other colonists from Greece. But now Anaxilas

conquered the people of Zancle who put out to sea in their fleet, and

the Messenians conquered them on land. And being blockaded by land by

the Messenians and simultaneously by sea by the people of Rhegium, when

their fort was taken, they fled for refuge to the altars of the gods

and to the temples. Anaxilas however urged on the Messenians to slay

the suppliants, though they prayed hard for quarter, and to enslave the

rest together with their women and children. But Gorgus and Manticlus

begged that Anaxilas would not compel them, who had been shamefully

treated by their fellow-countrymen, to act with equal cruelty to

Greeks. And after that they took the people of Zancle from the altars,

and having mutually given and received pledges dwelt together as one

people. But the name of the town they changed from Zancle to Messene.

All this took place in the 29th Olympiad, in which Chionis the Laconian

was victor the second time, and Miltiades was Archon at Athens. And

Manticlus built a temple of Hercules for the new colony, and a statue

of the god was placed outside the fort called Hercules Manticlus, just

as Belus at Babylon got its name from an Egyptian called Belus, and

Ammon in Libya from the name of the shepherd who built the temple. This

was the end of the wandering of the Messenian exiles.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Meantime Aristomenes, when he refused the leadership of those who

were going on the new colony, married his sister Agnagora to Tharyx

of Phigalia, and his two eldest daughters to Damothoidas of Lepreum

and Theopompus of Heræum. And he himself went to Delphi and consulted

the oracle. What answer was returned is not recorded. But Damagetus a

native of Rhodes, the King of Ialysus, had also at this time come to

consult the oracle as to where he should marry a wife from, and the

Pythian Priestess replied that he was to marry the daughter of the

noblest of the Greeks. And Aristomenes had a third daughter, and he

married her, thinking her father far the noblest Greek of his time.

And Aristomenes went to Rhodes with his daughter, and from thence he

intended to go to Sardis to Ardys the son of Gyges, and to Ecbatana the

royal residence of the Medes to the Court of King Phraortes, but before

he could carry out this intention he chanced to die of some illness,

so that the fates did not permit him to wreak his vengeance on the

Lacedæmonians. And Damagetus and the people of Rhodes built a splendid

monument to him, and paid honours to his memory. The traditions about

those who are called the Diagoridæ in Rhodes, (who were descended

from Diagoras, the son of Damagetus, the son of Dorieus, the son of

Damagetus by the daughter of Aristomenes), I have omitted, that I might

not appear to have introduced irrelevant matter.

And the Lacedæmonians, when they had made themselves masters of

Messenia, shared it out among themselves all but the territory of the

Asinæi, and Mothone they gave to the people of Nauplia who had recently

been ejected by the Argives.

And the Messenians who were captured at Eira, and compulsorily

incorporated among the Helots, revolted again from the Lacedæmonians

in the 79th Olympiad, in which the Corinthian Xenophon was victor, and

Archimedes Archon at Athens. And they seized the following opportunity.

Some of the Lacedæmonians, on a charge for which they were condemned to

death, fled to Tænarum as suppliants; and there the Ephors took them

from the altar and slew them. And the wrath of Poseidon came upon those

Spartans who had violated his rights of sanctuary, and he adjudged the

town to be utterly razed to the ground. And it was after this calamity

that the Helots who were Messenians revolted and went to Mount Ithome.

And the Lacedæmonians sent for several allies to help to subdue them,

and among others for Cimon (the son of Miltiades) their friend, of whom

they also begged some Athenian troops. But when these Athenian troops

came they suspected them as likely to introduce revolutionary ideas

among their own men, so in their suspicion they soon sent them home

again from Ithome. But when the Athenians observed that suspicion on

the part of the Lacedæmonians they were indignant and became friendly

to the Argives, and, when those of the Messenians who were besieged at

Ithome were allowed to surrender upon conditions, gave Naupactus to

them, (having taken it from the Locrians in Ætolia called Ozolæ). And

the Messenians were allowed to surrender partly because of the strength

of the place, partly because the Pythian Priestess prophesied to the

Lacedæmonians that there would be vengeance from Zeus of Ithome if they

violated his right of sanctuary. So they were allowed to evacuate the

Peloponnese upon conditions for these reasons.

CHAPTER XXV.

And when they got Naupactus, they were not content with the town and

region that they had got through the Athenians, but a strong desire

came upon them to get a place for themselves by their own valour. And

as they knew that the Œniadæ, who had a rich soil in Acarnania, had

been for all time at variance with the Athenians, they marched against

them. And being not superior in point of numbers, but far superior in

respect to bravery, they won a victory over them, and shut them up

in their fort and blockaded them. And the Messenians employed every

human invention for taking cities, they tried to get over the walls by

scaling ladders, and undermined the fort, and bringing up such engines

as they could get at short notice kept battering away at the walls. And

those in the town, fearing that if the town was taken they would be

undone, and their wives and children sold into slavery, preferred to

surrender upon conditions. And for about a year the Messenians occupied

the town and enjoyed the produce of the country, but the year after the

Acarnanians gathering a force together from all their towns planned a

march upon Naupactus. But they changed their minds about this when they

saw that their march would be through the country of the Ætolians, who

were always hostile to them, and at the same time they expected the

Naupactians had a navy, as indeed they had, and as they were masters

of the sea it would not be possible to subdue them with a land army.

So they changed their plan with alacrity, and marched against the

Messenians at Œniadæ. And they began to lay siege to the town: for

they did not suppose that so few men would come to such a pitch of

recklessness as to sally out and fight against them. And the Messenians

had got together a store of corn and other provisions, expecting a

long siege: but they thought before the blockade commenced they would

have one good fight in the open, and as they were Messenians, who had

only been inferior to the Lacedæmonians in luck not in courage, they

would not be frightened at this mob that had come from Acarnania.

And the Athenians remembered the action at Marathon, how thirty

myriads of Medes were slain by less than 10,000. So they determined

to fight the Acarnanians, and the battle was fought as follows. The

Acarnanians inasmuch as they were far more numerous easily surrounded

the Messenians, except where the gates at the back of the Messenians

checked them, and the men on the walls stoutly defended their comrades.

Here they could not be surrounded. But both their flanks were sore

pressed by the Acarnanians, and they shot at them from all sides. And

the Messenians being a compact body, wherever they made a general

attack on the Acarnanians, threw the enemy’s ranks into confusion, and

killed and wounded many, yet could not bring about a complete rout.

For wherever the Acarnanians observed that their lines were pierced by

the Messenians, there they brought up large detachments of men, and

beat the Messenians back by sheer force of numbers. And whenever the

Messenians were unsuccessful in an attack, and tried in some other

place to break the Acarnanian line, the same result would follow. At

whatever point they attacked they produced confusion and something like

a rout, but the Acarnanians came swarming up, and so the Messenians had

very unwillingly to retire. And the struggle being very evenly poised

till night came on, and the attacking force of the Acarnanians being

augmented the following evening from several towns, a regular blockade

of the Messenians commenced. And they had no fear that the town would

be taken by storm, either by the Acarnanians getting over the walls,

or by their being compelled to desert their garrison duty. But by the

8th month all their supplies were consumed. To the Acarnanians they

jeeringly cried out that their provisions would last even a ten years’

siege: but about the time of first sleep they quietly slipped out of

Œniadæ, and being compelled to fight their way through directly the

Acarnanians got to know of this flitting, lost about 300 but killed

a still greater number of the enemy, and most of them succeeded in

cutting their way through, and by the assistance of the Ætolians who

were friendly to them got safe to Naupactus.

CHAPTER XXVI.

And from this time forward their hostility to the Lacedæmonians

increased, as they notably shewed in the war between the Peloponnesians

and Athenians. For they made Naupactus a base against the Peloponnese,

and when the Spartans were cut off at Sphacteria some Messenian bowmen

from Naupactus assisted the Athenians. But after the reverse of the

Athenians at Ægos-potamoi, the Lacedæmonians being masters of the sea

drove the Messenians from Naupactus, and some went into Sicily to their

kinsmen at Zancle and Rhegium, but most to Libya to the Euesperitæ,

who being hard pressed in war by some of the neighbouring barbarians

invited in the Greeks as colonists. To them went most of the Messenians

under Comon, who had been their General at Sphacteria.

And a year before the Theban victory at Leuctra, the god foretold

to the Messenians their return to the Peloponnese. For the priest of

Hercules (they say) in Messene at the Sicilian Strait saw in a dream

Hercules Manticlus invited in a friendly way by Zeus to Ithome. And

among the Euesperitæ Comon dreamt that he had dealings with his dead

mother, and that subsequently his mother came to life again. And he

hoped as the Athenians were now powerful at sea that they would be

restored to Naupactus: and the dream seemed to indicate that Messene

would revive. And no long time after came to the Lacedæmonians at

Leuctra the disaster that had long been fated: for the concluding words

of the oracle given to Aristodemus the king of the Messenians were,

“Do as fate bids: woe comes to all in turn.”

As at that time it was fated for him and the Messenians to be

unfortunate, so in after time was it fated for Lacedæmon when her

day had come. And now the Thebans after the victory of Leuctra sent

messengers to Italy and Sicily and to the Euesperitæ, to recall the

Messenians from their wanderings to the Peloponnese. And they gathered

together quicker than anyone would have thought, from yearning

affection to their fatherland, and from their abiding hate to the

Lacedæmonians. And Epaminondas was in doubt what city he should build

as a base against the Lacedæmonians, or where he should find a site,

for the Messenians would not dwell again at Andania and Œchalia,

because they had been so unlucky when they lived there before. As

he was in this doubt they say an old man, very like a priest of

the mysteries, appeared to him in a vision of the night, and said

to him, “My gift to you is universal conquest in war: and when you

shall leave this earth I will make your name, O Theban, immortal and

ever glorious. But do you in return restore to the Messenians their

country and cities, for the wrath of Castor and Pollux towards them

is now appeased.” These were his words to Epaminondas, who revealed

the dream to Epiteles the son of Æschines, whom the Argives chose as

their General and the restorer of Messene. This man was bidden in a

dream, in the place where he should find at Ithome an ivy and myrtle

tree growing, to dig between them and recover an old woman who was

ill and confined there in a brass coffin and already near to death’s

door. And Epiteles when day broke went to the appointed place, and dug

up a cinerary urn of brass, and took it at once to Epaminondas and

narrated his dream, and he told him to remove the lid and see what was

in it. And he after sacrifice and prayer to the person who had sent him

this dream opened the urn, and found some tin beaten very thin, and

rolled up like a book. On it were written the mysteries of the Great

Goddesses, and it was in fact what Aristomenes had buried. And they say

the person who appeared to Epiteles and Epaminondas in their dreams

was Caucon, who formerly came from Athens to Andania to Messene the

daughter of Triopas.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The wrath of Castor and Pollux against the Messenians began before

the battle at Stenyclerus, and I conjecture it to have originated in

the following way. Panormus and Gonippus, two lads of Andania in the

bloom of youth, were great friends, and used jointly to make incursions

and raids into Laconia. And as the Lacedæmonians in camp were keeping

the festival of Castor and Pollux, and after the banquet were full of

wine and merrymaking, Gonippus and Panormus, clad in white tunics and

purple cloaks, well mounted, with hats on their heads and spears in

their hands, presented themselves to the Lacedæmonians. And when they

saw them they bowed down before them and worshipped them, thinking they

were Castor and Pollux who had come to the sacrifice. But these young

men mixed up with them and rode through them and stabbed many with

their lances, and, after many of them had fallen, rode back to Andania,

having thus outraged the festival of Castor and Pollux. This is what

I think made the Twin Brethren hate the Messenians. But now, as was

hinted to Epaminondas in his dream, the Twin Brethren had no objection

to the return of the Messenians. And Epaminondas was very greatly

encouraged also to the restoration of Messene by the oracles of Bacis,

who had been driven mad by the Nymphs and had given various prophetic

utterances to several of the Greeks, and amongst others this one about

the return of the Messenians:

“And then shall Sparta lose her glorious flower,

Messene built again be for all time.”

I find also that Bacis foretold the manner in which Eira would be

taken: this is one of his prophetic lines,

“Those from conquered Messene with its splashing fountains.”

And as the records of the Mysteries had been recovered, the priests

entered them in books. And Epaminondas, as the place where the

Messenians now have their capital seemed most convenient to settle

in, bade the seers examine if the gods were favourable to the spot.

And on their replying that the omens were favourable, he at once made

preparations for building the town, ordering a large supply of stone,

and sending for builders who should artistically lay out streets and

build houses and temples and lines of walls. And when all was in

readiness the Arcadians furnished victims, and Epaminondas and the

Thebans sacrificed to Dionysus and Apollo Ismenius in the accustomed

manner, and the Argives to Argive Hera and Nemean Zeus, and the

Messenians to Zeus of Ithome and Castor and Pollux, and the priests of

the Mysteries to the Great Goddesses and Caucon. And with one consent

they invoked the heroes to come and dwell with them, especially Messene

the daughter of Triopas, and Eurytus and Aphareus and his sons, and

of the Heraclidæ Cresphontes and Æpytus. But most unanimous of all

was the cry for Aristomenes. And that day they devoted to sacrifices

and prayers, and on the following days they raised the circuit of

the walls, and began to build their houses and temples inside the

walls. And they carried on this work only to the music of Bœotian

and Argive flutes, and the tunes of Sacadas and Pronomus now first

came into competition. And they called the capital Messene, and they

restored others of their towns. But the people of Nauplia were not

turned out of Mothone, the Asinæi also were allowed to remain where

they were, the latter out of gratitude because they had refused to

join the Lacedæmonians against them. And the people of Nauplia, when

the Messenians returned to the Peloponnese, had brought them as gifts

whatever they had, and had continually prayed to the deity for their

return, and had also made many requests to the Messenians for their own

safety.

Thus the Messenians returned to the Peloponnese, and were restored

to their country, 287 years after the capture of Eira, when Dyscinetus

was Archon at Athens, and in the third year of the 102nd Olympiad, in

which Damon of Thurii won the second prize. It was indeed no short

time that the Platæans were exiles from their country, or the Delians

when (expelled from Delos by the Athenians) they dwelt at Adramyttium.

The Minyæ from Orchomenus also, having been driven out by the Thebans

from Orchomenus after the battle of Leuctra, were restored to Bœotia by

Philip the son of Amyntas, as the Platæans also. And although Alexander

stript Thebes of Thebans, yet not many years afterwards Cassander

the son of Antipater rebuilt it. The exile from Platæa seems to have

been the longest of those which I have recorded, however it was not

longer than two generations. But the Messenians were wanderers from

the Peloponnese for nearly 300 years, during which time it is evident

that they abandoned none of their national customs, nor did they change

their Doric dialect, but even to our day they preserve it purer than

any other of the Peloponnesians.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

On their return no apprehension was felt by them at first about the

Lacedæmonians: for they, being afraid of the Thebans, did not interfere

with the rebuilding of Messene, nor the gathering of the Arcadians

into one town. But when the Phocian War, otherwise called the Holy

War, withdrew the Thebans from the Peloponnese, then the Lacedæmonians

pricked up their courage, and could no longer keep their hands off the

Messenians. And the Messenians bore the brunt of the war alone, except

the assistance they got from the Argives and Arcadians; they also

begged for help from the Athenians,--but they replied that they could

not join them in an incursion into Laconia, but if the Lacedæmonians

were the aggressors and carried the war into Messenia, then they

promised that they would not fail them. And eventually the Messenians

got the help of Philip, the son of Amyntas, and the Macedonians, and

this they say prevented them from participation in the struggle of the

Greeks at Chæronea. Not that they would ever have been inclined to take

up arms against the Greeks. But after the death of Alexander, when the

Greeks commenced a second war against the Macedonians, the Messenians

took their part in this, as I have before shewn in my account of

Attica. But they did not join the Greeks in fighting against the

Galati, as Cleonymus and the Lacedæmonians would not make a treaty with

them.

And not long afterwards the Messenians occupied Elis, partly by

cunning partly by audacity. The people of Elis in ancient times were

the most orderly of all the Peloponnesians, but when Philip the son

of Amyntas did all that harm to Greece that we have mentioned, and

corrupted by bribes the most influential of the people of Elis, then

for the first time in their history the people of Elis took up arms and

became factious. And after they had taken the first plunge, they were

likely with less reluctance to go into future civil strife, inasmuch as

through the Lacedæmonians their policy had been shifted, and they had

drifted into civil war. And the Lacedæmonians hearing of the factions

at Elis made preparations to assist those who were for their party. And

while they were drilling and mobilizing their forces, about 1000 picked

men of the Messenians secretly approached Elis, with Lacedæmonian

colours on their shields. And when the men in Elis who were friendly

to the Spartans saw their shields, they concluded they had come to

help them and admitted them within the walls. But when the Messenians

got in, in the way I have described, they expelled from the town the

Lacedæmonian party, and entrusted the town to their own friends. Their

stratagem was Homeric, and the Messenians seem to have imitated Homer

for the nonce, for Homer has represented in the Iliad Patroclus wearing

the armour of Achilles, and how the Trojans, thinking that Achilles

was leading the attack, were thrown into confusion in their van. Other

stratagems of war are found in Homer, as when he describes two Greek

spies coming to the Trojans by night instead of one, and afterwards a

supposed deserter coming to Troy really to spy out the weak points.

Moreover he represents those Trojans who were either too young or

too old to fight as manning the walls, while those of a suitable age

took the field against the Greeks. And those of the Greeks that were

wounded gave their armour to other fighting men, that their services

too might not be altogether lost. Thus Homer’s ideas have been

generally useful to mankind.

CHAPTER XXIX.

And no long time after this action at Elis the Macedonians under

Demetrius, the son of Philip the son of Demetrius, attacked Messene.

Most of the audacity displayed by Perseus against Philip and his son

Demetrius I have already described in my account about Sicyon: and the

capture of Messene took place as follows. Philip was in need of money,

and, as he must have it by hook or by crook, sent Demetrius with a

fleet to the Peloponnese. And Demetrius chanced to put in at one of

the least frequented harbours of Argolis: and without losing time he

led his army by the shortest cuts through the country to Messene. And

having posted in the van all his light-armed troops, as he was well

acquainted with the road to Ithome, he got stealthily into the town

a little before dawn, and took up his position between the town and

the citadel. And when day broke and those in the town perceived their

imminent peril, their first thought was that the Lacedæmonians had got

into the town, so they rushed against them with the greatest alacrity

owing to their ancient animosity. But when both from their arms and

language they discovered that they were Macedonians under Demetrius

the son of Philip, a panic came over them, when they considered the

military renown of the Macedonians, and the good fortune which they had

invariably had. However the magnitude of the impending danger suggested

to them an almost supernatural bravery, and at the same time the hope

to see better days supported them: for they could not but think their

return to the Peloponnese after so long an exile was not against the

will of the Deity. The Messenians therefore in the town rushed against

the Macedonians with impetuosity, and the garrison in the citadel

galled them from their higher position. The Macedonians from their

courage and tactical skill fought at first like lions: but at last

spent with their long march, and not only pressed hard by men, but

pelted with tiles and stones by the women, fled in disorder. And most

of them perished miserably, being pushed down the rocks, for Ithome was

very precipitous here, but a few threw away their arms and got off safe.

What prevented the Messenians from joining at first the Achæan League

was as follows. They had of their own accord gone to the aid of the

Lacedæmonians when they were attacked by Pyrrhus the son of Æacus, and

for this good service there were already friendlier relations between

themselves and Sparta. They did not therefore wish to revive the old

feud by going to the Achæan League, as the Achæans were most openly

hostile to the Lacedæmonians. And what has not escaped my notice, and

cannot have escaped the notice of the Messenians is that, even had

there been no Achæan League, the Achæans would have been hostile to

the Lacedæmonians, for among the Achæans the Argives and Arcadians

were no small element. In process of time however the Messenians

joined the Achæan League. And not long afterwards Cleomenes, the son

of Leonidas and grandson of Cleonymus, took Megalopolis the chief

town of the Arcadians in truce time. In the capture of the town about

a third of the inhabitants were captured or slain, but Philopœmen

the son of Craugis and those who escaped with him (and they say that

rather more than two thirds of the people of Megalopolis got away) were

kindly received by the Messenians, partly on account of the ancient

friendliness which the Arcadians had first exhibited in the days of

Aristomenes, and partly in consequence of the part they had taken

in the rebuilding of Messene. The Messenians even went so far as to

assign to the Arcadians equal rights to themselves. Such vicissitudes

and changes are there in all human affairs, that the deity put it into

the power of the Messenians to preserve in turn the Arcadians, and

(what was still less to be expected) one day to capture Sparta. For

when they fought against Cleomenes at Sellasia they joined Aratus and

the Achæans in taking Sparta. And when the Lacedæmonians had got rid

of Cleomenes, there rose up against them the tyrant Machanidas: and

after his death Nabis sprang up as tyrant over them. And, as he not

only plundered men but also sacrilegiously robbed the holy places, in

no long time he amassed considerable sums of money, and got together

with this money an army. And when he occupied Messene Philopœmen and

the people of Megalopolis made a sally by night, and the Spartan tyrant

departed on conditions. And the Achæans after this, in consequence of

some difference with the Messenians, marched out against them in full

force, and ravaged their territory. And again about harvest time they

collected a force for the purpose of attacking Messenia, but Dinocrates

a prominent man among the people, who had been recently elected ruler

of the Messenians, forced Lycortas and the army with him to retire

without effecting their object, and having occupied the byroads between

Messenia and Arcadia he protected[58] the Messenians in their town

and in all the neighbouring districts. And when Philopœmen with a few

cavalry came a little later than the army of Lycortas, not having

been able to gather any tidings about them, the Messenians having the

advantage of ground beat them in battle, and took Philopœmen alive. And

the manner of his capture and his death I shall relate hereafter in my

account of Arcadia. Suffice it here to state that those Messenians who

were guilty of the death of Philopœmen were punished, and Messene again

joined the Achæan League.

Hitherto I have had to deal with the many sufferings of the

Messenians, and to describe how the Deity, having scattered them to

the ends of the earth, and to places most remote from the Peloponnese,

restored them to their own country a long time afterwards. And now let

us turn to a description of the country and its towns.

CHAPTER XXX.

There is in our days in Messenia, about 20 stades from the Chœrian

dell, a town by the sea called Abia. They say in old times it was

called Ire, and that it was one of the seven towns, which Homer

represents Agamemnon as promising to Achilles. And when Hyllus and

the Dorians were conquered in battle by the Achæans, then they say

Abia, the nurse of Glenus the son of Hercules, went to Ire, and there

lived, and built a temple of Hercules, and for that reason Cresphontes

afterwards assigned her several honours, and changed the name of

the town to her name Abia. There were notable temples there both to

Hercules and Æsculapius.

And Pharæ is distant from Abia about 80 stades, and the water by the

road is salt. The Emperor Augustus ordered the Messenians at Pharæ to

be ranked under Laconia. The founder of the city was they say Pharis,

the son of Hermes by Phylodamea the daughter of Danaus. And Pharis they

say had no male children, but only a daughter Telegone. The direct

line of genealogy has been given by Homer in the Iliad, who says that

the twins Crethon and Ortilochus were the sons of Diocles, and that

Diocles himself was the son of Ortilochus, the son of Alpheus. But

he has said nothing about Telegone, who according to the Messenian

tradition was the wife of Alpheus and mother of Ortilochus. I have

also heard at Pharæ that Diocles had a daughter Anticlea as well as

his twin sons, and that she bare Nicomachus and Gorgasus to Machaon

the son of Æsculapius: they lived at Pharæ, and after the death of

Diocles succeeded to the kingdom. And a constant tradition about them

has prevailed even to this day, that they have the power of healing

illnesses and people maimed in body. And because of this the people

sacrifice to them and offer votive offerings. At Pharæ there is also a

temple and ancient statue of Fortune. The first person that I know of

that has mentioned Fortune is Homer. He has mentioned her in his Hymn

to Demeter, when enumerating the other daughters of Oceanus, how they

played with Demeter’s daughter Proserpine, and among them Fortune, also

a daughter of Oceanus. These are the lines.[59] “We all were in the

pleasant meadow, Leucippe, Phæno, Electra, and Ianthe, Melobosis, and

Fortune, and Ocyroe of the beautiful eyes.” But he has said nothing

further about her, how she is the greatest goddess in human affairs

and has the greatest influence, as in the Iliad he represented Athene

and Enyo as supreme in war, and Artemis as dreaded in childbirth, and

Aphrodite as the goddess of marriages. He has not symbolized Fortune in

this way. But Bupalus, a man of wonderful ability in building temples

and making models of animals, is the first person we know of that made

a statue of Fortune. His was for the people of Smyrna. Fortune has a

globe on her head, and in one of her hands what is called by the Greeks

the horn of Amalthea. Thus did he typify the actions of this goddess.

Pindar also subsequently wrote various lines about Fortune, and named

her City-Preserver.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Not far from Pharæ is the grove of Carnean Apollo, and a fountain of

water in it, and Pharæ is about six stades from the sea. As you go

from thence into the interior of Messenia about 80 stades you come to

the town of Thuria,--which they say Homer called Anthea in his verses.

And Augustus gave Thuria to the Spartans. For when the future Emperor

of Rome was at war with Mark Antony, several Greeks and especially

Messenians fought for Antony because the Lacedæmonians espoused the

side of Augustus. Accordingly Augustus punished the Messenians and

others who had opposed him, some more some less. And the people of

Thuria left their ancient city which was built on a height, and went

and dwelt in the plain. Not that they altogether abandoned the upper

city, for there are ruins of their walls and a temple there called the

temple of the Syrian goddess. And a river called Aris flows by their

town in the plain.

And there is in the interior a village called Calamæ and a place

called Limnæ: in the latter place is a temple of Artemis of Limnæ,

where they say Teleclus the king of Sparta was killed. And as you go

from Thuria in the direction of Arcadia are the sources of the river

Pamisus, in which small boys by being dipped are cured of diseases. And

as you go to the left from these sources of the river and go forward

about 40 stades, you come to the city of the Messenians under Mount

Ithome: which is encircled not only by Mount Ithome but also in the

direction of the Pamisus by Mount Eva. The mountain they say was called

Eva from the Bacchic cry Evœ, which Dionysus and his attendant women

first uttered here. And round Messene is a circular wall entirely

constructed of stone, and towers and battlements are built on it. As to

the walls of the Babylonians, or those called Memnon’s in Susa amongst

the Persians, I have neither seen them nor heard anything of them

from eye witnesses: but I can confidently affirm that the wall round

Messene is stronger than those at Ambrosus in Phocis or at Byzantium

or at Rhodes. And in the market-place at Messene there is a statue of

Zeus Soter, and a conduit called Arsinoe, which got its name from the

daughter of Leucippus, and water flows underground to feed it from a

well called Clepsydra. And the gods who have temples are Poseidon and

Aphrodite. And the most notable thing is a statue of the Mother of the

Gods in Parian marble by Damophon, who most artistically rivetted the

Zeus at Olympia when the ivory got loose. And honours were bestowed

upon him by the people of Elis. He too designed the statue that the

people of Messene call Laphria: whom they are accustomed to worship for

the following reason. Among the Calydonians, who worship Artemis most

of all the gods, her title is Laphria. And the Messenians who received

Naupactus from the Athenians, and lived consequently very near to

Ætolia, borrowed the worship of Artemis Laphria from the Calydonians.

The statue I shall describe elsewhere. The title Laphria is only

given to Artemis by the Messenians and the people of Patræ in Achaia.

Ephesian Artemis is the title which all cities recognize, and by which

men privately worship her as greatest of the gods; partly from the fame

of the Amazons, who are said to have established the worship of her

image, partly because she had a temple at Ephesus from time immemorial.

And three other things contributed to her glory also, the size of the

temple which exceeds all other human structures, the celebrity of the

city of Ephesus, and the splendour of the goddess’ shrine.

At Messene there is also a temple and stone statue of Ilithyia. And

hard by is a hall of the Curetes, where they sacrifice all kinds of

living things alike. Beginning with bulls and goats, they even go as

far as to cast birds into the flames. There is also a temple sacred

to Demeter, and statues of Castor and Pollux represented as carrying

off the daughters of Leucippus. I have already shown in a previous

part of my work that the Messenians assert that Castor and Pollux are

indigenous with them and not with the Lacedæmonians. And they have many

statues well worth seeing in the temple of Æsculapius. For besides the

statues of the god and his sons, and besides those of Apollo and the

Muses and Hercules, there are statues of Thebes and Epaminondas the

son of Cleommis, and of Fortune and of Lightbringing Artemis. Those in

stone are the work of Damophon, the only Messenian statuary that I know

of that has produced any remarkable statues. The effigy of Epaminondas

in iron is by another hand. There is also at Messene a temple of

Triopas and her statue in gold and Parian marble: and the paintings at

the back of the temple are Aphareus and his sons, the kings of Messene

before the expedition of the Dorians to the Peloponnese, and after the

return of the Heraclidæ Cresphontes, the leader of the Dorians, and of

those that dwelt at Pylos Nestor and Thrasymedes and Antilochus, who

were preferred to the sons of Nestor partly because they were older,

partly because they had taken part in the Trojan expedition. There are

paintings also of Leucippus the brother of Aphareus, and of Hilaira,

Phœbe, and Arsinoe. There are paintings also of Æsculapius, (the son

of Arsinoe according to the tradition of the Messenians,) and Machaon

and Podalirius, for they also had a share in the expedition to Ilium.

These paintings were executed by Omphalion, the pupil of Nicias the son

of Nicomedes: some say that he was also the slave of Nicias and his

favourite.

CHAPTER XXXII.

The temple at Messene called the Sacrificial Chamber has statues of

the gods generally worshipped among the Greeks, and also an effigy of

Epaminondas in brass. There are also some ancient tripods, such as

Homer describes as not having experienced fire.[60] And the statues in

the gymnasium are the work of Egyptians, and are Hermes Hercules and

Theseus, who are wont to be held in honour at gymnasiums and palæstras

by all Greeks and by many barbarians. I also noticed a statue of

Æthidas who was a contemporary of mine but older, and as he was very

wealthy the Messenians paid him honours as a hero. None of the people

of Messene deny that Æthidas was wealthy, but some say it is not that

Æthidas who has a statue on the pillar, but a namesake and ancestor.

And this earlier Æthidas was they say the General of the Messenians,

when Demetrius the son of Philip and his army stole into the town by

night when they little expected it.

There is here also the tomb of Aristomenes, and not a mere cenotaph,

if their account is correct. But when I inquired how and from what

place they brought home Aristomenes’ remains, they replied that they

sent for them from Rhodes, obeying the direction of the God at Delphi.

They also informed me of the sacrifices at this tomb. The bull they

intend to sacrifice they bring to the tomb, and fasten it to a pillar

near the tomb. And it being wild and unused to bonds is reluctant to

remain there. And if by its struggles and mad bounds the pillar is

moved, it is an auspicious omen to the people of Messene, but if it

is not moved it is an omen of misfortune. And they amuse themselves

with the fancy that Aristomenes though no longer alive was present at

the fight at Leuctra, and they say he fought for the Thebans, and was

the main cause of the Lacedæmonian defeat. I know that the Chaldæan

and Indian astrologers were the first who taught that the soul of man

is immortal, and several Greeks credited their assertion, and notably

Plato the son of Aristo. And whoever are willing to believe this cannot

deny the fact that the hatred of Aristomenes to the Lacedæmonians was

eternal. And what I heard in Thebes lent probability to the tradition

at Messene, though it does not altogether agree with their account.

The Thebans say that on the eve of the battle at Leuctra they sent to

several oracles, and among others to that of Trophonius at Lebadea. The

answers are extant which were received from Ismenian and Ptoan Apollo,

as also from Abæ and Delphi. But the response of Trophonius was in

4 hexameter verses. “Before contending with the foe erect a trophy,

decking out the shield, which the ardent Aristomenes of Messene placed

in my temple. I will assuredly destroy the host of hostile warriors.”

And on the arrival of this oracular response they say that Epaminondas

prevailed with Xenocrates to send for the shield of Aristomenes, and he

decked it out as a trophy in a place where it would be visible to the

Lacedæmonians. And some of them recognized the shield as they had seen

it in time of peace at Lebadea, and all knew of it by report. And after

the Thebans won their victory, they offered Aristomenes’ shield again

to Trophonius as a votive offering. There is also a brazen statue of

Aristomenes in the race-course at Messene. And not far from the theatre

is the temple of Serapis and Isis.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

And as you go towards the hill of Ithome, where the Messenians have

their citadel, is the spring called Clepsydra. However willing one

may be it is a matter of no small difficulty to enumerate all the

people who put in the claim that Zeus was born and bred among them.

The people of Messene have this tradition among others. They say that

Zeus was reared among them, and that Ithome and Neda were his nurses,

and that Neda gave her name to the river, and Ithome hers to the

mountain. And these Nymphs they say, when Zeus was stolen away by the

Curetes from fear of Cronos, washed him here at Clepsydra, and the

spring got its name from the theft of the Curetes: and every day they

take water from this spring to the temple of Zeus of Ithome. And the

statue of Zeus is the work of Ageladas, and was made originally for

the Messenians that dwelt at Naupactus. And a priest chosen annually

keeps the statue in his house. And they have an annual feast at Ithome,

and originally they had a musical contest, as one may infer from other

sources, but especially from the lines of Eumelus, which are part of

his Processional Hymn at Delos, “Welcome to Zeus of Ithome was the pure

muse with free sandals.” I think from these verses that Eumelus knew

that they had a musical contest at the Feast of Zeus of Ithome.

At the gates in the direction of Megalopolis in Arcadia there is a

statue of Hermes of Athenian design: the busts of Hermes among the

Athenians are square, and others have borrowed this design from them.

And if you go about 30 stades down from these gates you come to the

river Balyra. It was so called they say because Thamyris threw his lyre

away there in his blindness, Thamyris the son of Philammon and the

nymph Argiope. Argiope they say lived at Parnassus for a while, but

when she became pregnant removed to Odrysæ, because Philammon would not

marry her. And this is the reason why they call Thamyris Odrysian and

Thracian. And the rivers Leucasia and Amphitus are tributaries of the

Balyra.

After you have crossed these you come to the plain called the plain

of Stenyclerus; this Stenyclerus was a hero. And right opposite the

plain is what was called of old Œchalia, but in our day the Carnasian

grove, mostly of cypress trees. And the gods who have statues are

Carnean Apollo and Hermes carrying a ram. And the daughter of

Demeter is here called the Virgin, and near her statue water wells

from a spring. But the rites of the Great Goddesses, who have their

Mysteries at the Carnasian grove, I must not reveal: but they are in

my opinion second only in sanctity to the Eleusinian Mysteries. I

am also prevented by a dream from revealing to the public all about

the cinerary urn of brass found by the Argive General, in which

the remains of Eurytus the son of Melaneus are kept. And the river

Charadrus flows along the Carnasian grove, and as you go on about 8

stades to the left you come to the ruins of Andania. That the town was

so named from a woman called Andania is admitted by the antiquarians: I

know however nothing about her parents, or who she married. And on the

road from Andania to Cyparissiæ you come to a place called Polichne,

where the rivers Electra and Cœus flow. Perhaps the names of these

rivers refer to Electra the daughter of Atlas and to Cœus the father of

Leto, or Electra and Cœus are possibly some local heroes.

And after crossing the Electra you come to the well called Achaia,

and the ruins of the city Dorium. And it is here at Dorium that Homer

has described Thamyris as having been stricken blind, because he said

he could excel the Muses in singing.[61] But Prodicus the Phocæan,

(if the poem called the Minyad is indeed his), says that punishments

were reserved for Thamyris in Hades because of his boastful language

to the Muses. But I am of opinion that Thamyris lost his eyesight

through disease: as indeed happened to Homer subsequently. But Homer

went on composing all his life, for he did not yield to his misfortune,

whereas Thamyris wooed the Muse no longer, completely overcome by his

ever-present trouble.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

From Messene to the mouth of the Pamisus is about 80 stades, and the

Pamisus flows clear and limpid through arable land, and is navigable

some 10 stades inland. And some sea fish swim up it especially at the

season of spring, as they do also up the rivers Rhenus and Mæander: but

mostly do they swim up the river Achelous, which has its outlet near

the islands called the Echinades. And the fish that swim up the Pamisus

are finer in appearance, because the water is clear, and not full of

mud like the other rivers I have mentioned. And mullets, being fishes

that love mud, are fond of muddy rivers. Now the Greek rivers do not

seem to produce beasts dangerous to man’s life, like the Indus, and

the Nile in Egypt, and the Rhenus, the Ister, the Euphrates, and the

Phasis. For they produce beasts that devour man, in appearance like the

Glanides at Hermus and Mæander, except that they have a darker skin and

more strength. In these respects the Glanides are deficient. And the

Indus and Nile both furnish crocodiles, and the Nile hippopotamuses

also, which are as destructive to man as the crocodile. But the Greek

rivers are not formidable for wild beasts, for even in the river Aous,

that flows through the Thesprotian mainland, the dogs are not river

dogs but sea dogs that swim up from the sea.

On the right of the Pamisus is Corone, a town near the sea, and under

the mountain Mathia. And on the road to it is a place near the sea,

which they think is the temple of Ino: for they say that the goddess

landed here from the sea, and was worshipped by the name of Leucothea

instead of Ino. And at no great distance the river Bias discharges

itself into the sea, which river took its name they say from Bias the

son of Amythaon. About 20 stades from the road is the well Plataniston,

the water flows from a plane-tree, broad and hollow inside, and like a

small cave, and fresh water flows from thence to Corone. The name of

the town was of old Æpea, but after the Messenians were restored to the

Peloponnese by the Thebans, they say that Epimelides, who was sent to

rebuild it, called it Coronea, after Coronea in Bœotia where he came

from, but the Messenians mispronounced the name Corone from the first,

and in process of time their mistake became prevalent. There is also

another tradition that when they were digging the foundations of their

walls they found a brass crow.[62] The gods here who have temples are

Artemis called the Rearer of children, and Dionysus, and Æsculapius.

The statues of Æsculapius and Dionysus are of stone, and there is a

brazen statue of Zeus Soter in the market-place. There is also a brazen

statue of Athene in the citadel in the open air, with a crow in her

hand. I also saw the tomb of Epimelides. Why they call the harbour the

harbour of the Achæans I do not know.

As you go on about 80 stades from Corone you come to a temple of

Apollo, near the sea, which is held in high honour: according to the

Messenian tradition it is the most ancient of all Apollo’s temples,

and the god heals diseases. They call the god Corydus.[63] His statue

here is of wood, but there is a brazen statue the work of Argeotas, a

votive offering they say of the Argonauts. And near the town of Corone

is Colonides. Its inhabitants say they were not Messenians but were

brought by Colænus from Attica, who according to an oracle followed the

crested lark there. And in process of time they picked up the Dorian

dialect and customs. And the town of Colonides is on a height not far

from the sea.

And the people of Asine were originally neighbours of the Lycoritæ,

and dwelt near Mount Parnassus. They were then called Dryopes from

their founder, which name they retained when they came to the

Peloponnese. But in the third generation afterwards, when Phylas

was king, the Dryopes were beaten in battle by Hercules, and were

taken to Delphi and offered to Apollo. And being brought back to the

Peloponnese by the oracle which the god gave Hercules, they first

occupied Asine near Hermion, and, having been expelled thence by the

Argives, they dwelt in Messenia by permission of the Lacedæmonians,

and when in process of time the Messenians were restored they were not

turned out by them from Asine. And the account the people of Asine

themselves give is as follows. They admit they were conquered in battle

by Hercules, and that their town on Mount Parnassus was captured,

but they deny that they were led captive to Apollo, but when their

walls were taken by Hercules, they left their town they say and fled

for refuge to the heights of Parnassus; and afterwards crossing over

in ships to the Peloponnese became suppliants of Eurystheus, and he

being a bitter enemy of Hercules gave them Asine in Argolis to dwell

in. And the Asinæi are the only descendants of the Dryopes that still

plume themselves on that name, very unlike the Eubœans that live at

Styra. For they too are Dryopes by origin, who did not participate in

the contest with Hercules but dwelt at some distance from the town.

But they despise the name Dryopes, just as the inhabitants of Delphi

object to be called Phocians. Whereas the Asinæi rejoice in the name

of Dryopes, and have evidently made the holiest of their temples an

imitation of those they formerly erected at Mount Parnassus. They have

not only a temple of Apollo, but a temple and ancient statue of Dryops,

whose mysteries they celebrate annually, and say that he was the son of

Apollo. And Asine lies by the sea just as the old Asine in Argolis did,

and the distance from Colonides is about 40 stades, and at about the

same distance in the other direction is the Promontory of Acritas, just

in front of which is the deserted island of Theganussa. And not far

from Acritas is the harbour of Phœnicus and some islands called Œnussæ

opposite the harbour.

CHAPTER XXXV.

And Mothone, which before the expedition against Troy and even

subsequently to that war was called Pedasus, afterwards changed its

name to Mothone from the daughter of Œneus as the inhabitants say: for

Œneus the son of Porthaon after the capture of Ilium retired they say

with Diomede to the Peloponnese, and had by a concubine a daughter

Mothone. But in my opinion the Rock called Mothon gave its name to

Mothone, a rock which constitutes a natural harbour, for being much

of it sunken under the water it narrows the entrance for ships, and

at the same time is a kind of breakwater against the violence of the

waves. I have already described how the Lacedæmonians, in the days when

Damocratidas was king at Argos, gave Mothone to the people of Nauplia,

who had been expelled from their city for their Laconian proclivities;

and how even after the restoration of the Messenians they were not

interfered with. The people of Nauplia were I imagine in ancient times

Egyptians, and, having come to Argolis in their ships with Danaus,

they formed three generations afterwards a colony at Nauplia under

Nauplius the son of Amymone. And the Emperor Trajan granted the people

of Mothone a free constitution. But in older days they alone of all the

Messenians had the following serious misfortune. Thesprotia in Epirus

was in a ruinous condition from anarchy. For Deidamia the daughter of

Pyrrhus had no children, and on her death handed over the government

to the people. She was the daughter of Pyrrhus, the son of Ptolemy,

the son of Alexander, the son of Pyrrhus: of this last Pyrrhus the

son of Æacides I have given an account earlier in my description of

Attica. Procles the Carthaginian has given Alexander the son of Philip

more praise for his good fortune and the lustre of his exploits, but

for the disposition of an army and strategical tactics in the face of

an enemy he says Pyrrhus was the better man. And when the people of

Epirus became a democracy, they shewed a want of ballast in several

respects, and entirely disregarded their rulers: and the Illyrians

that dwelt north of Epirus by the Ionian sea became their masters by

sudden attack. For we know of no democracy but Athens that ever rose

to greatness. The Athenians indeed rose to their zenith by democracy:

but in native intelligence they were superior to the other Greeks, and

obeyed the laws more than democracies generally do.

And the Illyrians, when they had once tasted the sweets of conquest,

longed for more and still more, and equipped a fleet, and made piratic

excursions everywhere, and sailed to Mothone and anchored there as

with friendly intent, and sent a messenger into the town and asked

for some wine for their ships. And when a few men brought this wine,

they paid for it the price the people of Mothone asked for it, and

sold them in turn some of their cargoes. And on the following day more

came from the city and a brisker traffic ensued. And at last women and

men came down to the ships, and sold wine and received goods in turn

from the barbarians. Then the Illyrians in the height of their daring

captured many men and still more women, and clapped them on board, and

sailed away for the Ionian sea, having half stripped the town of its

population.

At Mothone is a temple of Athene _the Goddess of Winds_, Diomede they

say dedicated the statue of the goddess and gave her that title, for

violent winds and unseasonable used to blow over the place and do much

harm, but after Diomede prayed to Athene, no trouble from winds ever

came to them thenceforward. There is also a temple of Artemis here,

and some water mixed with pitch in a well, in appearance very like

Cyzicenian ointment. Water indeed can assume every colour and smell.

The bluest I have ever seen is at Thermopylæ, not all the water but

that which flows into the swimming-bath which the people of the place

call the women’s Pots. And reddish water very like blood is seen in

the land of the Hebrews near Joppa: the water is very near the sea,

and the tradition about the spring is that Perseus, after killing the

sea monster to whom the daughter of Cepheus was exposed, washed away

the blood there. And black water welling up from springs I have seen

at Astyra which is opposite Lesbos, the warm baths are in a village

called Atarneus, which was given to the Chians by the Medes as a reward

for giving up to them the suppliant Pactyas the Lydian. This water is

black: and not far from a town across the river Anio the Romans have

some white water: and when one bathes in it it is at first cold and

makes one shudder, but if one stays in it a little time it is hot as

fire. All these wonderful springs I have myself seen, and those of

lesser wonder I purposely pass over, for to find water salt and rough

to the palate is no great wonder. But there are two very remarkable

kinds of water: one at Caria in the plain called White, near a village

called Dascylus, warm and sweeter to drink than milk: and the other

Herodotus describes as a spring of bitter water discharging itself into

the river Hypanis. How then shall we refuse to credit that warm water

is found at Dicæarchia[64] among the Tyrrhenians, so hot that in a few

years it melts the lead through which it flows?

CHAPTER XXXVI.

From Mothone to the promontory of Coryphasium is about 100 stades, and

near it is Pylos, which was founded by Pylos, the son of Cleson, who

brought from Megaris the Leleges who then occupied Megaris. But he did

not enjoy it long, being turned out by Neleus and the Pelasgians of

Iolcus. And he went away to the neighbouring country and occupied Pylos

in Elis. And king Neleus advanced Pylos to such renown that Homer in

his Iliad calls it the city of Neleus.[65] There is a temple there of

Athene called Coryphasia, and a house called Nestor’s house, in which

is a painting of Nestor, and there is his tomb inside the city, and at

a little distance from Pylos is (they say) the tomb of Thrasymedes.

And there is a cave inside the city, which they say was the stall of

the oxen of Nestor and still earlier of Neleus. The breed of these

oxen would be Thessalian, of the herd of Iphiclus the father of

Protesilaus, for Neleus asked them as wedding presents from the wooers

of his daughter, and it was on their account that Melampus to gratify

his brother Bias went to Thessalia, and was bound by the herdsmen of

Iphiclus, but eventually by answering the questions which Iphiclus put

obtained these oxen as a reward. The men of that day were anxious to

amass wealth in the shape of herds of horses and oxen, for not only did

Neleus desire for his own the oxen of Iphiclus, but Eurystheus ordered

Hercules, in consequence of the fame of those oxen in Spain, to drive

off the herd that belonged to Geryon. And Eryx, who was at that time

king in Sicily, was manifestly so keenly in love with the oxen from

Erythea, that when he wrestled with Hercules he staked his kingdom

against them. And Homer in the Iliad has represented Iphidimas, the son

of Antenor, giving 100 oxen as the first wedding present to his father

in law.[66] All this confirms my theory that the men of those days

were especially fond of oxen. And the oxen of Neleus grazed I imagine

mostly over the borders, for the district of Pylos is mostly sandy,

and unable to afford sufficient pasture. My authority is Homer who,

whenever he mentions Nestor, always calls him the king of sandy Pylos.

Before the harbour is the island Sphacteria, situated very much as

Rhenea is in reference to the harbour of Delos. It seems the destiny

of both men and places to be for a while unknown and then to come to

renown. Such was the case with Caphareus, a promontory in Eubœa, by a

storm which came there upon the Greeks returning with Agamemnon from

Ilium. So too with Psyttalea off Salamis, where we know the Medes

perished in great numbers. So too the reverses of the Lacedæmonians

at Sphacteria made the place world-famed. And the Athenians erected

a brazen statue of Victory in their Acropolis as a record of their

success at Sphacteria.

And as you go in the direction of Cyparissiæ from Pylos there is a

spring under the city close to the sea. They say the water welled up

in consequence of Dionysus striking the ground with his thyrsus, and

so they call the spring Dionysus’ spring. There are also at Cyparissiæ

temples of Apollo and Cyparissian Athene. And at the place called Aulon

there is a temple of Æsculapius, and a statue of Aulonian Æsculapius.

From this place the river Neda, till it falls into the sea, is the

boundary between Messenia and Elis.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] Odyssey, xxi. 18.

[54] Odyssey, xxi. 15, 16.

[55] _Ibid._ iii. 488, 489.

[56] Iliad, ii. 729.

[57] This seems strange. Ingeniosissime διακόψας Corayus. Siebelis

defends the text. “Sacerdos, quo majus esset miraculum, videtur

dixisse, eum se advolvisse igni, eique admovisse vincula, usque dum

solverentur.”

[58] Reading ἤμυνεν.

[59] Hymn to Demeter, lines 417, 418, 420.

[60] See Hom. Il. ix. 122; xxiii. 267.

[61] Iliad, ii. 594-600.

[62] Crow in Greek is _Corone_. Hence the Paronomasia.

[63] That is, _crested lark_. The explanation of this title is given

somewhat lower down.

[64] _Puteoli_ is the Latin name.

[65] Iliad, xi. 682.

[66] Iliad, xi. 244.

BOOK V.--ELIS.

CHAPTER I.

Those Greeks, who say that the Peloponnese is divided into five

parts and no more, are obliged to admit that the people of Elis as

well as the Arcadians dwell in the division of the Arcadians, and

that the second division is Achaia, and that the Dorians have the

remaining three. The indigenous races that inhabit the Peloponnese are

Arcadians and Achæans. And the Achæans were driven out of their own

land by the Dorians, but did not however evacuate the Peloponnese, but

dispossessed the Ionians that lived in what was then called Ægialus,

but is now called after them Achaia. The Arcadians on the other hand

have always up to this day remained in Arcadia. But the other parts

of the Peloponnese are peopled by strangers. The latest importation

were the present Corinthians, who were introduced into the Peloponnese

some 217 years ago by the Roman Emperor. And the Dryopes came into the

Peloponnese from Mount Parnassus, the Dorians from Mount Œta.

We know that the people of Elis originally came from Calydon and

other parts of Ætolia. And the oldest information I have found about

them is as follows. The first king in this land was they say Aethlius,

the son of Zeus by Protogenea the daughter of Deucalion, and the father

of Endymion. The Moon was they say enamoured of this Endymion, and

had by him 50 daughters. But a more probable account is that Endymion

married Asterodia, others say Chromia the daughter of Itonus the son of

Amphictyon, others say Hyperippe the daughter of Arcas, and had three

sons, Pæon and Epeus and Ætolus, and one daughter Eurycyde. Endymion

also made his sons contend in running at Olympia for the kingdom, and

Epeus won, so the people over whom he ruled were first called Epeans.

And of his brothers Ætolus they say remained at home, but Pæon vexed

at his loss went as far away as possible, and the region beyond the

river Axius was called Pæonia after him. As to the death of Endymion

different accounts are given by the Heracleotæ at Miletus and by the

people of Elis, but the latter show the sepulchre of Endymion, while

the former say that he retired to Mount Latmus, where is his shrine.

And Epeus married Anaxiroe, the daughter of Coronus, by whom he had a

daughter Hyrmina, but no male offspring. And these were the events of

his reign. Œnomaus the son of Alxion, (or the son of Ares, as poets

have sung, which is the prevalent tradition), being ruler of the

country called Pisæa, was deposed from his rule by Pelops the Lydian,

who had crossed over from Asia Minor. And after his death Pelops

occupied Pisæa and Olympia, slicing off from the territory of Epeus

what bordered upon Pisæa. And Pelops (so the people of Elis say) was

the first in the Peloponnese to build a temple to Hermes and sacrifice

to him, thus turning away the wrath of the god for the murder of

Myrtilus.

And Ætolus, the king after Epeus, had to flee from the Peloponnese,

because the sons of Apis indicted him for the involuntary murder of

their father. For Apis the son of Jason, a native of Pallantium in

Arcadia, was killed by Ætolus’ driving over him in his chariot at the

funeral games in memory of Azan. So Ætolus the son of Endymion fled to

the mainland, to the neighbourhood of the river Achelous, which was

called Ætolia after him. And the kingdom of the Epeans was reigned over

by Eleus, the son of Eurycyde, the daughter of Endymion and (if we may

believe the tradition) Poseidon. And the people in his dominions now

changed their names from Epeans to Eleans.

And Eleus had a son called Augeas. And those who want to exalt him

change his father’s name, and say that he was the son of Helius (_the

Sun-god_). The oxen and goats of this Augeas were so numerous that

most of the country could not be cultivated for their dung. Hercules

therefore, whether for a part of Elis or some other reward, was

persuaded by him to clear the country of this dung. And he effected

this by turning the river Menius on to it. But Augeas, because the

work had been effected by ingenuity rather than toil, refused to give

Hercules his reward, and turned out of doors the eldest of his sons

Phyleus, because he told him he was not acting with justice to a

benefactor. He also made several preparations to defend himself against

Hercules, should he come into Elis with an army, and entered into an

alliance with Amarynceus and the sons of Actor. Now Amarynceus had an

especial acquaintance with military matters, and his father Pyttius

was a Thessalian by extraction, and had come from thence to Elis. And

to Amarynceus Augeas gave a share of his power at Elis; and Actor and

his sons also, who were natives of Elis, shared in the administration

of the kingdom. The father of Actor was Phorbas the son of Lapithus,

and his mother was Hyrmina, the daughter of Epeus, and Actor built and

called after her the town of Hyrmina in Elis.

CHAPTER II.

Now in the campaign against Augeas Hercules had no opportunity to win

laurels, for as the sons of Actor were in their prime for daring and

vigour of youth, the allied forces of Hercules were constantly routed

by them, until the Corinthians announced a truce during the Isthmian

games, and the sons of Actor went to see the games, and Hercules lay

in ambush for them and slew them at Cleonæ. And the perpetrator of the

deed being unknown, Moline the mother of the lads took the greatest

pains to discover their murderer. And when she discovered who it was,

then the people of Elis claimed compensation for the murder from the

Argives, for Hercules dwelt in Argolis at Tiryns. And as the Argives

refused to give up Hercules, they next begged hard of the Corinthians,

that all Argolis should be scratched from the Isthmian games. But

being unsuccessful in this also, they say Moline put a curse upon

the citizens if they went to the Isthmian games. And these curses of

Moline are observed up to this day, and all the athletes at Elis make

a practice of never going to the Isthmian contest. And there are two

different traditions about this. One of them states that Cypselus the

tyrant at Corinth offered a golden statue to Zeus at Olympia, but,

Cypselus dying before his name was inscribed on the votive offering,

the Corinthians asked the people of Elis to allow them to inscribe

publicly the name of Corinth on the votive offering, and the people of

Elis refusing they were angry with them, and forbade them to contend at

the Isthmian games. But how would the Corinthians have been admitted at

the contests at Olympia, if they had excluded the people of Elis from

the Isthmian games? But the other tradition states that Prolaus, a man

of much repute among the people of Elis, and Lysippe his wife had two

sons Philanthus and Lampus, and they went to the Isthmian games, the

one intending to compete in the pancratium among the boys, the other

in wrestling, and before the games came on they were strangled or

killed in some way by their rivals: and that was why Lysippe imposed

her curses on the people of Elis, if they would not of their own accord

cease to attend the Isthmian games. This tradition too is easily shewn

to be a silly one. For Timon a native of Elis had victories in the

pentathlum in all the other Greek contests, and there is an effigy of

him at Olympia, and some elegiac verses which enumerate the various

crowns that he carried off as victor, and the reason why he did not

participate in the Isthmian contest. This is one couplet. “Our hero was

prevented coming to the land of Sisyphus by the strife that arose in

consequence of the sad fate of the sons of Molione.”

CHAPTER III.

Let this suffice on the matter. To resume, Hercules afterwards captured

and sacked Elis, having got together an army of Argives Thebans and

Arcadians: and the people of Elis were assisted by the men of Pylos

in Elis and by the men of Pisa. And the men of Pylos were punished by

Hercules, and he intended marching against Pisa, but was stopped by the

following oracle from Delphi,

“Dear to the Father is Pisa, Pytho has entrusted it to me.”

This oracle was the salvation of Pisa. And to Phyleus Hercules gave

up Elis and other places, not so much willingly as standing in awe of

Phyleus, to whom he also granted the captives and forgave Augeas. And

the women of Elis, as their land was stripped of young men through

the war, are said to have prayed to Athene that they might conceive

directly they married, and their prayer was granted, and they erected

a temple to Athene under the title of Mother. And both the women and

men being excessively delighted with their union called the place where

they first met Bady (_sweet_), and also gave the same name in their

national dialect to the river flowing there.

And when Phyleus, after setting things in order in Elis, returned to

Dulichium, Augeas died being already advanced in age, and was succeeded

in the kingdom of Elis by his son Agasthenes, and by Amphimachus, and

Thalpius. For the sons of Actor married two sisters, the daughters

of Dexamenus who was king at Olenus, and the one had by Theronice

Amphimachus, and the other Eurytus had by Theræphone Thalpius. Not that

Amarynceus or Diores his son remained all their lives in a private

capacity. As we know from Homer in his catalogue of the men of Elis,

all their fleet was 40 sail, and half of them were under Amphimachus

and Thalpius, and of the remaining half ten were under Diores the son

of Amarynceus, and ten under Polyxenus the son of Agasthenes. And

Polyxenus coming back safe from Troy had a son Amphimachus, (he gave

his son this name I fancy from his friendship to Amphimachus the son

of Cteatus who perished at Ilium), and he had a son Eleus, and it was

when Eleus was king at Elis that the Dorian host mustered under the

sons of Aristomachus with a view to return to the Peloponnese. This

oracle came to the kings, that they must make a man with three eyes

leader of the return. And as they were in great doubt what the oracle

could mean, a muleteer chanced to pass by, whose mule was blind of one

eye. And Cresphontes conjecturing that the oracle referred to this

man, the Dorians invited him to be their leader. And he urged them to

return to the Peloponnese in ships, and not force their way through the

isthmus with a land force. This was his advice, and at the same time he

piloted the fleet from Naupactus to Molycrium, and they in return for

his services agreed to give him at his request the kingdom of Elis. And

the man’s name was Oxylus, he was the son of Hæmon, the son of Thoas,

who in conjunction with the sons of Atreus had overturned the kingdom

of Priam; and between Thoas and Ætolus the son of Endymion there are

six generations. And the Heraclidæ were in other respects kinsmen to

the kings in Ætolia, besides the fact that the sisters of Thoas were

mothers by Hercules of Andræmon and Hyllus. And Oxylus had to flee from

Ætolia in consequence of an accident, in throwing a quoit (they say)

he missed his aim and unintentionally killed his brother Thermius, or

according to some accounts Alcidocus the son of Scopius.

CHAPTER IV.

There is also another tradition about Oxylus, that he suspected the

sons of Aristomachus of an unwillingness to give him the kingdom of

Elis, as it was fertile and well cultivated everywhere, and this was

why he led the Dorians through Arcadia and not through Elis. And when

Oxylus hastened to take the kingdom of Elis without contention Dius

would not permit him, but challenged him not to a contention with all

their forces, but to a single combat between two soldiers one from each

side. And both agreed to this. And the men selected for this single

combat were Degmenus a bowman of Elis, and Pyræchmes on the Ætolian

side a famous slinger. And as Pyræchmes was victorious Oxylus got

the kingdom, and he allowed the ancient Epeans to remain there, but

introduced Ætolians as colonists with them, and gave them also a share

in the land. And to Dius he gave various honours, and observed the

rights of all the heroes according to old precedents, and introduced

sacrificial offerings to Augeas which have continued to our day. It

is said that he also persuaded the men in the villages, who were at

no great distance from the walls, to come into the city, and thus

increased the population of Elis and made it more powerful in other

respects. And an oracle came to him from Delphi to associate with him

as colonist a descendant of Pelops, and he made diligent search, and

discovered Agorius the son of Damasius, the son of Penthilus, the son

of Orestes, and invited him from Helice in Achaia and with him a few

Achæans. And they say Oxylus had a wife called Pieria, but they record

nothing further about her. And the sons of Oxylus were they say Ætolus

and Laias. And Ætolus dying in his father’s lifetime, his parents

buried him and erected a sepulchre to him by the gate, which leads to

Olympia and the temple of Zeus. And they buried him there in accordance

with the oracle, which said that his dead body was to be neither in nor

out of the city. And annually still the master of the gymnasium offers

victims to Ætolus.

Oxylus was succeeded in the kingdom by his son Laias. I could not

find that his sons reigned, so I purposely pass them over, for it has

not been my desire in this narrative to descend to private personages.

But some time afterwards Iphitus, who was of the same family as Oxylus,

and a contemporary of Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian legislator, revived

the contest at Olympia, and renewed the public gathering there, and

established a truce as long as the games lasted. Why the meetings at

Olympia had been discontinued I shall narrate when I come to Olympia.

And as Greece at this time was nearly ruined by civil wars and by

the pestilence, Iphitus bethought him to ask of the god at Delphi a

remission from these ills. And they say he was ordered by the Pythian

Priestess to join the people of Elis in restoring the Olympian games.

Iphitus also persuaded the people of Elis to sacrifice to Hercules, for

before this they had an idea that Hercules was hostile to them. And the

inscription at Olympia says that Iphitus was the son of Hæmon, but most

of the Greeks say he was the son of Praxonides and not of Hæmon. But

the ancient records of the people of Elis trace him up to a father of

the same name as himself _viz._ Iphitus.

The people of Elis took part in the Trojan war, and also in the

battles against the Persians when they invaded Greece. And to pass over

their frequent disputes with the people of Pisa and the Arcadians in

respect to the re-establishment of the games at Olympia, they joined

the Lacedæmonians not without reluctance in invading Attica, and not

long after they fought against the Lacedæmonians, having formed an

alliance with the Mantineans the Argives and the Athenians. And on the

occasion of Agis making an incursion into Elis, when Xenias played the

traitor, the people of Elis were victorious at Olympia, and routed

the Lacedæmonians, and drove them from the precincts of the temple:

and some time afterwards the war came to an end on the conditions

which I have mentioned before in my account of the Lacedæmonians.

And when Philip, the son of Amyntas, could not keep his hands off

Greece, the people of Elis, worn out with intestine factions, joined

the Macedonians, but not to the point of fighting against the Greeks

at Chæronea. But they participated in the attack of Philip upon the

Lacedæmonians by reason of their ancient hatred to them. But after the

death of Alexander they joined the Greeks in fighting against Antipater

and the Macedonians.

CHAPTER V.

And in process of time Aristotimus, the son of Damaretus, the son of

Etymon, obtained the sovereignty at Elis, partly through the assistance

of Antigonus the son of Demetrius, who was king of the Macedonians. But

when he had reigned only six months, Chilon and Hellanicus and Lampis

and Cylon rose up against him and deposed him; and Cylon slew him with

his own hand when he had fled as suppliant to the altar of Zeus Soter.

These are the chief wars the people of Elis took part in, just to

glance at them briefly in the present portion of my work.

Among the wonders of Elis are the flax, which grows here alone and

in no other part of Greece, and also the fact that, though over the

borders mares bear foals to he-asses, it is never so in Elis. And this

phenomenon is they say the result of a curse. The flax in Elis in

respect of thinness is not inferior to the flax of the Hebrews, but is

not as yellow.

And as you go from the district of Elis there is a place by the sea

called Samicum, and beyond it on the right is the district called

Triphylia, and the city Lepreus in it. The people of Lepreus think they

belong properly to Arcadia, but it is manifest they were from time

immemorial subject to Elis. For the victors at Olympia that came from

Lepreus were pronounced by the herald men of Elis. And Aristophanes has

described Lepreus as a city in Elis. One way to Lepreus from Samicum is

by leaving the river Aniger on the left, and a second is from Olympia,

and a third from Elis, and the longest of them is only a day’s journey.

The city got its name they say from Lepreus the son of Pyrgeus its

founder. There is a tradition that Lepreus had an eating contest with

Hercules, each killed an ox at the same time and cooked it for dinner,

and (as he had betted) he was quite a match for Hercules in eating.

But he had the hardihood afterwards to challenge Hercules to a contest

in arms. And they say he was killed in that contest and buried at

Phigalia, however his sepulchre there is not shewn. And I have heard

some who claim that their city was founded by Leprea the daughter

of Pyrgeus. Others say that the inhabitants of this region were the

first lepers, and that the city got its name from this misfortune of

its inhabitants. And the people of Lepreus say that in their city

they once had a temple of Leucæan Zeus, and the tomb of Lycurgus the

son of Aleus, and also the tomb of Caucon. The last had they say as a

design over it a man with a lyre. But in my time there is no remarkable

tomb there, nor any temple of the gods except one of Demeter: built

of unbaked brick, and containing no statue. And not far from the

city Lepreus is a spring called Arene: it got this name according to

tradition from the wife of Aphareus.

And as you return to Samicum, and go through it, the river Aniger

has its outlet to the sea. The flow of this river is often impeded by

violent winds: for they blow the sand from the shore into it and dam

up the flow of the river. Whenever then this sand becomes soaked with

water, (outside by the sea inside by the river), it becomes a very

dangerous place for carts and carriages and even for an active man to

ford. This river Aniger rises in the Arcadian mountain Lapithus, and

the water has an unpleasant smell from its source. Before receiving

its tributary the Acidas it is too fetid to have any fish whatever,

and after its confluence with the Acidas, though it has fish that

come into its waters from that tributary, they are no longer eatable,

which they are when caught in the Acidas. That the ancient name of the

river Acidas was Iardanus I should not myself have conjectured, but

I was so informed by an Ephesian. The unpleasant smell of the Aniger

comes I believe from the soil through which the river flows, as is

certainly the case with those rivers beyond Ionia, whose exhalations

are deadly to man. Some of the Greeks say that Chiron, others that

Pylenor the Centaur, was wounded by Hercules, and fled and washed his

sore in this river, and that it was from the Hydra’s poison (_in which

Hercules’ arrow had been dipped_) that the Aniger got its unpleasant

smell. Others refer this condition of the river to Melampus the son of

Amythaon, and to the fact that the purifications of the daughters of

Prœtus were thrown into it.

There is at Samicum a cave, not far from the river, called the cave

of the Nymphs of the Aniger. Whoever goes into it suffering from either

black or white leprosy, must first of all pray to these Nymphs and

promise sacrifice to them, and afterwards wipe clean the diseased parts

of his body. If he next swims across the river he leaves in the water

his foul disease, and comes out of the river sound and with his skin

uniformly clear.

CHAPTER VI.

On the high road, after crossing the Aniger in the direction of

Olympia, there is at no great distance on the right an eminence,

and on it a town called Samia above Samicum. This town[67] they say

was made into a sort of offensive fortress against the Arcadians by

Polysperchon, an Ætolian.

As to the ruins of Arene, none either of the Messenians or people of

Elis could give me a clear account. As their explanations are different

those who like to conjecture are at liberty to do so. The most

credible account seems to me that of those who think that the ancient

name of Samicum earlier than the time of the heroes was Arene. And

these quote the lines in the Iliad.

“There is a river Minyeïus,

That flows into the sea near to Arene.”

Iliad, xi 722, 723.

And these ruins of Arene are very near the Aniger. One might have

doubted about Samicum having been called Arene, only the Arcadians

admit that the ancient name of the river Aniger was Minyeïus. And one

would feel sure that the river Neda near the sea was the boundary

between Elis and Messenia at the time of the return of the Heraclidæ to

the Peloponnese.

And leaving the Aniger, and passing through a district generally

sandy and full of wild pine-trees, somewhat back to the left you will

see the ruins of Scillus. Scillus was one of the towns of Triphylia:

and in the war between the people of Elis and Pisa the people of

Scillus openly allied themselves to the people of Pisa, and in return

the men of Elis dispossessed them from Scillus. But the Lacedæmonians

afterwards sliced Scillus from Elis, and gave it to Xenophon (the son

of Gryllus), who was at that time exiled from Athens. He was banished

by the Athenians for joining Cyrus (who hated their democracy) against

the king of the Persians (who was their friend): for when Cyrus was at

Sardis he gave Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, and the Lacedæmonians

some money for their fleet. This is why Xenophon was banished, and he

lived at Scillus and built a temple and grove to Ephesian Artemis. And

Scillus affords good hunting of wild animals, as wild boars and deer.

And the river Selinus flows through the district. And the antiquarians

of Elis say that the people of Elis recovered Scillus, and that

Xenophon was tried in the Olympian council for receiving Scillus from

the Lacedæmonians, but was acquitted and allowed to continue there scot

free. And at some little distance from the temple they show a tomb, and

there is an effigy on the tomb in Pentelican marble, which the people

of the place say is Xenophon.

On the road to Olympia from Scillus, before crossing the Alpheus,

is a mountain lofty and precipitous which is called Typæum. From this

mountain it is the custom to hurl all women of Elis who are detected as

competitors in the Olympian contests, or who merely cross the Alpheus

on forbidden days. Not that any one ever yet was so detected except

Callipatira, whose name according to some traditions was Pherenice. She

after the death of her husband dressed herself up like an athlete, and

brought her son as a combatant to Olympia. And Pisirodus her son having

been victorious, Callipatira in leaping over the fence which parted

the athletes from the spectators, exposed her person, and though her

sex was detected they let her go without punishment out of respect to

her father and brothers and son, who had all been victors at Olympia,

but they passed a law that henceforth all athletes should come to the

contests naked.

CHAPTER VII.

And when you have got to Olympia immediately you see the river Alpheus,

a full and very pleasant river, and no less than seven notable rivers

are tributaries to it. For through Megalopolis the Helisson flows

into it, and the Brentheates from the district of Megalopolis, and

the Gortynius near Gortyna where is a temple of Æsculapius, and from

Melæneæ between the districts of Megalopolis and Heræa the Buphagus,

and the Ladon from the district of the Clitorians, and the river

Erymanthus from the mountain of the same name. All these flow into the

Alpheus from Arcadia, and the Cladeus from Elis also contributes its

stream. And the source of the Alpheus is in Arcadia and not in Elis.

And there are several traditions about the Alpheus, as that he was a

hunter and enamoured of Arethusa, and that she hunted with him. And as

Arethusa was unwilling to marry him, she crossed over they say to an

island near Syracuse, called Ortygia, and there became a spring: just

as Alpheus in consequence of his love was changed into a river. This

is the tradition about the Alpheus and the Ortygia. As to the river

going under the sea and coming up in another place, there is no reason

why I should discredit that, as I know that the god at Delphi admitted

it, seeing that when he sent Archias the Corinthian to establish a

colony at Syracuse, these were some of the words he used, “Ortygia

lies in the cloudy sea above Trinacria, where the mouth of the Alpheus

mixes and flows with the springs of the broad Arethusa.” From this

circumstance of their union, and not any love passages, I imagine the

traditions about the two rivers originated. And all the Greeks or

Egyptians, that have penetrated into Ethiopia beyond Syene, and as far

as the Ethiopian city of Meroe, say that the Nile enters into a marsh,

and flows through it as if it were earth, and eventually through lower

Ethiopia into Egypt to Pharos, where it has its outlet at the sea. And

in the land of the Hebrews I know that the river Jordan flows through

the lake of Tiberias, and into what is called the Dead Sea, by which

it is absorbed. The Dead Sea has properties unlike any other water:

living bodies can float in it without swimming, whereas dead bodies go

to the bottom. And it has no fish, for from their evident danger they

take refuge in water more congenial to them. And there is a river in

Ionia similar to the Alpheus, its source is in the mountain Mycale, and

it flows under the sea, and comes up again at Branchidæ at the harbour

called Panormus. All this is correctly stated.

In regard to the Olympian Games those who are in possession of the

most ancient archives of the people of Elis say that Cronos was the

first king of Heaven, and that he had a temple built to him at Olympia

by the mortals who then lived, who were called the golden age: and

that, when Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the charge of the boy to the

Idæan Dactyli, who were otherwise called the Curetes: who afterwards

came to Elis from Ida in Crete, and their names were Hercules, and

Epimedes, and Pæonæus, and Iasius, and Idas. And Hercules the eldest

of them challenged his brothers in play to run a race together, and

they would crown the victor with a branch of the wild olive: and there

was such abundance of wild olive trees that they strewed under them

the leaves while they were still green as beds to sleep on. And they

say that the wild olive was introduced to the Greeks by Hercules from

the country of the Hyperboreans, who dwelt north of the wind Boreas.

Olen the Lycian first mentioned in a hymn to Achæia, that she came to

Delos from these Hyperboreans, and when Melanopus of Cumæ composed an

ode to Opis and Hecaerges, he mentioned that they too came from the

Hyperboreans to Delos before Achæia. And Aristæus of Proconnesus, who

has also mentioned the Hyperboreans, may perhaps have heard more of

them from the Issedones, to whom in his poems he says they went. At

any rate to Idæan Hercules belongs the glory that he first instituted

and gave their name to the Olympian contests. He appointed them to be

held every fifth year because he and his brothers were five in number.

And some say that it was there that Zeus contended with Cronos about

the sovereignty of Heaven, others say he appointed these games after

his success over Cronos. Other gods are said to have been victorious,

as Apollo who outran Hermes, who challenged him to the contest,

and outboxed Ares. And this is the reason they say why the Pythian

flute-playing was introduced in the leaping contest at the pentathlum,

because the flute was sacred to Apollo, and Apollo was on several

occasions the victor at Olympia.

CHAPTER VIII.

And after this they say Clymenus the son of Cardys, (in the 50th year

after Deucalion’s flood), a descendant of Idæan Hercules, came from

Crete and established games at Olympia, and erected an altar to his

ancestor Hercules and to the other Curetes, giving Hercules the title

of Assistant. But Endymion the son of Aethlius deposed Clymenus from

the kingdom, and gave it to his sons as a prize for the best runner

of them at Olympia. And a generation after Endymion, Pelops made the

contest to Olympian Zeus more famous than any of his predecessors.

And when the sons of Pelops were scattered from Elis all over the

Peloponnese, Amythaon the son of Cretheus, uncle of Endymion on the

father’s side, (for they say Aethlius was the son of Æolus surnamed

Zeus), appointed games at Olympia, and after him Pelias and Neleus in

common. So also did Augeas and Hercules, the son of Amphitryon, after

the capture of Elis. And all that he crowned as victors were Iolaus,

who had borrowed the mares of Hercules for the race. It was an old

custom to be a competitor with borrowed horses. Homer at least in the

funeral games in honour of Patroclus has represented Menelaus as yoking

together Agamemnon’s horse Æthe with one of his own.[68] Iolaus was

also Hercules’ charioteer. He was the victor in the chariot race, and

Iasius an Arcadian in the riding race, and Castor was successful in

running, Pollux in boxing. It is also recorded of Hercules that he was

victorious in wrestling and in the pancratium.