ARISTOMENES AND THE FOX
The Spartans were eager to fight and to add to their dominions. So they
determined to attack the Messenians, whose country lay west of Laconia,
close to their own borders.
One day, while the Messenians were feasting and offering sacrifices to
their gods, the Spartans sent three youths disguised as maidens across
the borderland. Beneath their robes the young soldiers carried arms.
They stole quietly in among the Messenians and attacked them in the
midst of their feast.
But although the Messenians were unarmed they soon captured the three
Spartan lads. They then advanced against the Spartans, and in the
tumult that followed, one of the kings of Sparta was slain.
The war, which was thus begun in 743 B.C., lasted for many years, and
was known as the First Messenian War.
No great battle was fought until four years had passed. Even then
neither side could claim a victory, but so many Messenians had fallen
that Aristodemus, their chief, withdrew, with those of his followers
who were left, to a mountain fortress called Ithomé.
Then, as was their custom, when it was difficult to know what to do
next, the Messenians sent to consult the oracle. The answer filled them
with dismay, for the oracle declared that not until a maiden belonging
to one of their ancient houses was sacrificed to the gods need they
hope to conquer the Spartans. But Aristodemus loved his country so
dearly that he did not hesitate to sacrifice his own daughter to the
gods.
When the Spartans heard what the brave chief had done, they hastened to
make peace with the Messenians. They could not hope to conquer those
for whom the gods would now fight.
A few years passed, and then the Spartans determined to attack the
Messenians once again, and to drive them from Ithomé their mountain
fortress.
Again a great battle was fought, and again neither side could claim the
victory. But the king of the Messenians was killed, and Aristodemus was
chosen to rule in his place. In the fifth year of his reign he defeated
the Spartans and drove them from his dominions.
The victory brought no happiness to the king, for omens of evil seemed
to pursue him.
In the temple a brazen shield fell from the hand of the statue of
Artemis the goddess. The daughter of Aristodemus appeared to her father
and bade him lay aside his armour. He obeyed, and she then placed on
his head a crown of gold and clad him in a white robe. These things
meant that the death of the king was near.
Aristodemus believed that not only he but his country was doomed, and
deeming that he had sacrificed his daughter in vain, he slew himself in
his despair on her tomb.
For twenty years the war still dragged on, and only then were the
Spartans able to drive the Messenians from Ithomé and raze the fortress
to the ground.
Many of the conquered people fled, while those who remained were
treated more harshly than were the Helots. For they were compelled to
pay as tribute to the Spartans half the produce of their lands. This
was the end of the First Messenian War.
For almost thirty years the conquered people bore their cruel lot, then
in 685 B.C. they rebelled, and the Second Messenian War was begun.
Aristomenes, the leader of the rebels, was a bold and daring foe.
To show how little he feared the Spartans, he secretly crossed the
borderland into the enemy’s country, and one night he succeeded in
entering the city of Sparta itself. He made his way to the temple of
Athene, and walking in boldly he hung up his shield beside the statue
of the goddess, with these words tied to it: ‘Dedicated by Aristomenes
to the goddess from the Spartan spoils.’
With a band of his bravest followers, the chief made more than one
successful raid into the heart of the enemy’s country, and plundered
two of their cities.
As in the first war, so in this second war, no decisive victory was
gained at first by either side. But legend tells that Aristomenes did
many valiant deeds.
Three times he offered a strange sacrifice to the king of the gods,
which one who had slain in battle a hundred of the foe was alone
permitted to do. The sacrifice was named the Hekatomphonia.
The Spartans, alarmed at the daring of Aristomenes, sent to consult
the oracle at Delphi. They were told to send to the famous city of
Athens for a leader. Now the Spartans did not wish to do this, for they
were not on good terms with the Athenians. Still, as they dared not
disregard the oracle, they did as they were bid.
The Athenians did not wish to help the Spartans any more than they
wished to ask for help, yet they too knew they could not ignore the
oracle. So they got out of the difficulty, as they thought, by sending
a lame schoolmaster, named Tyrtaeus. He would not be likely to lead an
army far.
But although Tyrtaeus was a lame man, he was also a poet. His war-songs
roused the Spartans, and inspired them to fight more bravely than
ever. When they marched again to battle they were singing the songs of
Tyrtaeus and marching to victory. Aristomenes was forced to retreat to
the mountains to a fortress called Ira.
For eleven years the war lingered on. The Spartans often encamped
at the foot of Ira to keep the enemy in check. But again and again
Aristomenes broke out of the fortress, and with a band of followers
crossed the border and laid waste Laconia. Twice he was taken prisoner
and twice he escaped, but the third time he was captured he was carried
in triumph to the city of Sparta. With fifty of his countrymen he was
flung from Mount Taygetus into a great chasm in the rock below.
The fifty followers of Aristomenes were killed by the fall, but
Aristomenes was saved by the gods. For, so the legend tells, an eagle
with wings outspread carried him unhurt to the bottom of the pit.
For three days Aristomenes lay in the cavern surrounded by the dead
bodies of his comrades. To escape seemed impossible. But when no hope
was left in the heart of the brave man, he noticed something move at
the foot of the cave. At once he roused himself to look more closely at
the moving object; it was a fox, prowling about in search of food.
In an instant hope was alive in the heart of Aristomenes. If an animal
had got into the cave, it was possible for him to get out of it.
Weak though he was for want of food, Aristomenes managed to seize the
tail of the fox, and to hold it fast when the animal tried to escape.
Onward the fox struggled, until it reached a narrow hole in the rock.
Then Aristomenes let his deliverer go, while he began at once to
enlarge the hole.
The next day, to the joy of his countrymen and to the alarm of his
enemies, Aristomenes was again in the Messenian fortress.
But there was a traitor in the camp of the Messenians, and one night,
soon after the return of their leader, the mountain fortress at Ira was
betrayed into the hands of the Spartans.
In the battle that followed, Aristomenes was wounded, but gathering
together the bravest of his followers, he made a desperate charge
through the lines of the enemy and escaped. Some time after he died in
Rome, but it is told that two hundred and fifty years later, he was
seen on a battlefield fighting against the Spartans.
The Second Messenian War ended, as had the first, in the triumph of the
Spartans, who again treated their prisoners as slaves. In 464 B.C. war
again broke out between the Messenians and Sparta. The Spartans were
victorious, and the conquered people were driven from Peloponnesus. But
in 369 B.C. a great Theban leader called Epaminondas restored freedom
to the Messenians, and brought them back again to their own country.
The history of the Messenian War was written by the poet Tyrtaeus,
whose songs were sung for many years by the Spartans as they marched to
battle.
Some of these songs we can still read for ourselves.