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Updated: July 21, 2025
But even this did not content him. Aristomenes observed that he was collecting his friends for some secret purpose, and in frequent consultation with them. He therefore summoned him to the king's presence, and, being prepared for his refusal, he sent a large force to fetch him.
One night the Spartans surprised Ira, while Aristomenes was disabled by a wound; but he collected the bravest of his followers, and forced his way through the enemy. Many of the Messenians went to Rhegium, in Italy, under the sons of Aristomenes, but the hero himself finished his days in Rhodes.
Being seized again by some Cretan bowmen, he was rescued by a maiden, who dreamed that wolves had brought into the city a chained lion, bereft of its claws, and that she had given it claws and set it free. When she saw Aristomenes among his captors, she believed that her dream had come true, and that the gods desired her to set him free.
In a short time he was free and in the open air. Some days after this the Spartans heard strange news: "Aristomenes is again at the head of the Greek army." They could not believe it. Did you ever hear of King Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden? He lived two hundred years ago, and was famous for his courage in defending his country. One day he was in the midst of a great battle.
The Spartans allowed these brave Messenians to pass untouched, and they reached Arcadia. There the dauntless Aristomenes arranged another scheme for seizing Sparta itself, but it was betrayed, and failed. The Arcadians stoned the traitor, while the gentle Aristomenes wept for him.
Aristomenes now, discouraged by the decree of the gods, and finding himself surrounded, through treachery, by his enemies in his mountain stronghold, decided to give up the hopeless struggle. He broke fiercely through the ranks of his assailants with his sons and followers, and left his country to the doom which the gods had decreed.
Me the gods impel to fall with my country!" Thus saying, the soothsayer rushed on the enemy, and fell at last covered with wounds and satiated with the slaughter himself had made. Aristomenes called the Messenians round him; the women and the children were placed in the centre of the band, guarded by his own son and that of the prophet.
In those days, people had not learned to be kind to their enemies. In war, they were savage and cruel; for war always makes men so. The Spartans hated Aristomenes. He had given them a great deal of trouble, and they wished to destroy him. On a mountain near their city, there was a narrow chasm or hole in the rocks. It was very deep, and there was no way to climb out of it.
But what some write, that, of fourteen thousand that fell that day, above half were slain by Romulus's own hand, verges too near to fable, and is, indeed, simply incredible; since even the Messenians are thought to go too far in saying that Aristomenes three times offered sacrifice for the death of a hundred enemies, Lacedaemonians, slain by himself.
The influence which Spleen has over religious minds, is admirably painted in the next stanza. A collection of this lady's poems was published at London 1713 in 8vo. containing likewise a Tragedy never acted, entitled Aristomenes, or the Royal Shepherd. The general scenes are in Aristomenes's camp, near the walls of Phærea, sometimes the plains among the Shepherds.
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