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Updated: July 21, 2025
The war continued, with varying success, seventeen years in all; throughout the whole of which period Aristomenes distinguished himself by many noble exploits; but all his efforts to save his country were ineffectual. Thenceforward the growing power of Sparta seemed destined to undisputed pre-eminence, not only in the Peloponnesus, but throughout all Greece.
One night the guilty pair were at the house of the adulteress the husband abruptly returned the slave was concealed, and overheard that, in consequence of a violent and sudden storm, the Messenian guard had deserted the citadel, not fearing attack from the foe on so tempestuous a night, and not anticipating the inspection of Aristomenes, who at that time was suffering from a wound.
Thrice was he taken prisoner; on two occasions he burst his bonds, but on the third he was carried to Sparta, and thrown with his fifty companions into a deep pit, called Ceadas. His comrades were all killed by the fall; but Aristomenes reached the bottom unhurt.
Here he boldly entered the temple of Athené of the Brazen House and hung up his shield there as a mark of defiance to his enemies, placing on it an inscription which said that Aristomenes presented it as an offering from Spartan spoil. The Messenian maidens crowned their hero with garlands, and danced around him, singing a war strain in honor of his victories over his foes.
Once he got into the city, and fought there all day, though he was wounded with a lance in the thigh; but he was obliged to retreat at night. However, he attacked the tyrant when out on an expedition, and slew him, but still could not set Argos free, as the tyrant’s son Aristomenes still held it.
He softly drew aside his cloak, and, now that his eyes were used to the darkness, he dimly saw a fox prowling around him, and sniffing his clothes suspiciously. Gently wrapping his cloak around his hand to protect it from the fox's sharp teeth, Aristomenes caught the animal firmly by the tail.
An augur had told Aristomenes that under a tree sat the Spartan brothers Castor and Pollux, to protect their countrymen, and that he might not pass it; but in the pursuit he rushed by it, and at that moment the shield was rent from him by an unseen hand.
At the head of a band of brave followers Aristomenes made his way more than once to the very heart of Laconia, surprised two of its cities, and on one occasion ventured into Sparta itself by night.
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 sacrifices for the death of a hundred enemies, Lacedaemonians, slain by himself.
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