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Updated: May 22, 2025
The third and last Messenian war had just been concluded by the surrender of Ithome, on terms which permitted the Messenians and their families to retire from the Peloponnesus, and they joined the colony which Athens planted at Naupactus.
In the thirteenth year of the war the Spartan king marched against Ithome, and a second great battle was fought, but the result was again indecisive. The Messenian king fell in the action; and Aristodemus, who was chosen king in his place, prosecuted the war with vigour. In the fifth year of his reign a third great battle was fought.
VI. And now, in the eighth year of the Messenian war, piety succeeded where pride and revenge had failed, and the Spartans permitted other objects to divide their attention with the siege of Ithome. It was one of the finest characteristics of that singular people, their veneration for antiquity.
This unfriendly act helped to embitter the relations between the two leading cities of Greece; and two years later, when the Messenians were expelled from Ithome, and driven into exile, the Athenians settled them with their families at Naupactus, an important strategic position on the north of the Corinthian Gulf, which has recently fallen into the hands of Athens.
The friends of Pericles, the rival of Cimon and the leader of the democratic party at Athens, opposed granting the desired relief; but Cimon, after some difficulty, persuaded his countrymen to assist the Lacedaemonians, and he himself marched with four thousand men to Ithome.
Meanwhile the Thasians being defeated in the field and suffering siege, appealed to Lacedaemon, and desired her to assist them by an invasion of Attica. Without informing Athens, she promised and intended to do so, but was prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by the secession of the Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the Perioeci to Ithome.
Yet neither were his men leaderless, only they sorrowed for their leader; but Medon marshalled them, Oileus' bastard son, whom Rhene bare to Oileus waster of cities. And of them that possessed Trikke and terraced ithome and that possessed Oichalia city of Eurytos the Oichalian, of these again Asklepios' two sons were leaders, the cunning leeches Podaleirios and Machaon.
Prosecution and Acquittal of Cimon. The Athenians assist the Spartans at Ithome. Thasos Surrenders. Breach between the Athenians and Spartans. Constitutional Innovations at Athens. Ostracism of Cimon. I. At the time in which Naxos refused the stipulated subsidies, and was, in consequence, besieged by Cimon, that island was one of the most wealthy and populous of the confederate states.
Expedition under Tolmides. Ithome surrenders. The Insurgents are settled at Naupactus. Disastrous Termination of the Egyptian Expedition. The Athenians march into Thessaly to restore Orestes the Tagus. Campaign under Pericles. Truce of five Years with the Peloponnesians. Cimon sets sail for Cyprus. Pretended Treaty of Peace with Persia. Death of Cimon. V Change of Manners in Athens.
In the eighteenth year of the conflict the Spartans suffered a severe defeat, and were driven back into their own territory; but at the close of the twentieth year the Messenians were obliged to abandon their fortress of Ithome, and leave their rich fields in the undisturbed possession of their conquerors.
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