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Updated: May 19, 2025
Both were tried for their lives, because they did not deliver up their command in the first month, Bucatius, as the law required, but kept it four months longer, in which time they did these memorable actions in Messenia, Arcadia, and Laconia. Pelopidas was first tried, and therefore in greatest danger, but both were acquitted.
Since the conquest of Messenia by the Spartans, the town had remained in ruins, and the country for some distance round was a desert.
Indeed, he did not deal so delicately with Pelopidas, but, according to the custom, gave him the most splendid and considerable presents, and granted him his desires, that the Grecians should be free, Messenia inhabited, and the Thebans accounted the king's hereditary friends.
So they sent three commissioners to Cnemus, with peremptory orders to prepare for another sea-fight, and not allow himself to be shut up in harbour by the feeble squadron of Phormio. One of these commissioners was Brasidas, a brilliant young officer, who had gained distinction two years before by saving the harbour-town of Methone, on the coast of Messenia, from being captured by the Athenians.
In this struggle the Argives, Arcadians, Si-cy-o'nians, and Pisa'tans aided Messenia, while the Corinthians assisted Sparta. In alarm the Spartans sought the advice of the Delphic oracle, and received the mortifying response that they must seek a leader from the Athenians, between whose country and Laconia there had been no intercourse for several centuries.
The new city of Messenia was built on the site of Mount Ithome, where the Messenians had defended themselves in their long war against the Laconians, and the best masons and architects were invited from all Greece to lay out the streets, and erect the public edifices, while Epaminondas superintended the fortifications.
The area of Messenia is one thousand one hundred and ninety-two square miles, not so large as one of our counties. The early inhabitants had been conquered by the Dorians, and it was against the descendants of these conquerors that the Spartans made war.
The murder of a Spartan king, Teleclus, at a temple on the confines of Laconia and Messenia, where sacrifices were offered in common, gave occasion for the first war, which lasted nineteen years, B.C. 743. Other States were involved in the quarrel—Corinth on the side of Sparta, and Sicyon and Arcadia on the part of the Messenians.
A new city, to be named Messenia, was ordered by Epaminondas to be built, and this, at the request of the Messenians, was erected on Mount Ithome, where the gallant hero Aristomenes had made his last stand against his country's invaders. The city was built, the walls rising to the music of Argeian and Boeotian flutes.
When the old Messenian town of Ithome fell into the hands of Philip, he went into the temple of Jupiter, with Aratus and another adviser called Demetrius the Pharian, to consult the sacrifices as to whether he should put a garrison into Ithome to overawe Messenia. The omens were doubtful, and Philip asked his two friends what they thought.
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