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Updated: May 19, 2025
One district more that of E'lis, north of Messenia and west of Arcadia, and embracing the western slopes of the Achaian and Arcadian mountains makes up the complement of the ancient Peloponnesian states. Though hilly and mountainous, like Messenia, it had many valleys and hill-sides of great fertility.
At the same time he made vigorous preparations for action. He despatched envoys to the principal Grecian states for the purpose of inciting them against Macedon. Sparta, and the whole Peloponnesus, with the exception of Megalopolis and Messenia, seemed inclined to shake off their compulsory alliance.
Agesilaus was thought an obstinate and headlong man, and insatiable of war, because he took such pains to undermine the general peace, and to keep Sparta at war at a time when he was in such distress for money to carry it on, that he was obliged to borrow from his personal friends and to get up subscriptions among the citizens, and when he had much better have allowed the state some repose and watched for a suitable opportunity to regain the country; instead of which, although he had lost so great an empire by sea and land, he yet insisted on continuing his frantic and fruitless efforts to reconquer the paltry territory of Messenia.
That moonbeam falling on the letters had raised Messenia before him, and its struggle against the Spartan oppression. He snatched up the book, but the light was too pale for him to read further by. No matter: he knew that chapter; he read inwardly.
Thus Sparta, formed deliberately on a barbarian pattern, remained faithful to it, without change, without decay, while its intellectual rival was the victim of successive revolutions. At length its power was broken externally by the Theban Epaminondas; and by the restoration of Messenia, the insurrection of the Laconians, and the emancipation of the Helots.
First, it conquered the neighboring state of Messenia in two great wars, the first ending about 725 B.C., and the second about 650 B.C. In the first of these wars, the Messenians submitted to become tributary to Sparta, after their citadel, Ithome, had been captured, and their defeated hero, Aristodemus, had slain himself.
The other chief divisions of Peloponnesus were Achaia, Argolis, Laconia, Messenia, and Elis. ACHAIA is a narrow slip of country lying between the northern barrier of Arcadia and the Corinthian gulf. ARGOLIS, on the east, contained several independent states, of which the most important was Argos.
He tried to persuade Lysippus, then general of the Achæans, to go to the relief of Messenia, but he refused, saying that it was lost beyond hope. Thereupon Philopoemen set out himself, followed by such of his fellow citizens as deemed him their general by nature's commission. The very wind of his coming won the town.
As the Romans, in after-time, spent their early centuries in conquering the small nations immediately around them, so did the Spartans. And the first wars of this nation of soldiers seem to have been with Messenia, a small country west of Laconia, and extending like it southward into the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
This was done, thick and lofty walls, more than five miles and a half in circumference, being built round the new stronghold. His other purpose was to restore the country of Messenia. We have already told how this country had been conquered by the Spartans centuries before, and its people exiled or enslaved. Their descendants were now to regain their liberty and their homes.
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