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Updated: May 20, 2025
The Messenians appear to use equally inflated language about Aristomenes, when they tell us that he thrice offered sacrifice for having slain a hundred Lacedaemonians. After the victory, Romulus did not pursue the beaten army, but marched straight to the city of Veii.
Rhegium, situated on the straits of Messina, opposite Sicily, was colonised by the Chalcidians, but received a large body of Messenians, who settled here at the close of the Messenian war. Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium about B.C. 500, was of Messenian descent. He seized the Sicilian Zancle on the opposite coast, and changed its name into Messana, which it still bears.
The Spartans had laid a snare for their neighbors by dressing some youths as maidens and arming them with daggers. They attacked the Messenians, but were defeated, and the Spartan king was slain. In the war that ensued the Messenians in time found themselves in severe straits, and followed the plan that seems to have been common throughout Grecian history.
In 183 the Messenians, under the leadership of Dinocrates, having revolted from the league, Philopoemen, who had now attained the age of 70, led an expedition against them; but having fallen from his horse in a skirmish of cavalry, he was captured, and conveyed with many circumstances of ignominy to Messene, where, after a sort of mock trial, he was executed.
In this expedition, they united all Arcadia into one body, and, expelling the Spartans that inhabited Messenia, they called back the old Messenians, and established them in Ithome in one body; and, returning through Cenchreae, they dispersed the Athenians, who designed to set upon them in the straits, and hinder their march.
However, the Eleans, after Antiochus had been driven out of Greece, answered the deputies, sent by the Achaeans, with more moderation: that "when the king's troops were removed, they would consider what part they should take." But the Messenians had dismissed the deputies without an answer, and prepared for war.
Many of the inhabitants fled into other countries; but those who remained were reduced to the condition of Helots, and were compelled to pay to their masters half of the produce of their lands. For thirty-nine years the Messenians endured this degrading yoke. At the end of this time they took up arms against their oppressors. The SECOND MESSENIAN WAR lasted from B.C. 685 to 668.
When Nabis, who became despot over the Lacedæmonians after Machanidas, by a sudden attack captured the town of Messene, Philopœmen was not holding any office, but was a mere private citizen. He could not prevail upon Lysippus, who was commander-in-chief of the Achæans, to go to assist the Messenians, because the latter said that the city must be lost if the enemy were inside the walls.
So it seems to have been well said that in Lacedaemon, the free man was more free, and the slave more a slave than anywhere else. This harsh treatment, I imagine, began in later times, especially after the great earthquake, when they relate that the Helots joined the Messenians, ravaged the country, and almost conquered it.
This brought all the men in order together just in time, for the Helots were rising against them, and, if they had found them groping each in the ruins of his house, might have killed them one by one; whereas, finding them up and armed, the slaves saw it was in vain, and dispersed. The Messenians, who had never forgotten Aristodemus, hoped to free themselves again.
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