The Second Messenian War

Author: * Demetrios Xanthippos - 2 Posts on this thread out of 1,013 Posts sitewide.
Date: Jun 26, 2003 - 06:09

Like asses under great loads:
painful necessity to bring their masters
full half the fruits their plowed land produced.

Man and wife together lamented their masters,
when the dreadful destiny of death took them.

Both of those fragments are from the poet Tyrtaios, writing about the conditions of the Messenian helots after their conquest in the first war. The conditions would soon lead to a huge revolt and the need for Sparta to reconquer Messenia. The story of the Second Messenian War is also the story of the Messenian hero Aristomenes, who was accorded divine honors in both his homeland and in Rhodes. His mother is usually called Nikotelia; most of Greece said his father was Pyrrhos, but the Messenians claim he was Nikomedes.

In the second generation after the fall of Ithome, Aristomenes and some other young men—primarily from around Andania—grew restless and decided it was time to rid themselves of the Spartans. They secretly sent to Arkadia and Argos seeking allies and were surprised by how well their proposal was received. Thirty-eight years after the fall of Ithome, in the fourth year of the twenty-third Olympiad (685 BC) the Messenians revolted. They fought their first battle at Messenian Derai, which was probably on the Arkadian border. Aristomenes distinguished himself so well in battle that the people tried to make him king (he was descended from Aipytos). He refused to be king, so they made him commander-in-chief and dictator.

After that he sneaked over the Lakonian border and dedicated his shield in the Spartan temple of Athena of the Bronze House. This was meant to frighten and dispirit the Spartans and it did cause them to send to Delphi. Legend says that at this time in response to the oracle they brought the poet Tyrtaios from Athens as an advisor.

The next year there was another battle at a place called the Boar’s Grave (somewhere in northern Messenia). The Messenians were accompanied by allies from Arkadia, Argos and Sikyon, as well as representatives from the exiled families; the Spartans were supported by allies from Corinth and Lepreos. Aristomenes was everywhere in the battle accompanied by 80 hand-picked followers. Together they folded up the Spartan line and pursued them recklessly. Aristomenes lost his shield and turned back after a sign. After this he went to Delphi to ask about his shield, recovered it in Lebedeia and dedicated it at Delphi.

After his return he made a night raid on Lakonian Pharai. He wiped out the defenders and made off with a lot of loot. He and his men were met by a hoplite force, but broke through and escaped with the booty. Aristomenes was wounded. After his recovery, he tried a night march on Sparta but was turned back by visions of Helen and the Dioskouroi. Instead at dawn he ambushed some virgins who were dancing for Artemis at Karyia and took several captives. He later ransomed them back to their families for a sizeable sum. He tried the same at the sanctuary of Demeter at Aigila in Lakonia, but was repelled by the women themselves.

In the third year of the war, the Lakonians bribed Aristokrates the king of Arkadia to come to their side. This was commonly believed in Greece to be the first time someone bribed an enemy. At the battle of the Great Trench Aristokrates suddenly withdrew his people from the Messenian center and left. He sent his men running through the Messenian lines, causing total confusion. The battle was a complete rout and several leading Messenians were killed. Aristomenes gathered the survivors and withdrew to Mt. Eira, where the Lakonians besieged them for eleven years.

The Messenians now treated their land as enemy territory and raided it so heavily that the Spartans felt they were working the land for the Messenians rather than themselves. They passed a resolution to leave Messenia and the borders of Lakonia fallow for the duration of the war. This caused a grain shortage at Sparta and a revolt at home. Tyrtaios managed to settle the matter.

Aristomenes made a successful raid on Amyklai (a mere five miles from Sparta) and continued raiding the Lakonian countryside until he was captured. The Spartans decided to fling him into the Keadas, a deep cavern where the worst offenders were thrown. Most were killed by the fall and those that lived died of hunger and exposure soon after. Aristomenes is supposed to have survived the fall uninjured and escaped after three days by following a vixen. He made it back to Eira and proved to the Lakonians that he was still alive by making a number of devestating raids on a Corinthian column on its way to Eira.

After eleven years of this sort of thing there were signs and portents that Eira was doomed. Aristomenes buried the rites of the mysteries on tin sheets on Mt. Ithome. The Spartans made their final assault on a stormy, moonless night when the Messenians had deserted their posts. Nothing was really achieved that night and come morning even the women took up arms. The battle raged for three days without a break. The Spartans were able to rest their men and rotate fresh ones in every few hours, but the Messenians had to fight continuously. Aristomenes finally decided to withdraw with the women and children and the Spartans chose to let them out. They took refuge in Arkadia. Aristomenes was planning a counterattack—probably a suicide mission—but the plan was betrayed by Aristokrates. As a result, his people learned of his treachery and stoned him to death. Mt. Eira fell in the first year of the twenty-eighth Olympiad (668 BC).

Those Messenians who did not escape were made helots once again. The people of Pylos, Mothone and the coast sailed to Kyllene, the port of Elis. They decided to find a new home and asked Aristomenes to lead them. He refused, but sent his son as a leader. The Messenians wintered in Kyllene. They supposedly accepted an invitation from Anaxilas of Rhegion to occupy Zankle in Sicily (modern Messana), but Anaxilas lived around 520 BC. Either the dates of the war are off or they went to Sicily for some other reason. They do seem to have gone there, though.

Aristomenes married off his daughters and went to Rhodes. He was planning to go to the Persian king, Phraortes, but fell sick and died before he could go. He was given a tomb on Rhodes and worshipped there as a divine hero. The Lakonians took the whole of Messenia, except for Mothone which they gave to the Nauplians. They would continue to hold Messenia until their power was broken at the battle of Leuktra.