Pausanias Analysis

After the death of Alcamenes, Polydorus, the son of Alcamenes, took up the kingship. During his reign the Lacedaemonians sent a colony to Italy, the one to Croton, and another colony to the Locri by the promontory of Zephyrium. It was also chiefly during the reign of Polydorus that the war known as the Messenian War reached its height. Now, concerning the causes of this war, Lacedaemonians and Messenians do not give the same accounts.

The things said by them, then, and how the war came to an end, the narrative will clearly reveal in due order. At present, we shall recall only this much about them: that during the earlier war against the Messenians, the Lacedaemonians were led for the most part by Theopompus, the son of Nicander, who was king from the other royal house. After the war against Messene had been brought to completion, and the Lacedaemonians already held Messenia by conquest, Polydorus was highly esteemed in Sparta and enjoyed the greatest favor among the people of Lacedaemon; for he neither ever committed an act of violence nor spoke insolently to anyone, and in his judgments he guarded justice without neglecting humanity. Already Polydorus had attained great distinction—

Throughout all Greece was known the name of Polemarchus, a man of no obscure family at Lacedaemon, who revealed the audacity of his character by murdering Polydorus. After Polydorus' death, great and distinguished honours were paid him by the Lacedaemonians. However, in Sparta there also stands the tomb of Polemarchus himself; whether because the Spartans considered him previously to have been a good man, or because his relatives secretly buried him there.

During the reign of Eurycrates, the son of Polydorus, the Messenians submitted as subjects under the Lacedaemonians, and they experienced no new disturbances originating from the Argive people. But in the reign of Anaxander, the son of Eurycrates—for the fulfillment of destiny now drove the Messenians completely from the Peloponnese—they revolted against the Lacedaemonians. For a time they endured in war; but when finally subdued under terms of treaty, they departed out of the Peloponnese. Those who remained behind became serfs upon the land belonging to the Lacedaemonians, except for those who occupied the small coastal towns.

What happened during the war waged by the Messenians when they revolted against the Lacedaemonians is not timely for me to relate in the present narrative. Anaxander had a son named Eurycrates, and this second Eurycrates had a son Leon. During the reign of these kings, the Lacedaemonians suffered frequent reverses in their war against the Tegeans. But under Anaxandridas, the son of Leon, they came to prevail over the Tegeans in war; and this happened as follows: A certain Lacedaemonian, named Lichas, arrived at Tegea.

At that time the cities happened to be observing a truce. Upon his arrival, Lichas began searching for the bones of Orestes, a search initiated by the Spartans in response to an oracle. Lichas understood that the bones lay buried in a smith's house, and he reasoned in this manner: he related all he saw in the smith's dwelling to the oracle from Delphi, interpreting the smith's bellows as the "winds," since they emitted a powerful blast of air; the hammer he took as the "blow" and the anvil as the object struck. The iron, he reasoned, naturally represented "harm to man," for people had already begun using iron in battles. Had the oracle referred to the age of heroes, the god would surely have called bronze, not iron, the metal harmful to humankind.

The oracle which later came to the Athenians concerning Theseus was similar to the earlier oracle given to the Lacedaemonians about the bones of Orestes. It stated that if they brought back Theseus from Scyros to Athens, only then would they be able to take Scyros. Cimon, son of Miltiades, discovered the bones of Theseus by employing cleverness, and soon afterward he succeeded in capturing Scyros.

That in the time of the heroes all armor was likewise made entirely of bronze is attested for me also by Homer's verses concerning both the axe of Peisandros and the arrow of Meriones. Furthermore, my assertion is confirmed by the spear of Achilles preserved in the sanctuary of Athena at Phaselis, and the sword of Memnon in the temple of Asclepius among the Nicomedians; the spear-point and butt-spike of the former, and indeed the entire sword, are fashioned entirely of bronze.

These things we indeed know stand thus: Anaxandridas, son of Leon, alone among the Lacedaemonians kept two wives at the same time and maintained two households simultaneously. For his former wife, although excellent in all other ways, had not borne him any children; the ephors urged him to divorce her, but he firmly refused this request. However, he granted them so much concession as to take another wife in addition to her. The second woman he married conceived and bore Cleomenes. Shortly afterwards, the first wife, who had previously been barren, herself bore him Dorieus, and later Leonidas, and after them Cleombrotus.

After Anaxandrides died, the Lacedaemonians, although reluctantly rejecting Dorieus, since they judged Cleomenes to be superior in intelligence and more capable in warfare, awarded Cleomenes the authority of kingship according to their laws of seniority.