Pausanias Analysis

From this point onward—for fate was already inclining towards the fall of the Messenians—the god gave them signs of what was coming. First, the bronze statue of Artemis, along with its bronze weapons, dropped its shield. Next, as Aristodemus was about to sacrifice the victims to Zeus Ithomatas, the rams, of their own accord, violently dashed their horns against the altar and died from their injuries. Thirdly, another omen befell them: every night the dogs assembled together and howled incessantly, until finally they withdrew all together towards the Spartan camp.

These things were troubling Aristodemus, and afterwards a vision appeared to him in a dream of the following nature: As he was preparing to go out armed into battle, he seemed to see upon a table set before him the entrails of sacrificial victims. His daughter appeared dressed in black garments, showing her breast and abdomen cut open. Having appeared thus, she threw down from the table what lay upon it, stripped him of his weapons, and instead placed upon him a golden crown and clad him in a white robe.

As Aristodemus was already disheartened by other reasons, and interpreting the dream as foretelling his death—for the Messenians customarily carried forth their noble dead wearing garlands and clothed in white garments—someone brought word that Ophioneus, the seer, could no longer see, having suddenly become blind just as he had originally been. Only then did they understand clearly the oracle too, that the eyes of Ophioneus mentioned by the Pythia were indeed the two men who had returned alive from the ambush and had gone once more to their prescribed fate.

At this point Aristodemus, reflecting upon his own situation, saw that he had gained nothing beneficial by slaying his daughter, and perceiving no longer any hope of salvation remaining for his country, he killed himself upon his child's tomb—he who in respect of human reasoning had saved the Messenians, yet whose achievements and plans Fortune reduced utterly to nothing. He died having ruled as king for six years and a few months into the seventh.

The Messenians saw their situation as utterly hopeless, to such an extent that they even considered sending an embassy of supplication to the Lacedaemonians—so deeply had Aristodemus’ death shaken their morale. Nevertheless, pride withheld them from doing this. Gathering in assembly, they chose no king, but instead appointed Damis as general with absolute authority. He selected Cleonnis and Phyleus as his fellow commanders and prepared to fight a battle with the forces they still had at hand; for the siege itself compelled them, and especially hunger, and the fear it caused, lest they perish prematurely from starvation.

Indeed, even at that time the Messenians were not lacking in valor and daring deeds; yet all their commanders and those most worthy of mention among the others perished. After this event, they still resisted for approximately five months, but towards the conclusion of the year they abandoned Ithome, having fought throughout a total of twenty years, as Tyrtaeus also composed in his verses: "But in the twentieth year they fled, abandoning their rich fields, Away from the lofty mountains of Ithome."

This war came to an end in the first year of the fourteenth Olympiad, in which Dasmon of Corinth won the foot race, while at Athens the Medontidae were still holding their decennial magistracy, in the fourth year of Hippomenes' term of office.