Pausanias Analysis

When other matters necessary for war were prepared by them, and when the support from their allies proved more eager than they had expected—for the hostility against the Lacedaemonians among both the Argives and the Arcadians had already brilliantly flared up—they revolted in the thirty-ninth year after the capture of Ithome, in the fourth year of the twenty-third Olympiad, in which Icarus of Hyperesia won the stadion race. At Athens, annual archons had already been established by then, and Tlesias held office among the Athenians.

Now, in Lacedaemon, who precisely were kings at that time Tyrtaeus has not recorded; but Rhianus writes in his poetry that Leotychides was king during this war. In this particular I certainly will not agree with Rhianus at all; but although Tyrtaeus himself does not name a ruler explicitly, one might yet conclude that he has spoken indirectly about it. His elegies, indeed, refer to an earlier war, saying: "For nineteen years continuously fought they around it, Ever unyielding in courage, our fathers, warriors with spear, fathers of our fathers."

It is therefore clear that the Messenians fought this war later, in the third generation afterward. The continuous sequence of time is demonstrated by the reign at that time in Sparta of Anaxander, son of Eurycrates, son of Polydorus, and from the other royal house Anaxidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, son of Archidamus, son of Theopompus. I have descended to the fourth descendant from Theopompus, because Archidamus, the son of Theopompus, died before his father, and thus the kingship passed to Zeuxidamus, the grandson of Theopompus. Leotychides is found reigning after Demaratus, the son of Ariston, and Ariston was the seventh descendant from Theopompus.

Then the Messenians fought the Lacedaemonians at a place in their own territory called Derae, in the first year after their revolt. Both sides were without their allies. The victory was clearly gained by neither army, but Aristomenes was said to have performed deeds surpassing those of one man so greatly that after the battle they elected him king, as indeed he belonged to the family of the Aepytidae.

Even though he declined, nonetheless they chose him as sole general. Aristomenes himself believed that he would not begrudge another who had done something noteworthy in war achieving distinction; yet as for himself, he considered it altogether vital from the very beginning of the war to strike terror into the Lacedaemonians and to appear more formidable still regarding the events to come. Because he held this belief, he arrived one night into Lacedaemon and dedicated a shield in the temple of Athena Chalkioikos; inscribed upon it was that Aristomenes offered it to the goddess as a gift taken from the Spartans.

There came also to the Lacedaemonians an oracle from Delphi, instructing them to take an Athenian as adviser. They therefore sent envoys to Athens, to announce the oracle and request a man who would counsel them as to what they should do. But the Athenians, unwilling either that the Lacedaemonians without great trouble should easily acquire the finest portion of the Peloponnese or themselves openly disobey the god, devised the following plan. There was at that time among them a teacher of letters named Tyrtaeus, who appeared to have little intelligence and was lame in one foot; this man they dispatched to Sparta. When Tyrtaeus arrived, he recited privately to the leaders and publicly, to whoever happened to gather around, his elegiac verses and his anapaestic poems.

A year after the battle about the Boar's Tomb, allies arriving to support both sides, they prepared to engage in battle near the place called the Grave of Kapros. The Messenians had assistance from the Eleans and Arcadians, and further aid came also from Argos and Sicyon. Present, too, were those Messenians who had previously fled their homeland voluntarily, coming both from Eleusis—where they were accustomed ancestrally to perform the rites of the Great Goddesses—and likewise the descendants of Androcles. For these above all had readily moved to their aid.

The Corinthians came to help the Spartans, as did certain Lepreans, because of their hostility toward the Eleans; the Asinaeans, however, had sworn oaths to both sides. This particular place, called "Tomb of the Boar," is situated in Stenykleros in Messenia; they say that here Heracles gave and received an oath with the sons of Neleus upon pieces of a sacrificed boar.