Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/656

 346 Muse inns and Raree Skoius in Antiquity.

Further on he relates : " Aristomenes took his shield to Lebadeia and dedicated it there, where I saw it suspended myself ; the blazon on it was an eagle, whose outstretched wings touch the rim of the shield on either side." ^ Count- less vase paintings of the period depict warriors armed with just such shields, for these blazons served as coats-of- arms or insignia by which famous warriors were recognised from afar, as we learn from the celebrated description in Aeschylos' play of the Seven against Thebes, where the messenger recites the blazons of the seven champions. It is quite likely that the shield was really the one dedi- cated by Aristomenes, because he was a real historical character, leader of the Messenians in the second war with the Lacedaemonians about b.c. 630-600. Aristomenes was so well-beloved a hero of the oppressed and exiled Messenians that his shield was regarded with great veneration. This is illustrated by a story which, says Pausanias, " I myself heard at Thebes. ^ The Thebans say that just before the battle of Leuctra (b.c. 371) they sent envoys to enquire of various oracles, and in particular of the oracle of the god (Trophonios) at Lebadeia. Trophonios, they say, replied in hexameter verse : ' Before you engage with the foeman, set up a trophy / And adorn it with my shield which was deposited in the temple/By bold Aristomenes the Messenian. Verily I /Will destroy the host of the shielded foe.' When this oracle was reported they say that Xenocrates, at the request of Epaminondas, sent for the shield of Aristomenes, and with it decorated a trophy in a place where it would be seen by the Lacedaemonians. Some of them, we may presume, knew the shield by having seen it at their leisure at Lebadeia, but all knew it by hearsay. When the Thebans had gained the victory, they restored the shield to Trophonios, in whose shrine it had been dedicated." An inscription has been found at Thebes which seems to refer to the incident here related, and the tale shows that 1 Pausanias, iv. 16. 7 ; ix. 39. 14. " Pausanius, iv. 32. 5, 6.