Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/345

 TARLIEST HISTORY OF SPARTA. S29 we may fairly presume from the common temple, with joint religious sacrifices, of Artemis Ijmnatis, or Artemis on the Marsh, erected on the confines of Messenia and Laconia. 1 Our first view of the two, at all approaching to distinctness, seems to date from a period about half a century earlier than the first Olympiad (77G B. c.), about the reign of king Teleklus of the Eurystheneid or Agid line, and the introduction of the Lykurgean discipline. Teleklus stands in the list as the eighth king dating from Eurysthenes. But how many of the seven kings before him are to be considered as real persons, or how much, out of the brief warlike expeditions ascribed to them, is to be treated as authentic history, I pretend not to define. The earliest determinable event in the internal history of Sparta is the introduction of the Lykurgean discipline; the earliest external events are the conquest of Amyklae, Pharis, and Geron- thrae, effected by king Teleklus, and the first quarrel with the Messenians, in which that prince was slain. When we come to see how deplorably great was the confusion and ignorance which reigned with reference to a matter so preeminently important as Lykurgus and his legislation, we shall not be inclined to think that facts much less important, and belonging to an earlier epoch, can have been handed down upon any good authority. And in like manner, when we learn that Amyklos, Pharis, and Geronthne (all south of Sparta, and the first only two and a half miles dis- tant from that city) were independent of the Spartans until the reign of Teleklus, we shall require some decisive testimony before we can believe that a community so small, and so hemmed in as Sparta must then have been, had in earlier times undertaken expeditions against Helos on the sea-coast, against Kleitor on the extreme northern side of Arcadia, against the Kynurians, or against the Argeians. If Helos and Kynuriawere conquered by these early kings, it appears that they had to be conquered a second time by kings succeeding Teleklus. It would be more natural that we should hear when and how they conquered the places nearer to them, Sellasia, or Belemina, the valley of the CEnus, or the upper valley of the Eurotas. But these seem to be 1 Pausan. iv. 2, 2. fi-t%ov 6e avrov ucvot Aupieuv ol TE ^Hecarjvioi nal Aaicedaiftuvioi.