Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/439

 FIRST AND SECOND MESSENIAX WAKS. 423 read the view which a Spartan might take of the ancient con- quests of his forefathers. But a clear proof that these Messe- nian stories had no real basis of tradition, is shown in the contra- dictory statements respecting the principal Hero Aristomenes ; for some place him in the first, others in the second, of the two Avars. Diodorus and Myron both placed him in the first ; Rhia- nus, in the second. Though Pausanias gives it as his opinion that the account of the latter is preferable, and that Aristomenes really belongs to the second Messenian war, it appears to me that the one statement is as much worthy of belief as the other, and that there is no sufficient evidence for deciding between them, a conclusion which is substantially the same with that of "Wesseling, who thinks that there were two persons named Aristomenes, one in the first and one in the second war. 1 This inextricable confusion respecting the greatest name in Messenian antiquity, shows how little any genuine stream of tradition can here be recognized. Pausanias states the first Messenian war as beginning in B. c. 743 and lasting till B. c. 724, the second, as beginning in B. c. 685 and lasting till B. c. 6G8. Neither of these dates rest upon 1 See Diodor. Fragm. lib. viii. vol. iv. p. 30 : in his brief summary of Messenian events (xv. 66), he represents it as a matter on which authors differed, whether Aristomenes belonged to the first or second war. Clemens Alexand. (Prot. p. 36) places him in the Jirst, the same as Myron, by men- tioning him as having killed Theopompus. Wesseling observes (ad Diod. 1. c.), " Duo fuerunt Aristomenes, uterque in Messeniorum contra Spartanos bello illustrissimus, alter posteriore, priore alter bello." Unless this duplication of homonymous persons can be shown to be probable, by some collateral evidence, I consider it only as tantamount to a confession, that the difficulty is insoluble. Pausanias is reserved in his manner of giving judgment, b fiivrot 'Aptff- rouevrie ooZy ye tfty yeyovev ITTI TOV iroherjov TOV varepov (iv. 6). Miil- ler (Dorians, i. 7, 9) goes much too far when he affirms that the statement of Myron was " in the teeth of all tradition." Miiller states incorrectly the citation from Plutarch, Agis, c. 21 (see his Note h). Plutarch there says nothing about Tyrtceus: he says that the Messenians affirmed that their here Aristomenes had killed the Spartan king Theopompus, whereas the Lacedae- monians said, that he had only wounded the king. According to both ac- counts, then, it would appear that Aristomenes belonged to the first Mes**- aian war, not to the second.