Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/446

 430 HISTORY OF GREECE. Such are the main features of what Pausanias calls 1 the second Messenian war, or of what ought rather to be called the Aristomenei's of the poet Rhianus. That after the founda- tion of Messene, and the recall of the exiles by Epameinondas. favor and credence was found for many tales respecting the prowess of the ancient hero whom they invoked 2 in their liba- tions, tales well calculated to interest the fancy, to vivify the patriotism, and to inflame the anti-Spartan antipathies, of the new inhabitants, there can be little doubt. And the Messenian maidens of that day may well have sung, in their public proces- sional sacrifices, 3 how "Aristomenes pursued the flying Lacedac monians down to the mid-plain of Stenyklerus, and up to the very summit of the mountain." From such stories, traditions they ought not to be denominated, Rhianus may doubtless have borrowed ; but if proof were wanting to show how completely he looked at his materials from the point of view of the poet, and not from that of the historian, we should find it in the re- markable fact noticed by Pausanias. Rhianus represented Leo- tychides as having been king of Sparta during the second Mes- senian war; now Leotychides, as Pausanias observes, did not reign until near a century and a half afterwards, during the Persian invasion. 4 1 The narrative in Pausanias, iv. 15-24. According to an incidental notice in Herodotus, the Samians affirmed that they had aided Lacedaemon in war against Messene, at what period we do not know (Herodot. iii. 56). 2 ToOf 6e 'M.eaaijviov'f olda avrdc M raZf airov 6ai<; 'Apia~ou.Evr)v NIKO/XTJ- 6ovf /caAotivraf (Pausan. ii. 14, 5). The practice still continued in his time. Compare, also, Pausan. iv. 27, 3 ; iv. 32, 3-4. 3 Pausanias heard the song himself (iv. 16, 4) 'Enefa-yov $a[ia rd Kal e{ T>[IU<; In pdofievov : "Ef re fzeaov irediov "ZTevvKhypiov f r' opog unpov EtTrer' 'ApiaTopivTiG rolf AaKedat/zovuHc. According to one story, the Lacedaemonians were said to have got posses- sion of the person of Aristomenes, and killed him : they found in him a hairy heart (Steph. Byz. v. 'Avdavia). Perhaps Leotychides was king during the last revolt of the Helots, or Mes- senians, in 464 B. c., which is called the third Messenian war. He seems to have been then in exile, in consequence of his venality during the Thessalian expedition, but not yet dead (Herodot. vi. 72). Of the reality of what
 * Pausan. iv. 15, 1.