Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/450

 484 HISTORY OF GREECE. That the impression produced by Tyrtaeus at Sparta, there- fore, with his martial music, and emphatic exhortations to bravery in the field, as well as union at home, should have been very con- siderable, is perfectly consistent with the character both of the age and of the people ; especially, as he is represented to have ap- peared pursuant to the injunction of the Delphian oracle. From the scanty fragments remaining to us of his elegies and anapaests, however, we can satisfy ourselves only of two facts : first, that the war was long, obstinately contested, and dangerous to Sparta as well as to the Mcssenians ; next, that other parties in Pelo- ponnesus took part on both sides, especially on the side of the Messenians. So frequent and harassing were the aggressions of the latter upon the Spartan territory, that a large portion of the border land was left uncultivated : scarcity ensued, and the pro- prietors of the deserted farms, driven to despair, pressed for a re- division of the landed property in the state. It was in appeasing these discontents that the poem of Tyrtaeus, called Eunomia, " Legal order," was found signally beneficial. 1 It seems certain that a considerable portion of the Arcadians, together with the Pisataa and the Triphylians, took part with the Messenians ; there are also some statements numbering the Eleians among their allies, but this appears not probable. The state of the case rather seems to have been, that the old quarrel between the Eleians and the Pisatae, respecting the right to preside at the Olympic games, which had already burst forth during the pre- ceding century, in the reign of the Argeian Pheidon, still con- tinued. Unwilling dependents of Elis, the Pisatas and Triphy- lians took part with the subject Messenians, while the masters at Elis and Sparta made common cause, as they had before done against Pheidon.'- 2 Pantaleon, king of Pisa, revolting from Elis, acted as commander of his countrymen in cooperation with the Messenians ; and he is farther noted for having, at the period of the 34th Olympiad (644 B. c.), marched a body of troops to Olympia, and thus dispossessed the Eleians, on that occasion, of the presidency : that particular festival, as well as the 8th 1 Aristot. Polit. v. 7, 1 ; Pausan. iv. 1 8, 2. Pausan. vi. 12, 2; Strabo viii. p. 355, where the Nrcrropof -ojwo nefcn the PyHans of Tryphylit