Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/284

 262 HISTORY OF GREECE. however, that he really lent them any aid. It would appear that Lis mercenaries Avere intended for the service of the satrap himself, who was then organizing his revolt from Artaxerxes ; and that his probable purpose in trying to close the war was, that he might procure Grecian soldiers more easily and abundantly. Though the threats of Philiskus produced no immediate result, however, they so alarmed the Thebans as to determine them to send an em- bassy up to the Great King ; the rather, as they learnt that the Lacedaemonian Euthykles had already gone up to the Persian court, to solicit on behalf of Sparta. 1 How important had been the move made by Epaminondas in reconstituting the autonomous Messenians, was shown, among other evidences, by the recent abortive congress at Delphi. Al- ready this formed the capital article in Grecian political discussion ; an article, too, on which Sparta stood nearly alone. For not only the Thebans (whom Xenophon 2 specifies as if there were no others of the same sentiment), but all the allies of Thebes, felt hearty sympathy and identity of interest with the newly-enfranchised resi- dents in Mount IthomS and in Western Laconia ; while the allies even of Sparta were, at most, only lukewarm against them, if not positively inclined in their favor. 3 A new phenomenon soon pre- sented itself, which served as a sort of recognition of the new-born, or newly-revived, Messenian community, by the public voice of Greece. At the one hundred and third Olympic festival (Mid- summer 368 B. c.), which occurred within less than two years after Epaminondas laid the foundation-stone of Messene, a Mes- senian boy named Damiskus gained the wreath as victor in the foot-race of boys. Since the first Messenian war, whereby the na- tion became subject to Sparta, 4 no Messenian victor had ever been enrolled ; though before that war, in the earliest half-century of recorded Olympiads, several Messenian victors are found on the register. No competitor was admitted to enter the lists, except as 1 Xen. Hellen. vii, 1, 33. 2 Xen. Hellen. vii, 1, 27. 3 See this fact indicated in Isokrates, Archidamus (Or. vi,) s. 2-11. 4 Pausanias, vi, 2, 5. Two Messenian victors had been proclaimed during the interval ; bnl they were inhabitants of Messene in Sicily. And these two were ancient citizens of ZanklO, (he. name which the Sicilian Messene bore before Anaz- i^aus the despot chose to give to it this last-mentioned name.