Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.]. | ||
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Learning from his scouts that their march discipline was lax and that their encampments were made without precaution, Aristomenes attacked them by night. He slew most of them while the rest were still sleeping, and killed the leaders Hypermenides, Achladaeus, Lysistratus and Sidectus. And having plundered the generals' tent, he made it clear to the Spartans that it was Aristomenes and no other Messenian who had done this.
4.19.3He also made the sacrifice called the Offering for the hundred slain to Zeus of
Now the Lacedaemonians, as the festival of Hyacinthus was approaching, made a truce of forty days with the men of Eira. They themselves returned home to keep the feast, but some Cretan archers, whom they had summoned as mercenaries from
So two of them went to
And now when the Cretans brought in Aristomenes, the girl realized that the dream of the night had come true, and asked her mother who he was. On learning she was encouraged, and looking intently at him understood what she had been bidden to do. Accordingly she plied the Cretans with wine, and when they were overcome with drunkenness she stole away the dagger of the man who was sleeping most heavily. Then the girl cut the bonds of Aristomenes, and he took the sword and despatched the men. This maiden was taken to wife by
ch. 20
4.20.1
But in the eleventh year of the siege it was fated that Eira should be taken and the Messenians dispersed, and the god fulfilled for them an oracle given to Aristomenes and Theoclus. They had come to The springs of the Neda are in Mount Lycaeus. The river flows through the land of the Arcadians and turning again towards When the seer Theoclus saw it, he guessed that the goat who drinks of the Neda foretold by the Pythia was this wild fig-tree, and that their fate had already come upon the Messenians. He kept it secret from the rest, but led Aristomenes to the fig-tree and showed him that their time of safety had gone by. Aristomenes believed that it was so and that there was no delaying their fate, and made provision such as circumstances demanded. For the Messenians possessed a secret thing. If it were destroyed,
Whensoever a he-goat drinks of Neda's winding stream, no more do I protect
Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.]. | ||
<<Paus. 4.18.2 | Paus. 4.19.6 (Greek) | >>Paus. 4.20.9 |