Greek Texts & Translations

Aphareus then founded the city of Arena in Messenia, and received into his house his cousin Neleus the son of Cretheus, son of Aeolus (he was also called a son of Poseidon), when he was driven from Iolcos by Pelias. He gave him the maritime part of the land, where with other towns was Pylos, in which Neleus settled and established his palace.

Lycus the son of Pandion also came to Arene, when he too was driven from Athens by his brother Aegeus, and revealed the rites of the Great Goddesses to Aphareus and his children and to his wife Arene; but it was to Andania that he brought the rites and revealed them there, as it was there that Caucon initiated Messene.

Of the children born to Aphareus Idas was the elder and more brave, Lynceus the younger; he, if Pindar's words are credible, ^note possessed eyesight so keen that he saw through the trunk of an oak. We know of no child of Lynceus, but Idas had by Marpessa a daughter Cleopatra, who married Meleager. The writer of the epic Cypria
says that the wife of Protesilaus, the first who dared to land when the Greeks reached Troy, was named Polydora, whom he calls a daughter of Meleager the son of Oeneus. If this is correct, these three women, the first of whom was Marpessa, all slew themselves on the death of their husbands.

For they say that the sons of Asclepius who went to Troy were Messenians, Asclepius being the son of Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus, not the son of Coronis, and they call a desolate spot in Messenia by the name Tricca and quote the lines of Homer, ^note in which Nestor tends Machaon kindly, when he has been wounded by the arrow. He would not have shown such readiness except to a neighbor and king of a kindred people. But the surest warrant for their account of the Asclepiadae is that they point to a tomb of Machaon in Gerenia and to the sanctuary of his sons at Pharae.

After the conclusion of the Trojan war and the death of Nestor after his return home, the Dorian expedition and return of the Heracleidae, which took place two generations later, drove the descendants of Nestor from Messenia. This has already formed a part of my account of Tisamenus. ^note I will only add the following: When the Dorians assigned Argos to Temenus, Cresphontes asked them for the land of Messenia, in that he was older than Aristodemus.

Aristodemus was now dead, but Cresphontes was vigorously opposed by Theras the son of Autesion, who was of Theban origin and fourth in descent from Polyneices the son of Oedipus. He was at that time guardian of the sons of Aristodemus, being their uncle on the mother's side, Aristodemus having married a daughter of Autesion, called Argeia. Cresphontes, wishing to obtain Messenia as his portion at all costs, approached Temenus, and having suborned him pretended to leave the decision to the lot.

Temenus put the lots of the children of Aristodemus and of Cresphontes into a jar containing water, the terms being that the party whose lot came up first should be the first to choose a portion of the country. Temenus had caused both lots to be made of clay, but for the sons of Aristodemus sun-dried, for Cresphontes baked with fire. So the lot of the sons of Aristodemus was dissolved, and Cresphontes, winning in this way, chose Messenia.

The common people of the old Messenians were not dispossessed by the Dorians, but agreed to be ruled by Cresphontes and to divide the land with the Dorians. They were induced to give way to them in this by the suspicion which they felt for their rulers, as the Neleidae were originally of Iolcos. Cresphontes took to wife Merope the daughter of Cypselus, then king of the Arcadians, by whom with other children was born to him Aepytus his youngest.