Greek Texts & Translations

Neither writer achieved a complete and continuous account of the whole war from its beginning to the end, but only of the part which each selected: Myron narrated the capture of Ampheia and subsequent events down to the death of Aristodemus; Rhianus did not touch this first war at all. He described the events that in time befell the Messenians after their revolt from the Lacedaemonians, not indeed the whole of them, but those subsequent to the battle which they fought at the Great Trench, as it is called.

The Messenian, Aristomenes, on whose account I have made my whole mention of Rhianus and Myron, was the man who first and foremost raised the name of Messene to renown. He was introduced by Myron into his history, while to Rhianus in his epic Aristomenes is as great a man as is the Achilles of the Iliad
to Homer. As their statements differ so widely, it remained for me to adopt one or other of the accounts, but not both together, and Rhianus appeared to me to have given the more probable account as to the age of Aristomenes.

One may realize in others of his works that Myron gives no heed to the question of his statements seeming to lack truth and credibility, and particularly in this Messenian history. For he has made Aristomenes kill Theopompus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, shortly before the death of Aristodemus but we know that Theopompus was not killed either in battle or in any other way before the war was concluded.

It was this Theopompus who put an end to the war, and my evidence is the lines of Tyrtaeus, which say:— To our king beloved of the gods, Theopompus, through whom we took Messene with wide dancing-grounds.
Tyrtaeus, unknown location.Aristomenes then in my view belongs to the time of the second war, and I will relate his history when I come to this.

The Messenians, when they heard of the events at Ampheia from the actual survivors from the captured town, mustered in Stenyclerus from their cities. When the people had gathered in the assembly, first the leading men and finally the king exhorted them not to be panic-stricken at the sack of Ampheia, or to suppose that the issue of the whole war had already been decided thereby, or to be afraid of the power of the Lacedaemonians as superior to their own. For the Lacedaemonians had longer practice in warfare, but they themselves had a stronger necessity to show themselves brave men, and greater goodwill would be shown by the gods to men defending their country, who were not the authors of injustice.

They made assaults on the towns but captured none, as they were fortified with walls and carefully garrisoned. They withdrew with loss and without effecting anything, and finally gave up attempting the towns. The Messenians also ravaged the Laconian coast and all the cultivated land round Taygetos.

Three years after the capture of Ampheia, being eager to put to use the spirit of the Messenians, now at the height of their passion against the Lacedaemonians, and considering too that they had undergone sufficient training, Euphaes ordered an advance. He bade the slaves also accompany him, bringing wood and all else that was required for the making of an entrenched camp. The Lacedaemonians heard from their garrison at Ampheia that the Messenians were marching out, so they also came out to battle.

There was a place in Messenia which was in other ways suitable for an engagement, but had a deep ravine in front of it. Here Euphaes drew up the Messenians and appointed Cleonnis general; the cavalry and light-armed, together amounting to less than 500, were commanded by Pytharatus and Antander.

As the two forces were about to engage, the ravine which divided them prevented the heavy-armed from coming to close quarters, though they approached one another eagerly and with a recklessness born of hate. The cavalry and light-armed engaged above the ravine, but as they were equally matched in numbers and skill, for this reason the fight was indecisive.

While they were involved, Euphaes ordered the slaves to fortify with a palisade first the rear of his force and afterwards both flanks, and when the battle had been broken off at nightfall, they fortified his front also on the ravine. So at daybreak the Lacedaemonians realized the forethought of Euphaes. They had no means of fighting the Messenians unless they came out from the stockade, and despaired of forming a siege, for which they were unprepared in all things alike.