Tardy restitution given to a long-suffering people; late righting of an ancient wrong! Let us not, however, think of Epaminondas as acting out of pure benevolence. He was studying the best means of putting a check upon the power of Sparta. For some two centuries and a half Sparta's heel had rested heavily on this people, its nearest kin, who were by no means weaklings, if we can put any trust in the tales of the first and second Messenian wars. Twice in those fierce struggles the balance was held nearly even for almost a generation, when it tipped in favor of Sparta; and the Messenian state sank in blood and slavery. At last the fulness of time had come, and with it Sparta's doom. The Delphic oracle given to Aristodemos centuries before was fulfilled: "Do as fate directs, but ruin falls on some before others."
The exiles were called back from far and near. So tenacious had they been of their dialect that they became a people in the most natural way in the world. That they loved their land is no wonder. The new city made by Epaminondas was laid out at the foot of Mount Ithome, perhaps on the site of an older city. At any rate, Ithome was the fortress in which Aristodemos made the last stand against Sparta in the first war. In the small Greek world the sensation caused by the reappearance of the Messenian state may be compared to that which would be felt in Europe to-day if Poland should again take her place among the nations.
So great had been the vicissitudes of the Messenian people that Pausanias for once drops his rôle of periegete to become the historian of a gallant race that succumbed to force and fate. But what history! Besides quoting the poet Tyrtæus he gives as his principal sources of information one prose historian and one poetical historian. The prose writer, Myron of Priene, he thinks "reveals an indifference to truth." One might think, then, that Pausanias was intent on sifting out the pure grain and throwing away the chaff. But the following is a fair sample of the kind of history that he serves up for us.
The first Messenian war had lasted twenty years, with varying success and failure; but at that point the Delphic oracle told the Messenians that the party which first dedicated a hundred tripods in the sanctuary of Ithomian Zeus would surely win. The Messenians were elated, thinking that surely nobody could do this but themselves, since they held that sanctuary; but to make sure of it, since bronze was scarce, they at once set about making the tripods of wood. But the oracle leaked out in Sparta; and "an insignificant fellow, but with brains," made a hundred little clay tripods, and, slinging them over his shoulder in a bag, went up to Ithome as a hunter, escaping notice by his "mere insignificance"; and after dark crept into the sanctuary and set up his little tripods around the altar of Zeus. When the Messenians saw them in the morning they had not a doubt that all was lost. The king, Aristodemos, incontinently committed suicide. But others fought on hopelessly to the bitter end, losing all their generals and men of prominence. The second war, of little less duration, came to an end with another Delphic oracle. The great fortress Eira on the northern border had been stoutly defended for years, when the Pythian priestess said: "When a he-goat drinks Neda's eddying water I will save Messene no longer, for destruction is near."