Messene

For Messene furnished Nestor, the wisest of all who lived in those times;

Now, however, I shall begin with the time when the Lacedaemonians conquered the cities of Achaea and divided their territory with the Argives and the Messenians;

When, then, the Dorians who invaded the Peloponnesus divided into three parts both the cities and the lands which they had taken from their rightful owners, those of them who received Argos and Messene as their portions ordered their affairs very much as did the Hellenes in general.

Now Agesilaus requested the state to relieve him of the command of this expedition, saying that the city of the Mantineans had rendered his father many services in the wars against Messene;

he replied, that Messene should be independent of the Lacedaemonians and that the Athenians should draw up their ships on the land;

But when, as he was marching away, the Messenians tried to cut him off at a narrow place on the road, thereupon he sent to Archidamus and bade him come to his aid.

In the other case, everyone will see clearly that you wish to preserve Messene less for the sake of justice than for fear of the Lacedaemonians.

Now I know, as far as reasoning and conjecture can teach me, and I think that most of you will agree with me, that if the Lacedaemonians take Megalopolis, Messene will be in danger;

Just ask yourselves at what point you would begin to make your stand against Lacedaemonian injustice with more honor and generosity—with the defence of Megalopolis or with the defence of Messene.

But these champions of tyranny might urge that the sons of Philiades were tyrants of Messene before the compact was made, and that that was why Alexander restored them.

Therefore when Alexander, contrary to the oaths and the compacts as set forth in the general peace, restored those tyrants, the sons of Philiades, to Messene, had he any regard for justice?

The man who orders the Lacedaemonians to give up their claims to Messene, how could he pretend that he handed over Orchomenus and Coronea to Thebes because he thought it an act of justice?

and when I said yes, he made it plain—meaning this one, the younger—that he was still in Messene with you because of mourning for his brother;

The two fell in with one another in Messene at the house of Ortilokhos, where Odysseus was staying in order to recover a debt that was owing from the whole dêmos;

And yet our allies have been only too zealous in advising you that you must give up Messene and make peace.

Now you men of Sparta have until this day remained faithful to the oaths and to the covenants which you made with my forefathers;

You will perceive still more clearly from what follows both that we are now dealt with most unfairly and that in the past we held Messene justly.

for, starting with the advantage afforded by our succor of them, the descendants of Heracles—the progenitors of those who now reign in Lacedaemon—returned to the Peloponnese, took possession of Argos, Lacedaemon, and Messene, settled Sparta, and were established as the founders of all the blessings which the Lacedaemonians now enjoy.

Think of Messene too, established again as a city five hundred years after from men of indiscriminate origin.

Or have you not observed how great are the advantages of the Spartan kings, and how their wives are kept under statutory ward of the ephors, in order that every possible precaution may be taken against the king being born of any but the Heracleidae?