To the west of Mt. Taygetos lay Messenia or, in the older form, Messene. In classical times this name applied to a large area: the fertile plain of the River Pamisus, the coastal regions to the west and south of that plain, and the thick westernmost of the three prongs jutting southwards off the Peloponnese. Over the course of the seventh century, Sparta conquered this entire region in the two so-called Messenian Wars. These wars used to be conventionally dated to the late eighth and the mid-seventh centuries BC, though the more likely dates are about 690-670 and 630-600 (see below).
The Lacedaemonian poet Tyrtaeus lived in the time of one Messenian War, and his poetry makes it clear that another earlier war had taken place. The chief evidence is the following bit of verse (Fr. 5 West):
. . . under our King Theopompus, beloved of the gods,
Through whom we took wide Messene,
Messene good to plow, good to plant.
For it they fought for nineteen years,
Ceaselessly, with ever valiant hearts,
The spearmen fathers of our fathers.
But in the twentieth year (our foes) left their rich fields And fled from the great mountains of Ithome.
Tyrtaeus dates the first war twice in these lines: it occurred during the reign of King Theopompus and during the lifetime of the current combatants’ grandfathers. The latter date has proved more useful to modern historians (since the date of King Theopompus is not directly known), but it can be used only after the date of the second war has been ascertained. Next, the war lasted for twenty years. This could be a round number - i. e., twice ten or double the length of the Trojan War - and mean no more than that the war lasted an especially long time.
Finally, there is a geographical indication of where the war took place. The final line speaks of Mt. Ithome, the high mountain above the plain of the upper Pamisus (see Figure 12.2). On the basis of Tyrtaeus’ poem the war could have taken place solely in that plain. The fifth-century Athenian playwright Euripides in one passage stated that “Messene” was “inaccessible to sailors” (Fr. 727e Kannicht). If he meant “Messene” in the sense of the later “Messenia,” then his words make no sense - Messenia had a very long coastline. But if Euripides meant the plain of the upper Pamisus, then his words are easily explicable. On balance, it seems that the geographical term “Messene” originally referred to that region specifically and therefore that the first Messenian War did indeed involve this region only. Discussion so far has turned almost solely on these seventh-century lines from Tyrtaeus.
The second Messenian War began when those conquered in the first war revolted. These rebels allegedly had allies who included the people from the coastal regions to the west and south - Pausanias (IV 23,1) specifically mentions the Pylians and Methonaeans. Although Pausanias’ account of the war is not particularly trustworthy, after the war the Lacedaemonians did annex those regions, so participation of their inhabitants on the Messenians’ side can probably be accepted. Given the length of the first war - even if the two decades are merely an approximation -, the second war too should have been long and difficult. Tyrtaeus speaks as if there were many reverses (see, for example, Tyr-taeus, Fr. 11 West, lines 1-10); and according to Pausanias (IV 16,6) he actually wrote his poems to restore the Lacedaemonians’ flagging spirits.
Even if no source specifies the length of the second war, a clear statement does exist as to the date of its end. Epaminondas, who restored the independence of the Messenians in 369 BC, stated that he had done so after 230 years of subjection (Plut. Sayings of Kings and Commanders, p. 194). That figure probably represents the conversion into years of a count of seven generations (conventionally in Greek historians three generations equal a hundred years with spare generations taken as thirty - e. g., Hdt. II 142), so it should not be construed as absolutely exact. At any rate the figure yields a date of circa 600 for the war’s end. The source may be late, but again there is a corroborating argument: on the basis of other evidence the literary historians have dated Tyrtaeus’ poetry to about a generation after that of Archilochus who belongs around the mid-point of the seventh century.1 Tyrtaeus’ poetry, therefore, belongs to the closing decades of the seventh century. The second Messenian War was then fought, very roughly, circa 630-600. The first War took place two generations earlier, say, circa 690-670.
The Lacedaemonians’ ultimate victory in the second Messenian War resulted in the conquest of the lands to the west and south of the plain of the upper Pamisus, effectively doubling their territory. This made Sparta the largest of all the states in classical Greece and for as long as Sparta held Messenia, Sparta had more than enough land. As late as the year 425 BC when the Athenian general Demosthenes landed near Pylos in western Messenia, he found the region practically uninhabited (Thuc. IV 3). In addition the Lacedaemonians had allegedly resettled refugees from the Argolis on available land during the sixth century (Theopompus, BNJ 115, Fr. 383; Paus. IV 14,3 - Pausanias is late, but Theopompus did write in the fourth century BC). Unlike many other Greek states, the Lacedaemonians simply stood under no necessity of exporting surplus population; and it need not be coincidence that the single Lacedaemonian colony from the early period, Taras, was founded just before the Messenian Wars began (circa 700 - see chap. 5).
Besides a large amount of land, the Lacedaemonians acquired a great number of conquered people whom they reduced to the status of Helots. While there were already Helots before the Messenian Wars, so numerous were the Helots made after these wars that the two groups - Helots and Messenians - became practically synonomous. Thucydides comments on this in the following passage:
The majority of the Helots were the descendants of the ancient Messenians who were enslaved aforetime; at any rate, they all are called “Messenians.” (Thuc. I 101,2).
As mentioned above, the Helots’ held an ambiguous position in Lacedaemonian society. They were not exactly “slaves,” nor were they “free” (Pollux, III 83). They belonged to the state as a whole, not to any one Spartiate (Xen. Const. Lac. 6,3; Ephorus, BNJ 70, Fr. 117). They were settled in particular areas on land owned by Spartiates (Ephorus, l. c.), and were required to yield one half of that land’s produce to its owners (Tyrtaeus, Fr. 6 West). They possessed certain rights, most obviously the right to retain half of the land’s produce (Tyrtaeus, l. c.), but also the important right of inalienability (Ephorus, l. c.) which meant they could not be sold from off the land which they worked and which ensured that, whatever else they suffered, they could not be torn from their homes and families. In the sanctuary of Poseidon on Cape Taenarum - not coincidentally one of the least accessible regions of Laconia (see Figure 6.1) - they were inviolable (Thuc. I 128,1); and here they could also be made free (IG V 1, 1228-1232). Technically they possessed the right to life, but the Lacedaemonians allegedly dodged the law by officially declaring war on them each year so that they might be killed without legal or sacral penalty (Plut. Lyc.
Figure 6.1 Satellite image of Cape Taenarum. Source: Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. “The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.” <Http://eol. jsc. nasa. gov/scripts/sseop/QuickView. pl? directory=ESC&ID=ISS009-E -10425>01/14/2013 16:44:52
28). The Lacedaemonians required them to wear distinctive clothing which made them instantly recognizable (Myron, BNJ 106, Fr. 2), and privately the Spartiates spied on them through the so-called “Crypteia,” a sort of secret police which monitored their activities (Plut. l. c.). The Spartiates allegedly subjected them to routine indignities (Tyrtaeus, Fr. 6-7 West; Myron, l. c.) and even allowing for exaggeration, the Spartiates’ treatment of them was brutal and harsh.
World History
