Conquest of Messenia provided the Spartans with valuable land and slave labor, contributing to Sparta’s dominant position in Greece from the seventh to the fourth century B. C.E.
Date: Late eighth to mid-seventh century b. c.e.
Category: Wars and battles
Locale: Messenia, in southwestern Greece
Summary Land hunger drove the Spartans to conquer their fertile western neighbor, Messenia. Sparta fought two major wars to subdue Messenia, a neighboring region in the southwestern Peloponnese. During the First Messenian War (third quarter of the eighth century b. c.e.), Sparta subjugated much of Messenia and enslaved its inhabitants, who became known as helots. Two generations later, the helots revolted at a moment of Spartan weakness (early 660’s b. c.e.), precipitating the Second Messenian War. Sparta spent twenty years ruthlessly suppressing this rebellion and afterward oppressed the Messenians with renewed vigor. In each war, Spartan victory depended on seizure of the stronghold of Ithome in central Messenia.
Significance Victory in the Messenian Wars enabled Sparta to dominate Messenia for more than three hundred years. The Messenians posed a constant threat of rebellion, which the Spartans greatly feared. The Spartans maintained their position by brute force and terror, necessitating an intensively militarized state. Many Messenians fled slavery, producing a Messenian diaspora of exiles.
Further Reading
Cartledge, Paul. Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History, 1300-362 B. C., 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Hanson, Victor Davis. The Wars of the Ancient Greeks. London: Cassell, 1999.
Oliva, Pavel. Sparta and Her Social Problems. Translated by Iris Urwin-Lewitova. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1971.
Pausanias. Guide to Greece. Vol. 2. Translated by Peter Levi. New York: Penguin, 1979.
Shawn A. Ross
See also: Archaic Greece.
World History
