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planted an ambush to intercept his return. In another irruption, he took the town of Caryæ; and, among other plunder, led off a number of Spartan virgins, who had assembled there to celebrate, according to custom, the festival of Diana. Pausanias relates to his honour, on this occasion, a strong instance of the strictness both of his discipline and of his morality. On his appointment to the command in chief, he had selected a band of young Messenians, mostly of rank, who attended him, and fought by his side in all his enterprises. The Spartan virgins taken at Caryæ being intrusted to a guard from this body, the young men, heated with wine, attempted to force their chastity. Aristomenes immediately interfered; but finding it in vain that he represented to them how they dishonoured the name of Grecians, by attempts so abhorrent from what the laws and customs of their country approved, he laid the most refractory with his own hand dead upon the spot; after which he restored the girls to their parents.

Among the extraordinary adventures of our present hero, we find it related, that in an attempt upon the town of Egila, he was made prisoner by some Spartan matrons assembled there for the celebration of a festival; who, trained as they were under the institutions of Lycurgus, repelled the attack with a vigour which the men of other states could scarcely exceed. Here the softer passions, it is said, befriended him. Archidameia, priestess of Ceres, becoming enamoured of him, procured his escape.

It was now the third year of the war, when the Lacedaemonian and Messenian forces met at Megaletaphrus; the latter strengthened by their Arcadian allies only, whose leader, Aristocrates, prince of Orchomenus, was secretly in the Lacedæmonian interest. On the first onset this traitor gave the signal to his own troops for a retreat, which he artfully conducted so as to disturb the order also of the Messenian forces The Lacedæmonians, prepared for this event, seized the opportunity to gain the flank of their enemy. Aristomenes made some vain efforts to prevent a rout; but his army was

presently, for the most part, surrounded and cut to pieces; and he was himself fortunate in being able to make good his retreat with a miserable remnant.

The Messenians had not now the resources of an established government. A single defeat induced instant necessity for resorting to the measure practised by Euphaes in the former war. Again quitting all their inland posts, they collected their force at Eira, a strong situation near the sea, and prepared by all means in their power for vigorous defence The Lacedæmonians, as was foreseen, presently sat down before the place; but the Messenians were still strong enough to keep a communication open with their ports of Pylus and Methone.

The enterprising spirit of Aristomenes, indeed, was not to be broken by misfortune. Even in the present calamitous situation of his country's affairs, he would not confine himself to defensive war. With his chosen band he made irruptions from Eira, pillaged all the neighbouring country on the side occupied by the Lacedæmonians, and even ventured into Laconia, where he plundered the town of Amyclae. His expeditions were so well concerted, and his band so small and so light, that he was generally within the walls of Eira again before it was known in the Spartan camp that any place was attacked. The business of a siege commonly, in those times, was extremely slow. The usual hope of the besiegers was to reduce the place by famine. But this was now a vain hope to the Lacedæmonians, while Aristomenes could thus supply the garrison. The government of Sparta, therefore, finding their army ineffectual to prevent this relief, proceeded to the extremity of forbidding, by a public edict, all culture of the conquered part of Messenia. Probably the Lacedæmonian affairs were at this time ill administered both in the army and at home. Great discontents, we are told, broke out at Sparta, and the government was again beholden to the lame Athenian poet for composing the minds of the people.

But the temper of Aristomenes was too daring, and his

enterprises too hazardous, to be long exempt from misfortune. His scene of action was not extensive, so that in time the Lacedæmonians necessarily learned, by their very losses, the means of putting a stop to them. He fell in unexpectedly with a large body of Lacedæmonian troops, headed by both the kings. His retreat was intercepted; and, in making an obstinate defence, being stunned by a blow on the head, he was taken prisoner with about fifty of his band. The Lacedæmonians considering all as rebels, condemned them, without distinction, to be precipitated into a cavern called Ceada, the common capital punishment at Sparta for the worst malefactors. All are said to have been killed by the fall except Aristomenes, whose survival was thought so wonderful, that miracles have been invented to account for it. An eagle, it is reported, fluttering under him, so far supported him that he arrived at the bottom unhurt. How far such miraculous assistance was necessary to his preservation, we cannot certainly know; but the plain circumstances of the story, though extraordinary, have, as far as appears, nothing contrary to nature. Aristomenes at first thought it no advantage to find himself alive in that dark and horrid charnel, surrounded by his companions dead and dying, among the skeletons and putrid carcasses of former criminals. He retreated to the farthest corner that he could find, and, covering his head with his cloak, lay down to wait for death, which seemed unavoidable. It was, according to Pausanias, the third day of this dreadful imprisonment, when he was startled by a little rustling noise. Rising and uncovering his eyes, he saw by the glimmering of light, which assisted him the more from his having been so long wrapped in perfect darkness, a fox gnawing the dead bodies. It presently struck him that this animal must have found some other way into the cavern than that by which himself had descended, and would readily find the same way out again. Watching, therefore, his opportunity, he was fortunate enough to seize the fox with one hand, while with his cloak in the other he prevented it from biting him; and he managed so as to let it have its way, without

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escaping, until it conducted him to a narrow burrow. Through this he followed till it became too small for his body to pass; and here, fortunately, a glimpse of daylight caught his eye. Setting, therefore, his conductor at liberty, he worked with his hands till he made a passage large enough for himself to creep into day, and he escaped to Eira.

Among the many escapes from almost certain death which history records, there is scarcely a more remarkable one than this. It has attracted attention from poets and artists, as well as historians; and it certainly may serve to "point the moral," that even in the most discouraging circumstances a brave spirit never despairs of its destiny.

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SIEGE OF EIRA-EXILE OF THE COAST MESSENIANS TO ZANCLE.

RETIREMENT OF ARISTOMENES TO RHODES.

THE first rumour of this reappearance of Aristomenes found no credit at Sparta. Preparations were making for pushing the siege of Eira with vigour, and a body of Corinthian auxiliaries was marching to share in the honour of completing the conquest of Messenia. Aristomenes, receiving intelligence that the Corinthians marched and encamped very negligently, as if they had no enemy to fear, issued with a chosen body from Eira, attacked them by surprise in the night, routed them with great slaughter, and carried off the plunder of their camp. Now, says Pausanias, the Lacedæmonians readily believed that Aristomenes was really living. Tradition says that this extraordinary warrior thrice sacrificed the Hecatomphoneia, the offering prescribed among the Greeks for those who had slain in battle a hundred enemies with their own hands. It was after this action that he performed that ceremony the second time.

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