=58.= For thirty-nine years they endured a galling weight of oppression, but at the end of that time a hero of the royal line arose for their deliverance. The exploits of Aristom´enes form the chief history of the Second Messenian War, though almost the entire Peloponnesus was engaged. The Corinthians, as before, fought for Sparta, while the Argives, Arcadians, Sicyonians, and Pisatans took part with the Messenians. After losing one battle, the Spartans sent to Delphi for advice, and received the unwelcome direction to apply to Athens for a leader. The Athenians, too, feared to disobey the oracle; but desiring to render no real assistance to their rivals, they sent a lame school-master, named Tyrtæ´us, to be their general. They found, as usual, that the Pythia was not to be outwitted. Tyrtæus reanimated the rude vigor of the Spartans by his martial songs, and it is to these that their final success is mainly attributed. [Sidenote: B. C. 683.] =59.= The Spartans were slow in regaining their former ascendency. In the battle of Stenycle´rus they were defeated with great loss, and pursued by Aristomenes to the very summit of the mountains. In the third year the Messenians suffered a signal defeat through the treachery of an ally, and Aristomenes retired to the fortress of Ira. The Spartans encamped around the foot of the hill, and for fourteen years the war was actively prosecuted, the Messenian hero often issuing from his castle, and ravaging with fire and sword the lands held by the enemy. Three times he offered to Zeus Ithomates the sacrifice called Hecatomphonia, in token that he had slain a hundred enemies with his own hand. [Sidenote: B. C. 668.] =60.= But neither the valor nor the good fortune of the leader availed to save his country. Ira was taken by surprise. Aristomenes ended his days at Rhodes. His sons led a large number of the exiled Messenians into Italy, and settled near Rhegium. A few who remained were admitted to the condition of the subject Achæans; but, as before, the mass of the people were reduced to serfdom, and remained in that condition three hundred years. The conquest of Messenia was followed by a war against Arcadia which continued nearly a hundred years. The sole fruit to Sparta was the capture of the little city of Tegea. =61.= From the earliest times Sparta had been the rival of Argos, which then ruled the whole eastern coast of the Peloponnesus. Soon after Lycurgus, the boundaries of Laconia were extended eastward to the sea, and northward beyond the city of Thyr´ea. About B. C. 547, the Argives went to war to recover this portion of their former territory. They were defeated and their power forever humbled. [Sidenote: B. C. 547.]