His next exploit was of a singular and romantic cast, such as would befit a knight of the court of Arthur, or Charlemagne, or the less fabulous, but scarce less romantic era of Froissart, better than it assorts with modern notions of a general’s or a sovereign’s duties. Considering it important to alarm the Spartans, and impress them with a formidable idea of his personal qualities, he traversed Laconia, and entered Sparta by night, which, in obedience to Lycurgus’ precepts, was unwalled and unguarded, to suspend from the temple of Pallas a shield, inscribed “Aristomenes from the Spartan spoils dedicates this to the goddess.”[31] Violence was not offered, and his object, therefore, must have been to win her favour, or at least to alarm the Spartans, lest their protecting deity should be wiled away. It is to be wished that we knew the result of this exploit, of which, unfortunately, no account remains. The year after the battle at Deræ, he again led his countrymen, supported by their allies, into battle, at a place called the Boar’s Tomb; and if upon this occasion fortune favoured the rightful cause, it was again mainly owing to his personal exertions. Supported by a chosen band of eighty men, who gloried in the privilege of risking their lives by the side of Aristomenes, he attacked and broke in detail the choice infantry of Sparta, committing to others the task of routing a disordered enemy, himself ever present where they showed the firmest front; till the Lacedæmonians forgot the precepts of their lawgiver in a hasty flight. Their disorder was complete, but the pursuit was early stopped, either by the prudence of Aristomenes, or the promptitude with which the Spartans availed themselves of local advantages. The latter is probably the real meaning of the following legend. There lay a wild pear–tree in the track of the retreating army; Theoclus, the Messenian seer, warned Aristomenes not to urge the pursuit beyond this tree, for that Castor and Pollux, the tutelary deities of Lacedæmon, were perched upon it. But Aristomenes thought as little of his friend’s advice, as Hector of Polydamas’s warning not to attack the Grecian camp, and was still hard pressing upon the enemy, when suddenly his shield disappeared. The loss of this weapon was esteemed disgraceful, and therefore we can scarcely wonder that even Aristomenes, whose character stood above detraction, should have lost time in a fruitless search, which, if improved to the full, might have broken for ever the power of his country’s oppressor. So great was the loss and dismay of Sparta, that the war was kept alive with difficulty, and that only through the influence acquired by Tyrtæus, who devoted his poetical talents to recruiting the courage and exasperating the hatred of the Lacedæmonians.[32]