The history of this man is somewhat singular. At the beginning of the war, the Lacedæmonians had been directed by the Delphic oracle to send to Athens for an adviser: they did so, and the city, unwilling either to aid in the aggrandizement of a rival, or to disobey the god, thought to extricate itself from the dilemma by making choice of one Tyrtæus, an obscure schoolmaster, halt of one leg, and esteemed to be of mean ability. From the event, a Grecian would have argued in support of the favourite doctrine, that the decrees of fate were inevitable; for to the unknown talents of one so lightly valued did Sparta, upon this and other occasions, owe the favourable issue of the war. But the reader may be curious to know the fate of Aristomenes’ shield. Applying at Delphi, he was informed that he would find it in the cave of Trophonius,[33] at Lebadeia, in Bœotia, where he afterwards dedicated it, “and I myself have seen it there,”[34] adds Pausanias, lest any doubt should attach to a story which seems to border somewhat on the marvellous. How it came there, we are left to conjecture: and in these days of scepticism and research, may well envy the historian whose readers’ incredulity was so easily overcome. But, with one or two brilliant exceptions, it was sufficient for the Greeks that a story passed current; they cared little to investigate probabilities, or enter upon long and intricate inquiries, which in modern times have been so successfully employed in disentangling the mingled web of truth and fiction. It is curious to mark the importance attached to this miraculous loss. Aristomenes thought it of sufficient consequence to render necessary an immediate journey to Delphi; for we find that, returning from Lebadeia, he renewed the war with his recovered shield, which therefore must have been dedicated at a later period. At first he confined himself to predatory incursions. Returning from “driving a creagh,” in Laconia, he was attacked and wounded, but repelled the assailants; and, on his recovery, projected an attack upon Sparta, which, under such a leader, might have been fatal to an unfortified and unwatched city; but was deterred a second time by the interposition of Castor and Pollux. Turning aside, therefore, to Carya, he carried off a band of Spartan maidens while engaged in a religious ceremony; and on this occasion he showed that a life of warfare had not deadened the kindlier feelings of his heart, by protecting them from the drunken intemperance of his soldiers, even to the death of some who persisted in their disobedience. The captives, according to the custom of the age, were released upon ransom.