But the purposes of this distinguished man went farther still; embracing long-sighted and permanent arrangements, such as should forever disable Sparta from recovering her prominent station in the Grecian world. While with one hand he organized Arcadia, with the other he took measures for replacing the exiled Messenians on their ancient territory. To achieve this, it was necessary to dispossess the Spartans of the region once known as independent Messenia, under its own line of kings, but now, for near three centuries, the best portion of Laconia, tilled by Helots for the profit of proprietors at Sparta. While converting these Helots into free Messenians, as their forefathers had once been, Epaminondas proposed to invite back all the wanderers of the same race who were dispersed in various portions of Greece; so as at once to impoverish Sparta by loss of territory, and to plant upon her flank a neighbor bitterly hostile. It has been already mentioned, that during the Peloponnesian war, the exiled Messenians had been among the most active allies of Athens and Sparta,—at Naupaktus, at Sphakteria, at Pylus, in Kephallenia, and elsewhere. Expelled at the close of that war by the triumphant Spartans,[456] not only from Peloponnesus, but also from Naupaktus and Kephallenia, these exiles had since been dispersed among various Hellenic colonies; at Rhegium in Italy, at Messênê in Sicily, at Hesperides in Libya. From 404 B.C. (the close of the war) to 373 B.C., they had remained thus without a home. At length, about the latter year (when the Athenian confederate navy again became equal or superior to the Lacedæmonian on the west coast of Peloponnesus), they began to indulge the hope of being restored to Naupaktus.[457] Probably their request may have been preferred and discussed in the synod of Athenian allies, where the Thebans sat as members. Nothing however had been done towards it by the Athenians,—who soon became fatigued with the war, and at length made peace with Sparta,—when the momentous battle of Leuktra altered, both completely and suddenly, the balance of power in Greece. A chance of protection was now opened to the Messenians from Thebes, far more promising than they had ever had from Athens. Epaminondas, well aware of the loss as well as humiliation that he should inflict upon Sparta by restoring them to their ancient territory, entered into communication with them, and caused them to be invited to Peloponnesus from all their distant places of emigration.[458] By the time of his march into Arcadia, in the late autumn of 370 B.C., many of them had already joined him, burning with all their ancient hatred of Sparta, and contributing to aggravate the same sentiment among Thebans and allies. [456] Diodor. xiv, 34. [457] Pausanias. iv, 26, 3. [458] Diodor. xv, 66; Pausanias, iv, 26, 3, 4.