They complained yet more indignantly, that along with the genuine Messenians, now brought back from exile,—a rabble of their own emancipated Periœki and Helots had been domiciled on their border.[493] Herein were included, not only such of these two classes as, having before dwelt in servitude throughout the territory westward of Ithômê, now remained there in a state of freedom—but also doubtless a number of others who deserted from other parts of Laconia. For as we know that such desertions had been not inconsiderable, even when there was no better shelter than the outlying posts of Pylus and Kythêra—so we may be sure that they became much more numerous, when the neighboring city of Messênê was founded under adequate protection, and when there was a chance of obtaining, westward of the Messenian Gulf, free lands with a new home. Moreover, such Periœki and Helots as had actually joined the invading army of Epaminondas in Laconia, would be forced from simple insecurity to quit the country when he retired, and would be supplied with fresh residences in the newly-enfranchised territory. All these men would pass at once, out of a state of peculiarly harsh servitude, into the dignity of free and equal Hellens,[494] sending again a solemn Messenian legation or Theôry to the Olympic festival, after an interval of more than three centuries,[495]—outdoing their former masters in the magnitude of their offerings from the same soil,—and requiting them for previous ill-usage by words of defiance and insult, instead of that universal deference and admiration which a Spartan had hitherto been accustomed to look upon as his due. [493] The Oration (vi,) called Archidamus, by Isokrates. exhibits powerfully the Spartan feeling of the time, respecting this abstraction of territory, and emancipation of serfs, for the purpose of restoring Messênê, s. 30. Καὶ εἰ μὲν τοὺς ὡς ἀληθῶς Μεσσηνίους κατῆγον (the Thebans), ἠδίκουν μὲν ἂν, ὅμως δ’ εὐλογωτέρως ἂν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐξημάρτανον· νῦν δὲ τοὺς Εἵλωτας ὁμόρους ἡμῖν παρακατοικίζουσιν, ὥστε μὴ τοῦτ’ εἶναι χαλεπώτατον, εἰ τῆς χώρας στερησόμεθα παρὰ τὸ δίκαιον, ἀλλ’ εἰ τοὺς δούλους ἡμετέρους ἐποψόμεθα κυρίους αὐτῆς ὄντας. Again—s. 101. ἢν γὰρ παρακατοικισώμεθα τοὺς Εἵλωτας, καὶ τὴν πόλιν ταύτην περιΐδωμεν αὐξηθεῖσαν, τίς οὐκ οἶδεν ὅτι πάντα τὸν βίον ἐν ταραχαῖς καὶ κινδύνοις διατελοῦμεν ὄντες; compare also sections 8 and 102.