[494] Isokrates, Orat. vi, (Archidam.) s. 111. Ἄξιον δὲ καὶ τὴν Ὀλυμπιάδα καὶ τὰς ἄλλας αἰσχυνθῆναι πανηγύρεις, ἐν αἷς ἕκαστος ἡμῶν (Spartans) ζηλωτότερος ἦν καὶ θαυμαστότερος τῶν ἀθλητῶν τῶν ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι τὰς νίκας ἀναιρουμένων. Εἰς ἃς τίς ἂν ἐλθεῖν τολμήσειεν, ἀντὶ μὲν τοῦ τιμᾶσθαι καταφρονηθησόμενος—ἔτι δὲ πρὸς ~τούτοις ὀψόμενος μὲν τοὺς οἰκέτας ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας~ ἧς οἱ πατέρες ἡμῖν κατέλιπον ἀπαρχὰς καὶ θυσίας μείζους ἡμῶν ποιουμένους, ἀκουσόμενος δ’ ~αὐτῶν τοιαύταις βλασφημίαις χρωμένων, οἵαις περ εἰκὸς τοὺς χαλεπώτερον τῶν ἄλλων δεδουλευκότας~, ἐξ ἴσου δὲ νῦν τὰς συνθήκας τοῖς δεσπόταις πεποιημένους. This oration, composed only five or six years after the battle of Leuktra, is exceedingly valuable as a testimony of the Spartan feeling under such severe humiliations. [495] The freedom of the Messenians had been put down by the first Messenian war, after which they became subjects of Sparta. The second Messenian war arose from their revolt. No free Messenian legation could therefore have visited Olympia since the termination of the first war; which is placed by Pausanias (iv, 13, 4) in 723 B.C.; though the date is not to be trusted. Pausanias (iv, 27, 3) gives two hundred and eighty-seven years between the end of the second Messenian war and the foundation of Messênê by Epaminondas. See the note of Siebelis on this passage. Exact dates of these early wars cannot be made out. The enfranchisement and reörganization of all Western Laconia, the renovation of the Messenian name, the foundation of the two new cities (Messênê and Megalopolis) in immediate neighborhood and sympathy,—while they completed the degradation of Sparta, constituted in all respects the most interesting political phenomena that Greece had witnessed for many years. To the profound mortification of the historian,—he is able to recount nothing more than the bare facts, with such inferences as these facts themselves warrant. Xenophon, under whose eyes all must have passed, designedly omits to notice them;[496] Pausanias, whom we have to thank for most of what we know, is prompted by his religious imagination to relate many divine signs and warnings, but little matter of actual occurrence. Details are altogether withheld from us. We know neither how long a time was occupied in the building of the two cities, nor who furnished the cost; though both the one and the other must have been considerable. Of the thousand new arrangements, incident to the winding up of many small townships, and the commencement of two large cities, we are unable to render any account. Yet there is no point of time wherein social phenomena are either so interesting or so instructive. In describing societies already established and ancient, we find the force of traditional routine almost omnipotent in its influence both on men’s actions and on their feelings; bad as well as good is preserved in one concrete, since the dead weight of the past