To the field, to the field, gallant Spartan band, Worthy sons, like your sires, of our warlike land! Let each arm be prepared for its part in the fight, Fix the shield on the left, poise the spear with the right; Let no care for your lives in your bosoms find place, No such care knew the heroes of old Spartan race. [Footnote: Mure's "History of Greek Literature," vol. iii., p. 195.] But the Spartans were not immediately successful. In the first battle that ensued they were defeated with severe loss; but in the third year of the war the Messenians suffered a signal defeat, owing to the treachery of Aristoc'rates, the king of their Arcadian allies, who deserted them in the heat of battle, and Aristomenes retired to the mountain fortress of Ira. The war continued, with varying success, seventeen years in all; throughout the whole of which period Aristomenes distinguished himself by many noble exploits; but all his efforts to save his country were ineffectual. A second time Sparta conquered (668 B.C.), and the yoke appeared to be fixed on Messenia forever. Thenceforward the growing power of Sparta seemed destined to undisputed pre-eminence, not only in the Peloponnesus, but throughout all Greece. Before 600 B.C. Sparta had conquered the upper valley of the Eurotas from the Arcadians, and, forty years later, compelled Te'gea, the capital of Arcadia, to acknowledge her supremacy. Still later, in 524 B.C., a long struggle with the Argives was terminated in favor of Sparta, and she was now the most powerful of the Grecian states. CHAPTER V. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT, AND CHANGES IN GRECIAN POLITICS.