Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
And in the reign of Phintas, the son of Sybotas, the Messenians first
sent to Apollo at Delos sacrifices and a choir of men. And their
processional Hymn to the god was composed by Eumelus, and these are
considered the only genuine lines of Eumelus. It was during the reign
of this Phintas that a disagreement for the first time came about
between the Lacedæmonians and the Messenians. The cause is doubtful,
but is traditionally as follows. On the borders of Messenia is a
temple of Artemis Limnas, in which the Messenians and Lacedæmonians
were the only Dorians that had a share. The Lacedæmonians say that
some maidens of theirs who were present at the feast were violated by
some Messenians, and that their king Teleclus, (the son of Archelaus,
the son of Agesilaus, the son of Doryssus, the son of Labotas, the
son of Echestratus, the son of Agis,) was slain in endeavouring to
prevent this outrage. They also say that the maidens who were violated
put themselves to death from shame. But the Messenian account is that
Teleclus plotted against their persons of quality that came to the
temple, on account of the excellence of the Messenian soil, and picked
out some beardless Spartans, and, dressing them in female attire and
ornaments like maidens, introduced them armed with daggers among some
of the Messenians who were resting: but the other Messenians came
up to the rescue, and killed the beardless young men and Teleclus
himself. And the Lacedæmonians--for their king had not contrived all
this without the common consent--knowing that they had begun the wrong,
did not demand vengeance for the murder of Teleclus. These are the
different accounts the two nations give, let everyone accept the view
he prefers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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