And thenceforward--for fate already turned the scales towards the capture of Ithome--the god gave them various predictions of their coming destiny. For the statue of Artemis, which was of brass as well as the armour, dropped its shield; and as Aristodemus was about to sacrifice the victims to Zeus at Ithome, the rams of their own accord violently dashed their heads against the altar, and were killed by the blow. And a third phenomenon happened. Some dogs assembled in the same place and howled all night, and eventually went off in a body to the camp of the Lacedæmonians. This troubled Aristodemus, as also the following vision of the night. He dreamed that he was going out to battle fully armed, and saw lying on a table the victims’ entrails, and his daughter appeared to him in a black dress with her breast and belly ripped up, and he thought she threw away what was on the table, and took away his armour, and instead of it put upon him a golden crown and white robe. And as Aristodemus was dispirited, for he thought the dream announced to him the end of his life, (for the Messenians buried their notable men in white raiment with crowns on their heads), somebody brought him word that Ophioneus had suddenly become blind again as before. Then he understood the hidden sense of the oracle, that by the pair who appeared after being hidden, and returned again as fate necessitated, the Pythian Priestess meant the eyes of Ophioneus. Thereupon Aristodemus laying to heart his domestic misfortunes, that he had been the murderer of his daughter to no purpose, and seeing no future hope of safety for his country, cut his throat at his daughter’s grave, being such an one as would in all human calculation have saved his country had not fortune brought to nothing his plans and actions. And he died after a reign of six years and a few months. And to the Messenians their affairs now seemed desperate, so that they were very near sending a supplicatory embassy to the Lacedæmonians, though pride restrained them from actually doing so, so much did they feel the blow of Aristodemus’ death. And when they gathered together in their assembly they did not choose another king, but appointed Damis dictator. And he, having selected Cleonnis and Phyleus as his coadjutors, made preparations for the campaign according to his best ability under the circumstances: for he was pressed hard by the siege, and not least by famine and the fear that famine inspired that they could not hold out from want of supplies. There was no deficiency of bravery or venturesomeness on the part of the Messenians: all their generals and notables were killed. For about five months they held out, and towards the close of the year evacuated Ithome, having been at war for full twenty years, as the lines of Tyrtæus testify: “They in the twentieth year left the rich pastures, and fled from the high hills of Ithome.” This war came to an end in the first year of the fourteenth