And when they had made all their preparations for war, and their allies were even more zealous than they had expected, for the hostility between the Arcadians and Argives and the Lacedæmonians had blazed out fiercely, then in the thirty-ninth year after the capture of Ithome they rose in insurrection, in the fourth year of the 23rd Olympiad, in which the Hyperesian Icarus was victor in the stadium. And at Athens there were now annual archons, and the archon this year was Tlesias. Who were kings at Lacedæmon at this time has not been recorded by Tyrtæus, but Rhianus in his poem has said that Leotychides was king during this war. I cannot agree with him in this: as to Tyrtæus, though he has not mentioned expressly the time, yet one may suppose he has hinted it in the following passage,--in the elegiac lines he wrote about the former war. “Nineteen years unceasingly they fought for their country, ever with stout heart, those warriors the fathers of our fathers.” Manifestly then it was in the third generation after the former war that the Messenians commenced this war, and the period is marked by the fact that the kings then at Sparta were Anaxander the son of Eurycrates the son of Polydorus, and of the other family Anaxidamus the son of Zeuxidamus, the son of Archidamus, the son of Theopompus. I go as far as the fourth descendant of Theopompus, because Archidamus the son of Theopompus died in his father’s lifetime, and the kingdom devolved upon Zeuxidamus his grandson. And Leotychides clearly was king after Demaratus the son of Aristo, and Aristo was seventh descendant from Theopompus. And now in the first year after their insurrection the Messenians engaged with the Lacedæmonians at a place in their country called Deræ, and neither side had allies. And the battle was an undecided one, but they say Aristomenes exhibited in it preterhuman bravery, so that they elected him king after the battle, for he was of the family of the Æpytidæ, and though he was for refusing they also appointed him commander in chief. He was inclined to let them disown no one who had done valiantly in war: and for himself thought it right first and foremost (as the war with the Lacedæmonians was only just begun) to thoroughly frighten them by some bold stroke, and so to awe them more for the future. Accordingly he went by night to Lacedæmon and hung up a shield at the temple of Athene Chalciœcus, and on it was the inscription, “Aristomenes offers this to the goddess from Spartan spoils.”