The Lacedæmonians were therefore in this war really pressed by an enemy of superior force, a fact alluded to by Tyrtæus. Meanwhile Sparta was assisted by the Corinthians,(641) perhaps by the Lepreatans,(642) and even by some ships of the Samians;(643) but chiefly by Tyrtæus of Aphidnæ, whom an absurd and distorted fable has turned into a lame Athenian schoolmaster. The fact of Sparta seeking a warlike minstrel in Aphidnæ, may be accounted for from its ancient connexions with this borough in Attica, which is said to have been in the hands of the Dioscuri. Whether or not Aphidnæ at that time belonged to Attica, and was subject to Athens, is a question we shall leave undecided; but there does not seem to be any reason for inferring with Strabo, from the passage of Tyrtæus itself, that the whole tradition was false, and that Tyrtæus was a Lacedæmonian by birth,(644) though he doubtless became so by adoption. It is to be regretted that we have very little information concerning the war carried on by Sparta with the rest of the Peloponnesians;(645) but the Messenians at a later period withdrew from Andania towards Eira, which is a mountain-fortress on the Neda, the border-stream towards Arcadia, near the sea-coast. When obliged to retire from this stronghold, they were received first by the Arcadians, their ancient and faithful allies (who, according to the tradition, gave them their daughters in marriage(646)); afterwards the exiles sought an asylum with their kinsmen at Rhegium. Aristomenes himself (if he was not put to death by the Spartans) is said to have died at Rhodes, in the house of the noble family of the Eratidæ.(647)