12. Besides the possession of Messenia, nothing was of such importance to the Spartans as the influence which they gained over the towns of Arcadia. But in what manner these came into their hands is very little known.(648) During the Messenian war Arcadia was always opposed to Sparta. Hence, in the year 659 B.C., the Spartans suddenly attacked and took the town of Phigalea, in a corner of Messenia and Triphylia; but were soon driven out again by the neighbouring Oresthasians.(649) But the place chiefly dreaded by Sparta, as being one of the most powerful cantons in Arcadia, and commanding the principal entrance to Laconia, was Tegea. Charilaus, one of the early kings of Sparta, is said to have been compelled, by the valour of the Tegeate women, to submit to a disgraceful treaty.(650) At a later period also, in the reigns of Eurycrates and Leon the Eurysthenid,(651) Sparta suffered injury from the same state,(652) until it at last obtained the superiority under the next king, Anaxandridas. It was not, however, merely the ingenuity of a mountain-tribe, in protecting and fortifying its defiles, that made victory so difficult to the Spartans; but, although the pass which separates Tegea from Laconia, and even at the present time retains the vestiges of defensive walls, was of great service in repelling invasions from Laconia,(653) yet Tegea was also formidable in the open field from her heavy-armed troops, which in later times always maintained the second place in the allied army of Peloponnesus.(654)