CHAP. IX - THE MESSENIAN WARS AND AFFAIRS OF SPARTA DOWN TO THE SIXTH CENTURY B. C.

Summary

Toward the first olympiad (b. c. 776), Laconia was subdued and tranquil; the Spartans were united by the institutions of Lycurgus, and their warlike youth ready, and perhaps impatient, for new enterprises. Until the fall of Amyclæ, and the other conquests of Teleclus, had secured the submission of Laconia, they were probably too much occupied at home to enter into any wars with their neighbours, which might require a long-continued exertion of their strength. We find them indeed very early engaged in contests on the side of Arcadia and Argos: but these were not very vigorously prosecuted, or attended with very important results. An expedition of Sous, son of Procles, against Cleitor, in Arcadia, in which he is said to have delivered his army from jeopardy by a stratagem, stands unexplained as an isolated fact. Jealousy soon sprang up between Sparta and Argos, and disturbed the harmony which the family compact should have secured. In the reign of Echestratus, son of Agis, the Spartans had made themselves masters of Cynuria, where a remnant of the old Ionian population had preserved its independence. Having thus become neighbours, they soon became enemies of the Argives. The quarrel broke out in the reign of Prytanis, son of Eurypon; and his successors, Charilaus and Nicander, made inroads on the Argive territory: the Dryopes of Asiné were induced to aid the Spartans, whose subjects had been excited to revolt by the Argives; but the Asinæans were shortly after punished with the loss of their city, and were forced to take refuge in Laconia.