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[1] The wrath of the sons of Tyndareus against the Messenians began before the battle in Stenyclerus, and arose, I think, for the following reason. Panormos and Gonippos of Andania, young men in the bloom of youth, were close friends in all things, and marched together into battle and on raids into Laconia.
[2] The Lacedaemonians were keeping a feast of the Dioskouroi in camp and had turned to drinking and sports after the midday meal, when Gonippos and Panormos appeared to them, riding on the finest horses and dressed in white tunics and scarlet cloaks, with caps on their heads and spears in their hands. When the Lacedaemonians saw them they bowed down and prayed, thinking that the Dioskouroi themselves had come to their sacrifice.
[3] When once they had come among them, the youths rode right through them, striking with their spears, and when many had been killed, returned to Andania, having outraged the sacrifice to the Dioskouroi. It was this, in my view, that roused the Dioskouroi to their hatred of the Messenians. But now, as the dream declared to Epameinondas, the Dioskouroi no longer opposed the return of the Messenians.
[4] Epameinondas was most strongly drawn to the foundation by the oracles of Bacis, who was inspired by the Nymphs and left prophecies regarding others of the Greeks as well as the return of the Messenians:
“Then indeed shall the bright bloom of Sparta perish and Messene again shall be inhabited for all time.”
I have discovered that Bacis also told in what manner Eira would be captured, and this too is one of his oracles:
“The men of Messene overcome by the thunder’s roll and spouting rain.”
[5] When the mysteries were recovered, all who were of the priestly family set them down in books. As Epameinondas considered the spot where the city of the Messenians now stands most convenient for the foundation, he ordered enquiry to be made by the seers if the favor of the gods would follow him here. When they announced that the offerings were auspicious, he began preparations for the foundation, ordering stone to be brought, and summoning men skilled in laying out streets and in building houses, temples, and ring-walls.
[6] When all was in readiness, victims being provided by the Arcadians, Epameinondas himself and the Thebans then sacrificed to Dionysus and Apollo IsMenios in the accustomed manner, the Argives to Argive Hērā and Nemean Zeus, the Messenians to Zeus of Ithome and the Dioskouroi, and their priests to the Great Goddesses and Kaukon. And together they summoned heroes to return and dwell with them, first Messene the daughter of Triopas, after her Eurytos, Aphareus and his children, and of the sons of Hēraklēs Kresphontes and Aipytos. But the loudest summons from all alike was to Aristomenes.
[7] For that day they were engaged in sacrifice and prayer, but on the following days they raised the circuit of the walls, and within built houses and the temples. They worked to the sound of music, but only from Boeotian and Argive
auloi [‘double-reeds’], and the tunes of Sacadas and Pronomos were brought into keen competition. The city itself was given the name Messene, but they founded other towns. The men of Nauplia were not disturbed at Mothone,
[8] and they allowed the people of Asine to remain in their home, remembering their kindness when they refused to join the Lacedaemonians in the war against them. The men of Nauplia on the return of the Messenians to Peloponnese brought them such gifts as they had, and while praying continually to the gods for their return begged the Messenians to grant protection to themselves.
[9] The Messenians returned to Peloponnese and recovered their own land two hundred and eighty-seven years after the capture of Eira, in the year when Dyskinetos was archon [
arkhōn] in Athens and in the third year of the hundred and second Olympiad,
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when Damon of Thourioi was victorious for the second time. It was no short time for the Plataeans that they were in exile from their country, and for the Delians when they settled in Adramyttion after being expelled from their island by the Athenians.
[10] The Minyae, driven by the Thebans from Orkhomenos after the battle of Leuktra, were restored to Boeotia by Philip the son of Amyntas, as were also the Plataeans. When Alexander had destroyed the city of the Thebans themselves, Kassandros the son of Antipatros rebuilt it after a few years. The exile of the Plataeans seems to have lasted the longest of those mentioned, but even this was not for more than two generations.
[11] But the wanderings of the Messenians outside the Peloponnese lasted almost three hundred years, during which it is clear that they did not depart in any way from their local customs, and did not lose their Doric dialect, but even to our day they have retained the purest Doric in Peloponnese.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .