Aristomenes
(Ἀριστομένης), the Messe nian, the hero of the second war with Sparta, has been connected by some writers with the first war (Myron. apud Paus. 4.6; Diod. 15.66, Fragm. x.), but in defiance apparently of all tradition. (Tyrt. apud Paus. l.c. ; Müller, Dor. 1.7.9.) For the events of his life our main authority is Pausanias, and he appears to have principally followed Rhianus the Cretan, the author of a lost epic poem, of which Aristomenes was the hero. (Paus. iv 6.) The life of Aristomenes, therefore, belongs more to legend than to history, though the truth of its general outline may be depended on. (Paus. 4.22; Plb. 4.33.)
Thirty-nine * This date is from Paus. 4.15; but see Just. 3.5; Müll. Dor. 1.7, 10, Append. ix., Hist. of Gr. Lit, 10.5; Clint. Fast. i. p. 256 years had elapsed since the capture of Ithome and the end of the first Messenian war, when the spirit of Messenia, chafing under a degrading yoke (Plb. 4.32; Just. 3.5; Tyrt. apud Paus. 4.14), and eager for revolt, found a leader in Aristomenes of Andania, sprung from the royal line of Aepytus, and even referred by legendary tradition to a miraculous and superhuman origin. (Paus. 4.14.) Having gained promises of assistance from Argos, Arcadia, Sicyon, Elis, and Pisa (Paus. 4.15; Strab. viii. p.362), the here began the war, B. C. 685. The first battle at Derae, before the arrival of the allies on either side, was indecisive; but Aristomenes so distinguished himself there by his valour, that he was offered the throne, but refused it, and received the office of supreme commander. This was followed by a remarkable exploit. Entering Sparta by night, he affixed a shield to the temple of Athena of the Brazen House (Χαλκίοικος), with the inscription, "Dedicated by Aristomenes to the goddess from the Spartan spoils." The next year, he utterly defeated the enemy at the battle of the Boar's Pillar (κάπρου σῆμα), a place in the region of Stenyclerus, at which the allies on both sides were present, and the hosts were animated respectively by the exhortations of Tyrtaeus and the Messenian Hierophants. (Paus. 4.16; Müller, Dor. 1.5.16, 1.7.9, note, 2.10.3.) His next exploit was the attack and plunder of Pharae (Pharis, II. 2.582); and it was only the warning voice of Helen and. the Twin Brothers, visiting him in a dream, that saved Sparta itself from his assault. But he surprised by an ambush the Laconian maidens who were celebrating at Caryae with dances the worship of Artemis. and carried them to Messenia, and himself protected them from the violence of his followers, and restored them, for ransom, uninjured. Next came, in the third year of the war, at which point the poem of Rhianus began, the battle of the Trench (μεγάλη τάφρος), where, through the treachery of Aristocrates, the Arcadian leader, Aristomenes suffered his first defeat, and the Messenian army was cut almost to pieces. (Paus. 4.17.) But the hero gathered the remnant to the mountain fortress of Eira, and there maintained the war for eleven years (Rhian. apud Paus. 4.17), and so ravaged the land of Laconia, that the Spartans decreed that the border should be left untilled. In one of his incursions, however, they met and overpowered him with superior numbers, and carrying him with fifty of his comrades to Sparta, cast them into the pit (κεάδας) where condemned criminals were thrown. The rest perished; not so Aristomenes, the favourite of the gods; for legends told how an eagle bore him up on its wings as he fell, and a fox guided him on the third day from the cavern. The enemy could not believe that he had returned to Eira, till the destruction of an army of Corinthiaus, who were coming to the Spartans' aid, convinced them that Aristomenes was indeed once more amongst them. And now it was that he offered for a second time to Zeus of Itholme the sacrifice for the slaughter of a hundred enemies (ἑκατομφόνια, comp. Plut. Rom. 100.25). The Hyacinthian festival coming on at Sparta, a truce was made, and Aristomenes, wandering on the faith of it too far from Eira, was seized by some Cretan bowmen (mercenaries of Sparta) and placed in bonds, but again burst them, and slew his foes through the aid of a maiden who dwelt in the house where they lodged him, and whom he betrothed in gratitude to his son Gorgus. But the anger of the Twins was roused against him, for he was said to have counterfeited them, and polluted with blood a Spartan festival in their honour. (Thirlwall, Gr. Hist. vol. i. p. 364; Polyaen. 11.31.) So the favour of heaven was turned from his country, and the hour of her fall came. A wild fig-tree, called in the Messenian dialect by the same name that also means a goat (τράγος), which overhung the Neda, touched at length the water with its leaves, and Theoclus the seer privately warned Aristomenes that the Delphic oracle was accomplished, which after the battle of the Trench had thus declared (Paus. 4.20) : εὖτε τράγος πίνῃσι Νέδης ἑλικόρροον ὕδωρ, οὐκ ἔτι Μεσσήνην π̔ύομαι, σχεδόθεν γὰρ ὄλεθρος,
Sparta, therefore, was to triumph; but the future revival of Messenia had been declared in the prophecies of Lycus, son of Pandion (Paus. 4.20, 26, 10.12) to depend on the preservation of a sacred tablet, whereon were described the forms of worship to Demeter and Persephone, said to have been brought of old by the priestly hero Caucon from Eleusis to Messenia. (Paus. 4.26.) This holy treasure Aristomenes secretly buried in Ithome, and then returned to Eira prepared for the worst. Soon after, the Spartans surprised Eira by night, while Aristomenes was disabled by a wound, even as though it had been impossible for Messenia to fall while her hero watched; yet for three days and nights (though he knew the will of the gods, and was fighting against hope) he maintained the struggle with his thinned and fainting band, and at length, forming the remnant into a hollow square, with the women and children in the midst, he demanded and obtained a free passage from the enemy. (Paus. 4.20, 21.) Arriving safely and receiving a hospitable welcome in Arcadia, he formed a plan for surprising and assaulting Sparta, but was again betrayed by Aristocrates : him his countrymen stoned for his treachery, while Aristomenes, gentle as brave, wept for the traitor's fate. (Paus. 4.22; Plb. 4.33; but see Müll. Dor. 1.7.11.) Yet he could not bear to relinquish the thought of war with Sparta, and he refused therefore to take the lead of the band which, under his sons, went and settled at Rhegium. He obtained, however, no opportunity for vengeance ; it was not in his life that retribution was to come ; but while he was consulting the Delphic oracle, Damagetus, king of Ialysus in Rhodes, being there at the same time, was enjoined by the god "to marry the daughter of the best of the Greeks." Such a command, he thought, could have but one interpretation; so he took to wife the daughter of Aristomenes, who accompanied him to Rhodes, and there ended his days in peace. The Rhodians raised to him a splendid monument, and honoured him as a hero, and from him were descended the illustrious family of the Diagoridae. (Paus. 4.24; Pind. Ol. vii.; Müll. Dor. 1.7.11.) His bones were said to have been brought back to Messenia (Paus. 4.32); his name still lived in the hearts of his worshipping countrymen; and later legends told, when Messenia had once more regained her place among the nations (B. C. 370), how at Leuctra the apparition of Aristomenes had been seen, aiding the Theban host and scattering the bands of Sparta. (Paus. 4.32.) [E.E]
(Ἀριστομένης).
1. A comic poet of Athens. He belonged to the ancient Attic comedy, or more correctly to the second class of the poets constituting the old Attic comedy. For the ancients seem to distinguish the comic poets who flourished before the Peloponnesian war from those who lived during that war, and Aristomenes belonged to the latter. (Suidas, s. v. Ἀριστομένης ; Eudocia, p. 65; Argum. ad Aristoph. Equit.) He was sometimes ridiculed by the surname ὁ Δυροποιός,which may have been derived from the circumstance that either he himself or his father, at one time, was an artizan, perhaps a carpenter. Works
As early as the year B. C. 425, he brought out a piece called ὑλοφόροι, on the same occasion that the Equites of Aristophanes and the Satyri of Cratinus were performed; and if it is true that another piece entitled Admetus was performed at the same time with the Plutus of Aristophanes, in B. C. 389, the dramatic career of Aristomenes was very long. (Argum. ad Aristoph. Plut.) But we know of only a few comedies of Aristomenes ; Meineke conjectures that the Admetus was brough out together with the first edition of Aristophanes' Plutus, an hypothesis based upon very weak grounds. Of the two plays mentioned no fragments are extant; besides these we know the titles and possess a few fragments of three others, viz. 1. Βοηθοί
which is sometimes attributed to Aristophanes, the names of Aristomenes and Aristophanes being often confounded in the MSS. 2. Γόητες
3. Διόνυσος ἀσκητής. Other fragmentsThere are also three fragments of which it is uncertain whether they belong to any of the plays here mentioned, or to others, the titles of which are unknown. Further Information
Athen. 1.11; Pollux, 7.167; Harpocrat. s. v. μετοίκιον. Comp. Meineke, Quaest. Scen. Spec. ii. p. 48, &c., Hist. Crit. Com. Gr. p. 210, &c.
2. An actor of the old Attic comedy, who lived in the reign and was a freed-man of the emperor Hadrian, who used to call him Ἀττικοπέρδιξ. He was a native of Athens, and is also mentioned as the author of a work πρὸς τὰς ἱερουργίας, the third book of which is quoted by Athenaeus. (iii. p. 115.) He is perhaps the same as the one mentioned by the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius. (1.164.)
3. A Greek writer on agriculture, who is mentioned by Varro (de Re Rust. 1.1; Columella, 1.1) among those whose native place was unknown.
4. An Acarnanian, a friend and flatterer of the contemptible Agathocles, who for a time had the government of Egypt in the name of the young king Ptolemy V. (Euergetes.) During the administration of Agathocles Aristomenes was all-pow-erful, and when the insurrection against Agathocles broke out in B. C. 205, Aristomenes was the only one among his friends who ventured to go and try to pacify the rebellious Macedonians. But this attempt was useless, and Aristomenes himself narrowly escaped being murdered by the insurgents. After Agathocles was put to death, Tlepolemus, who had headed the insurrection, was appointed regent. But about B. C. 202, Aristomenes contrived to get the regency and distinguished himself now by the energy and wisdom of his administration no less than previously by his faithfulness to Agathocles. Scopas and Dicaearchus, two powerful men, who ventured to oppose his government, were put to death by his command. Towards the young king, Aristomenes was a frank, open, and sincere councillor; but as the king grew up to manhood, he became less and less able to bear the sincerity of Aristomenes, who was at last condemned to death, in B. C. 192. (Plb. 15.31, 18.36, &c.; Diod. Excerpt. lib. xxix., de Virt. et Vit. p. 573; Plut. de Discern. Adulat. 32.) [L.S]
a painter, born at Thasos is mentioned by Vitruvius (iii. Prooem. § 2), but did not attain to any distinction. [C.P.M]
(Ἀριστομένης). A Messenian, the hero of the second war with Sparta, who belongs more to legend than to history. He was a native of Andania, and was sprung from the royal line of Aepytus. Tired of the yoke of Sparta, he began the war in B.C. 685. After the defeat of the Messenians, in the third year of the war, Aristomenes retreated to the mountain fortress of Ira, and there maintained the war for eleven years, constantly ravaging the land of Laconia. In one of his incursions the Spartans overpowered him with superior numbers, and, carrying him with fifty of his comrades to Sparta, cast them into the pit where condemned criminals were thrown. The rest perished; but not so Aristomenes, the favourite of the gods; for legends tell how an eagle bore him up on its wings as he fell, and a fox guided him on the third day from the cavern. But the city of Ira, which he had so long successfully defended, fell into the hands of the Spartans, who again became masters of Messenia, B.C. 668. Aristomenes settled at Ialysus, in Rhodes, where he married his daughter to Damagetus, king of Ialysus.
- Olympic victor: Paus. 5.21.10
- Paus. 4.6.3, Paus. 8.52.1
- contemporary with second Messenian war: Paus. 4.6.3-5
- ancestor of the Diagorids of Rhodes: Paus. 4.24.3, Paus. 6.7.3
- worshipped as hero by Messenians: Paus. 4.14.7
- marvellous birth: Paus. 4.14.7
- son of Pyrrhus or Nicomedes: Paus. 4.14.8
- stirs up Messenians to revolt: Paus. 4.14.8
- elected general: Paus. 4.15.4
- dedicates shield to Goddess of Brazen House at Sparta: Paus. 4.15.5
- his picked band: Paus. 4.16.3
- defeats Lacedaemonians: Paus. 4.16.3-5, 8
- receives ovation: Paus. 4.16.6
- dedicates shield at Lebadea: Paus. 4.16.7
- carries off Spartan maidens from Caryae: Paus. 4.16.9
- captured by Lacedaemonians but escapes: Paus. 4.17.1
- persuades Messenians to settle on Mount Ira: Paus. 4.17.10
- captures Amyclae: Paus. 4.18.3
- again taken prisoner by Lacedaemonians, but escapes: Paus. 4.18.4-7
- defeats Corinthians: Paus. 4.19.1ff.
- sacrifices Hecatomphonia thrice to Zeus of Ithome: Paus. 4.19.3
- captured by Cretan archers: Paus. 4.19.4-6
- buries secret talisman on Ithome: Paus. 4.20.4, Paus. 4.26.8
- fights bravely in defence of Ira: Paus. 4.21.2-12
- schemes to seize Sparta: Paus. 4.22.2-7
- refuses to lead Messenian colony: Paus. 4.23.1-3
- goes to Rhodes: Paus. 4.24.2
- dies and is buried there: Paus. 4.24.3
- his bones fetched from Rhodes to Messene: Paus. 4.32.3
- bull sacrificed at his tomb: Paus. 4.32.3
- invoked as hero by Messenians: Paus. 4.27.6
- a benefactor of his country: Paus. 8.52.1
- dead A. helped Thebans at battle of Leuctra: Paus. 4.32.4
- his shield in shrine of Trophonius at Lebadea: Paus. 4.32.5ff.
- his shield used by Thebans to decorate trophy at Leuctra: Paus. 4.32.6
- at Lebadea: Paus. 9.39.14
- statue: Paus. 4.32.6
- his sister, son, and daughters: Paus. 4.21.2, Paus. 4.24.1-3, Paus. 6.7.3