¹ Plut. Ages. 31.1.

² On Epameinondas' campaign in the Peloponnese, see Buckler, J., The Theban Hegemony, 371-362 BC (Cambridge, MA 1980) 70–87Google Scholar, and Hamilton, C.D., Agesilaus and the Failure of Spartan Hegemony (Ithaca and London 1991) 215–31Google Scholar. On the foundation of Messene, see Roebuck, C.A., A History of Messenia from 369 to 146 B.C. (Chicago 1941) 27–41Google Scholar.

³ There is no point in addressing here the vexata quaestio of the chronology of the Messenian Wars. Suffice it to say that the relevant evidence should be looked for in Archaic poetry and archaeology. Fiddling with Pausanias or other later sources - e.g. Parker, V., ‘The dates of the Messenian Wars’, Chiron 21 (1991) 25–47Google Scholar – is not likely to produce any more convincing result than what the sources themselves say directly. Tyrtaios (fr. 5 West²) thought that Messene had been conquered and the Messenians chased away from Mount Ithome by the Spartans led by King Theopompos two generations before himself, if his ‘fathers of our fathers’ is to be taken literally, a point on which not all scholars agree. On Messene and Messenians in Homer, see below. The only evidence on the Second Messenian War earlier than the fourth century is the garbled reference to Tyrtaios in Strab. 8.4.10, while fifth-century authors like Herodotos (3.47.1) and Antiochos of Syracuse (555 F13) speak of ‘the Messenian war’ without further qualification, which seems to imply that they knew only one war.

⁴ E.g. Plut. Ages. 35.2-3, but the most impressive document of the Spartans' attitude is Xenophon's failure even to mention the foundation of the new polis; see Roebuck (n.2)41-5.

⁵ Paus. 4.27.11. Note that Pausanias' figure presupposes that the Messenians had been expelled en masse at the time of the Spartan conquest, although Pausanias himself elsewhere says that some Messenians had remained in the Peloponnese as Helots, and left their country only in the mid fifth century, as a result of the revolt after the earthquake. See Asheri, D., ‘La diaspora e il ritorno dei Messeni’, in Gabba, E. (ed.), Tria corda. Scritti in onore di Arnaldo Momigliano (Como 1983) 27–9Google Scholar. On the Messenians' linguistic archaism and its meaning, see Hall, J.M., Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge 1997) 180CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ Thuc. 4.3.3; 41.2, on which see now Figueira, T., ‘The evolution of the Messenian identity’, in Hodkinson, S. and Powell, A. (eds), Sparta: New Perspectives (London 1999) 213Google Scholar.

⁷ In this connection, Zunino, M.L., Hiera Messeniaka. La storia religiosa della Messenia dall'eta micenea all'eta ellenistica (Udine 1997)Google Scholar, speaks of an original ‘Messenian-Lakonian koinê’.

⁸ For an introduction to this longstanding debate and its huge bibliography, see Alcock, S.E., ‘The pseudo-history of Messenia unplugged’, TAPhA 129 (1999) 333–5Google Scholar, and ead., ‘The peculiar Book IV and the problem of the Messenian past’, in Alcock, S.E., Cherry, J.F. and Eisner, J. (eds), Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece (Oxford 2001) 142–53Google Scholar.

⁹ Jacoby's treatment of the problem of Messenian tradition is embedded in his commentary on the fragments of Rhianos' epic poem on the Messenian War; see Jacoby, F., Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Ilia, Kommentar (Leiden 1943) 265 Rhianos von Bene (Kreta) 87–200Google Scholar.

¹⁰ The two most substantial post-Jacobian contributions on the continuist side are Kiechle, F., Messenische Studien. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Messenischen Kriege und zur Auswanderung der Messenier (Kallmünz 1959), and Zunino (n.7)Google Scholar.

¹¹ See e.g., on the discontinuist side, Pearson, L., ‘The pseudo-history of Messenia and its authors’, Historia 11 (1962) 397–426Google Scholar, and Musti, D., introduction to Pausania. Guida della Grecia. Libro IV - La Messenia, ed. with trans, and comm. by Musti, D. and Torelli, M. (Milan 1991) xii–xxviiiGoogle Scholar.

¹² See Coldstream, J.N., Greek Geometric Pottery (London 1968) 220–32Google Scholar, and Coulson, W.D.E., The Dark Age Pottery of Messenia (Göteborg 1986) 55-6 and 68–9Google Scholar.

¹³ See Zimmermann, J.-L., Les chevaux de bronze dans I'art géométrique grec (Mainz 1989) 114–22Google Scholar.

¹⁴ See Coldstream, J.N., Geometric Greece (London 1977) 160–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Coldstream's interpretation of the local styles in Late Geometric pottery as signals of emerging polities, see id., ‘The meaning of the regional styles in the eighth century B.C.’, in Hägg, R. (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B.C.: Tradition and Innovation (Stockholm 1983) 17–25Google Scholar.

¹⁵ See Morgan, C., ‘The origins of pan-Hellenism’, in Marinatos, N. and Hägg, R. (eds), Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches (London and New York 1993) 21Google Scholar.

¹⁶ See Coulson (n.12) 36-7 and 69.

¹⁷ The relevant sources are discussed in my ‘Die Dreiteilung der Peloponnes. Wandlungen eines Gründungsmythos’, in Gehrke, H.-J. (ed.), Geschichtsbilder und Gründungsmythen (Würzburg 2001) 37–63Google Scholar.

¹⁸ According to Od. 21.13-16, Odysseus met Iphitos in Messene, in the house of Ortilochos. Later on, Telemachos and Peisistratos on their way from Pylos to Sparta and back would stop at Diokles' place, in Pherai (3.486-8 = 15.185-8). Since Diokles is called the son of Orsilochos, Strabo (8.5.8) and Pausanias (4.1.4), followed by most modern scholars – e.g. E. Meyer, RE Suppl. 15 (1978), s.v. Messene/Messenien, 136 – maintained that in the passage about Odysseus, Messene designated a region, in which Pherai could have been located. However, it is slightly odd that a region should be mentioned as the place were two people meet; conceivably, Messene and Pherai could simply be two different places (by the way, some scholars also prefer to regard Ortilochos and Orsilochos as two different characters). Pherai ‘close to the sea’ is also one of the cities offered by Agamemnon to Achilles in Il. 9.151.

¹⁹ Geometric pottery has been found around the later temple of Asklepios (see P.G. Themelis, ‘Άνασκαφὴ Μεσσήνης’ PAAH 1987 (1991) 87), close to the Klepsydra fountain in the modern village of Mavromati (Themelis, PAAH 1988 (1991) 45) and to the naiskos of Artemis Orthia (Themelis, PAAH 1991 (1994) 95). To this has to be added the fragment of a leg of a Geometric bronze tripod, found on Mount Ithome itself (Maaß, M., Die geometrischen DreifüΒie von Olympia (Olympische Forschungen 10, Berlin 1978) 33–4 n.57 and pl. 67)Google Scholar.

²⁰ See Simpson, R. Hope, ‘The seven cities offered by Agamemnon to Achilles’, BSA 61 (1966) 113–31Google Scholar. Unsurprisingly, the absence of Messenia from the Catalogue has often been connected with Spartan expansion west of the Taygetos at the time of the composition of the Catalogue itself; see Giovannini, A., Étude historique sur les origines du Catalogue des vaisseaux (Bern 1969) 28Google Scholar.

²¹ I am very grateful to Olga Levaniouk for discussing this point with me. See Levaniouk, O., Odyssean Usages of Local Traditions (Diss., Harvard 2000)Google Scholar, and the recent and detailed discussion by Visser, E., Homers Katalog der Schiffe (Stuttgart and Leipzig 1997) 522–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; even if one prefers to keep the identification of Homeric Pylos and the Mycenaean settlement at Ano Englianos, the other places mentioned in the Pylian section of the Catalogue are scattered between Triphylia and the Soulima valley, mostly north of later Messenia. The Pamisos valley, the Messenian heartland, is absent from the Catalogue.

²² Pindar calls Nestor ‘the Messenian elder’ in Pyth. 6.32-6, composed for Xenokrates of Akragas' victory in the Pythiads of 490 bc. In Pyth. 5.69-72 (462 BC, for Arkesilas IV of Kyrene), where the division of the Peloponnese among Herakles' descendants is mentioned for the first time in Greek literature, Messenia appears under the name of ‘holy Pylos’.

²³ This is how the Spartans called Messenia and the region we call Lakonia (a word that does not exist in Greek); see Figueira (n.6) 217-18, and e.g. Thuc. 5.34.1, 35.7.

²⁴ These cults are discussed thoroughly in Zunino's recent monograph (n.7); my own discussion differs from hers in emphasizing the topographical distribution of them and in focusing on the archaeological evidence in a diachronic perspective, rather than considering all the evidence on each cult, regardless of its date.

²⁵ Versakis, F., ‘Τὸ ἱερὸν Κορύνθου Άπόλλωνος’ AD 2 (1916) 65–118Google Scholar.

²⁶ Weickert, C., Typen der archaischen Architectur in Griechenland und Kleinasien (Augsburg 1929) 151–3Google Scholar; see also Bookidis, N., A Study of the Use and Geographical Distribution of Architectural Sculpture in the Archaic Period (Greece, East Greece and Magna Graecia) (Diss., Bryn Mawr 1967) 399–403Google Scholar. The southern sector of Versakis' excavation (see his map at p. 71) is currently covered; a large fluted column drum on the side of the road from the coast to Longà might indicate its south-eastern corner. In the northern part of the excavation, only the remains of temple A are still visible. Architectural remains (two bases of Ionic columns, some portions of rather thin column shafts) are also to be seen in the courtyard of the church of Ayios Andreas, further east on the road.

²⁷ To the inscription published by Versakis (n.25) 117, add SEG 11.994 and 995.

²⁸ See Weicker, G., RE 11.2 (1922)Google Scholar, s.v. Korythos, 1466-7.

²⁹ See Zunino (n.7) 168 and n.75.

³⁰ The inscription apparently accompanied the dedication of a helmet. See Versakis (n.25) 115, and the hardly legible photograph on pi. 7 fig. 63, and cf. Jeffery, L.H., The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (revised edition with a supplement by Johnston, A.W., Oxford 1990) 204 and n.2Google Scholar.

³¹ A healing could also conceivably be the reason of the dedication SEG 11.994, of late Hellenistic date. One might be tempted to see here the traces of a process similar to the one whereby the cult of Apollo Hyperteleatas in southern Lakonia, well documented in inscriptions ranging from the Archaic period to the Early Empire (IG v. 1 980ff.), had been replaced (or complemented?) by a cult of Asklepios by Pausanias' time (Paus. 3.22.10).

³² Note also that the association of Apollo Korythos with Enyalios, which can be glimpsed in the dedication mentioned above (n.30), recalls the connection of Phoibos and Enyalios at Sparta; cf. Paus. 3.14.9 and 20.2.

³³ See Herfort-Koch, M., Archaische Bronzeplastik Lakoniens (Boreas Beiheft 4, Münster 1986) 104Google Scholar, k 78, and 117, k 135. Also from Longà are k 88 and k 90 (106-7).

³⁴ See Versakis (n.25) 93, ill. 33. The bell, like all the bronzes from Longà, is now in the storerooms of the National Museum at Athens (inv. χ 18845). The Director of the Museum, Ioannis Touratsoglou, kindly allowed me to see it in August 1999. I owe its identification as a typically Spartan object to Alexandra Villing (London), who is preparing the publication of the bronze and terracotta bells from Sparta.

³⁵ For the aryballoi, Versakis (n.25) 101-3, mentions parallels from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia. Furthermore, compare e.g. Versakis' no. 9 in pi. 3, fig.51, with Stibbe, C.M., Lakonische Vasenmaler des 6. Jhs. v. Chr. (Amsterdam and London 1972) 18–19Google Scholar; no. 5 of the same plate with Stibbe, C.M., Laconian Drinking Vessels and Other Open Shapes (Amsterdam 1994) 234 no. 10Google Scholar.

³⁶ The capital is currently in the courtyard of the Benaki Museum in Kalamata. The best published photograph known to me is in Herrmann, K., ‘Zum Dekor dorischer Kapitelle’, Architectura 13 (1983) pl. 5Google Scholar.

³⁷ See now Faustoferri, A., Il trono di Amyklai a Sparta. Bathykles al servizio del potere (Naples 1996) 344–57Google Scholar and pls. 22-3. Contrary to what Faustoferri says (349), the capital of Longà is by no means a simplified version of those of Amyklai and it does have triangular leaves in the background of the main crown of leaves.

³⁸ Currently on display in the Archaeological Museum at Sparta. First published by P. Steryiannopoulos, AE 1936, χρονικά 1-2, where it is shown in its original location. For a better photograph, see Mertens, D., Der alte Heratempel in Paestum und die archaische Baukunst in Unteritalien (Mainz 1993) pl. 65,4Google Scholar. Mertens' overview of Doric capitals (pls. 64-5) gives a very clear idea of how similar the capital from Longà is to those from Lakonia and how different from anything else.

³⁹ Valmin, M.N., The Swedish Messenia Expedition (Acta reg. societatis litterarum Lundensis 26, Lund 1938) 420–65Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Valmin (n.39) 454-63.

⁴¹ Valmin (n.39) 440-1 and pi. 33 no. 7; cf. Herfort-Koch (n.33) 54-9. Unfortunately, the object was badly damaged during restoration, as can be easily seen by comparing the two pictures published by Valmin with each other and with a later one (LIMC 5.2, Herakles, no. 2827), which shows signs of further deterioration.

⁴² Already mentioned by Jeffery (n.30) 202, but first published by Mitten, D.G. and Doeringer, S.F., Master Bronzes from the Classical World (Mainz 1967) 62–63. Cf. Herfort-Koch (n.33) 52, and k 118 (113).Google Scholar

⁴³ Valmin (n.39) 420.

⁴⁴ Volimos was located on an ancient itinerary connecting Lakonia and Messenia, obviously not by way of the Langada Pass, whose picturesque cliffs on the Spartan side must have been anything but appealing to ancient travellers. For ancient ways across the Taygetos, see now Christien, J., ‘Les liaisons entre Sparte et son territoire malgré l'encadrement montagneux’, in Bergier, J.-F. (ed.), Montagnes, fleuves, forêts dans I'histoire. Barrières ou lignes de convergence? (St. Katharinen 1989) 30–4Google Scholar, and Pikoulas, G.A., ‘Ή Δενθελιᾶτις καί τὸ ὁδικό της δίκτυο’ in Πρακτικά Γ̓ Τοπικοῦ Συνεδρίου Μεσσηνιακῶν Σπουδῶν (Athens 1991) 279–88Google Scholar, both showing, in part against previous opinions, the importance of the direct connections between Sparta and the southern Messenian plain across the Taygetos.

⁴⁵ Paus. 4.4.2-3.

⁴⁶ IG v.l 1373-8 and SEG 39.388bis. Three of them mention agonothetai, showing that at least in the Imperial period games were held in honour of Artemis Limnatis. For the minimal architectural remains, mostly of Roman times, see Papakostantinou, E., AD 37 (1982) 2, 136Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ See Herfort-Koch (n.33) k 156. For the provenance, see BCH 83 (1959) 640Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ First published by Papathanasopoulos, G.P., AD 17 (1961/1962) 2, 96Google Scholar fig. 4. For the chronology, see Oberländer, P., Griechische Handspiegel (Diss. Hamburg 1967) 32–5Google Scholar, and Stibbe, C.M., Das andere Sparta (Mainz 1996) 151–2Google Scholar, who favours a slightly higher date, around 570-560.

⁴⁹ The mirror is published by Parlama, L., AD 29 (1973-1974) 2, 315 and pl. 198aGoogle Scholar. The transcription in SEG 29.395 should be slightly corrected: given the presence of ἀνέθέκε, Λιμνάι must be a dative, as in IG v. 1 226 and 1497, and o- could be the first part of the dedicant's name. It is extremely tempting to connect some further Archaic bronzes with the sanctuary in Volimos: the cymbals IG v.l 225, 226 and 1497, inscribed in the Lakonian alphabet and dialect and dedicated to Limnatis, and a mirror now in Munich, also inscribed Λιμνᾶτις (see Oberländer (n.48) 44 and Stibbe (n.48) additional pl. 12), all the more so since a bronze cymbal has been found in Volimos and is now (August 2001) on display in the Kalamata Museum (inv. 39, unpublished). Two of the inscribed cymbals were bought in Mistra, the third is unprovenanced, as is also the mirror. Pace Jeffery (n.30) 194 n.3, the three cymbals cannot be interpreted as phialai, cf. e.g. the objects held by the small female figures in Herfort-Koch (n.33) 97 k 56 and 99 k 61, and 37 for their interpretation (an unpublished example was found in Kalamata, 103 k 74).

⁵⁰ IG v.l 1376. On Artemis Limnatis, see Calame, C., Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece (Lanham, MD 1997) 142–9Google Scholar, and now Zunino (n.7) 48-55, who shows the fundamental identity of Artemis Limnatis and Artemis Orthia. Further sanctuaries of Artemis Limnatis were at Messene (IG v.l 1442, 1458, 1470; SEG 39.384; see Zunino (n.7) 61-5), on the Choireios river, not far from Gerenia (IG v.l 1431.37-9), at Epidauros Limera, in Lakonia (Paus. 3.23.10), in the territory of Tegea on the road to Sparta (Paus. 8.53.11), at Sikyon (Paus. 2.7.6, epithet Limnaia), and at Patrai (7.20.7-8; the cult statue was said to have been stolen from Sparta). A dedication to Artemis Limnatis, in the Lakonian alphabet and dialect, has been found in the sanctuary of Artemis at Kombothekra in Triphylia; see U. Sinn, ‘Das Heiligtum der Artemis Limnatis bei Kombothekra, II’, MDAIA 96 (1981) 31-3, and SEG 31.356. Strabo's assertion that the Limnaion in Sparta took its name from Limnai on the Taygetos (8.4.9) is an obvious attempt to reverse the relationship between the sanctuary of Volimos and the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta.

⁵¹ Notice in BCH 83 (1959) 639–40Google Scholar. The bronzes are listed by Leon, C., ‘Statuette eines Kuros aus Messenien’, MDAIA 83 (1968) 175Google Scholar, who publishes one of them; see also Herfort-Koch (n.33) 104 k 80.

⁵² Themelis, P.G., ‘Ίερόν Ποσειδῶνος είς Άκοβίτικα Καλαμάτας’, AAA 2 (1969) 352–7Google Scholar.

⁵³ For the date, see Morgan (n.15) 39 n.18. For the chronology of the DA III phase, Coulson (n.12) 66-7.

⁵⁴ Zimmermann (n.13) 117 and n.9.

⁵⁵ See Themelis (n.52) 355 (SEG 25.43 1b) and id., ‘Άρχαϊκὴ έπιγραφὴ έκ τοῦ ίεροῦ Ποσειδῶνος είς Άκοβίτικα’ AD 24 (1970) 1, 116-18.

⁵⁶ IG v.l 213, lines 18-23. See Jeffery (n.30) 196-7, and 448 of the supplement.

⁵⁷ For the identification of the sanctuary in which the Pohoidaia took place with the one of Akovitika, see Themelis (n.55) 118.

⁵⁸ On the three campaigns devoted to this complex, see the preliminary publication by Themelis, P.G., ‘Άνασκαφὴ Μεσσήνης’, PAAH 1992 (1995) 74–9Google Scholar, 1993 (1996) 40-55 and 1994 (1997) 81-6. On the terracotta plaques, see id., ‘The sanctuary of Demeter and the Dioscouri at Messene’, in R. Hägg (ed.), Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Archaeological Evidence (Stockholm 1998) 157-86.

⁵⁹ Themelis (n.58, 1996) 51 and pi. 26, nos 2-3.

⁶⁰ Both are included in Salapata, G., Lakonian Votive Plaques with Particular Reference to the Sanctuary of Alexandra at Amyklai (Diss., University of Pennsylvania 1992) pls. 38a and 48aGoogle Scholar. I am very grateful to Gina Salapata for allowing me to make use of her unpublished dissertation. For more accessible reproductions, see Salapata, G., ‘The Laconian hero reliefs in the light of the terracotta plaques’, in Palagia, O. and Coulson, W. (eds), Sculpture from Arcadia and Laconia (Oxford 1993) 1901 and fig. 3Google Scholar, and Stibbe, C., ‘Dionysos in Sparta’, BABesch 66 (1991) pls. 28–30Google Scholar.

⁶¹ The parallels are noted by Themelis (n.58, 1998).

⁶² The terracotta from Messene has been published by Themelis (n.58, 1998) 175 fig. 41. The one from Sparta is shown in Stibbe (n.48) 248 figs. 131-2; it comes from the sanctuary of Agamemnon at Amyklai, but it is not included in Salapata's catalogue because it is not a plaque stricto sensu. Three fragmentary examples have been found recently in a sanctuary close to the perioikic town of Aigeiai (on which see Shipley, G., ‘“The other Lakedaimonians”: the dependent perioikic poleis of Laconia and Messenia’, in Hansen, M.H. (ed.), The Polis as an Urban Centre and as a Political Community (Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 4, Copenhagen 1997) 251–2)Google Scholar, and are published in Bonias, Z., ̎Ενα άγροτικό ίερό στίς Αίγιές Λακωνίας (Athens 1998) 199–200Google Scholar and pl. 54. By far the best preserved example of this type was found in the Dimiova cave, immediately east of Eleochorion (ancient Kalamai), and is now on display in the Kalamata Museum; see Themelis, P., AD 20 (1965) 2, 207Google Scholar, with a scarcely decipherable picture, pl. 217.

⁶³ See Salapata (n.60) 159-86.

⁶⁴ See Themelis (n.58, 1997), 84-5 and SEG 45.302.

⁶⁵ The plastic group is in Themelis (n.58, 1998) 182. The connection with Eileithyia has been advanced by Stibbe (n.48), 247-53 for the terracotta from Sparta, and is independently suggested by Torelli, M., ‘L'Asklepieion di Messene, lo scultore Damofonte e Pausania’, in Capecchi, G. (ed.), In memoria di Enrico Paribeni (Rome 1998), 468–9Google Scholar, for those found in Messene. According to Bonias (n.62) 109-14, in the sanctuary at Aigeiai Artemis and the previously unknown hero Timagenes were worshipped; the votives present interesting analogies to those from the omega-omega complex. On Artemis and Eileithyia, see Pingiatoglou, S., Eileithyia (Würzburg 1981) 98–119Google Scholar. For a discussion of the deities worshipped in the sanctuary omega-omega, see Themelis (n.58, 1998) 182-6 and Torelli, 469-71. On the fourth-century temple of Artemis at Messene, see below and n. 105.

⁶⁶ Herfort-Koch (n.33) 38 and 91 k 42 (Mariémont Palladion, dated c. 530) and 103 k 74 (cymbal player from Kalamata, c. 550-530). For a characterization of Archaic bronzes from Messenia, see Leon (n.51) 175-85.

⁶⁷ Parker, R., ‘Spartan religion’, in Powell, A. (ed.), Classical Sparta (London 1989) 142–72Google Scholar; 145 about the religion of the perioikoi.

⁶⁸ On the cult Pamisos, see Breuillot, M., ‘L'eau et les dieux de Messénie’, DHA 11 (1985) 797–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁹ For reasons of space, a detailed treatment of the evidence of cult at Bronze Age tombs from the Geometric to the Hellenistic age, particularly rich in Messenia, cannot be given here. See Antonaccio, C., An Archaeology of Ancestors (Lanham, MD 1995) 70–102Google Scholar. By far the most thorough collection of the evidence available to date is to be found in Boehringer, D., Heroenkulte in Griechenland von der geometrischen bis zur klassischen Zeit: Attika, Argolis, Messenien (Klio Beiheft 3, Berlin 2001)Google Scholar. I am very grateful to David Boehringer for allowing me to use his excellent work before its publication. To his list, add now the Protogeometric and Hellenistic pottery from a Mycenaean chamber tomb on the Ellinikà ridge, just outside the wall circuit of ancient Thouria: Chatzi-Spiliopoulou, G., ‘Ό 6oς θαλαμωτός τάφος των Ελληνικών Ανθείας στη Μεσσηνία’, in Mitsopoulos-Leon, V. (ed.), Forschungen in der Peloponnes. Akten des Symposions anläβlich der Feier “100 Jahre Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut Athen”. Athen 5.3-7.3.1998 (Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Sonder-schriften 38, Athens 2001) 293–8Google Scholar. For my argument, it is sufficient to point out that the topographical distribution of Archaic and Early Classical evidence for this form of cult shows clearly that it cannot be associated exclusively with the Helots, if at all.

⁷⁰ See Roebuck (n.2) 28-31, and Lazenby, J.F. and Simpson, R. Hope, ‘Greco-Roman times: literary tradition and topographical commentary’, in McDonald, W.A. and Rapp, G.R. Jr.(eds), The Minnesota Messenia Expedition: Reconstructing a Bronze Age Environment (Minneapolis 1972) 86Google Scholar. The evidence from literary sources and inscriptions has been recently collected by Shipley (n.62) 226-81; see the index at pp. 190-1.

⁷¹ The Koryphasion that was stormed by the Arkadians in 365/4 (Diod. 15.77.4) must have been a perioikic settlement. Since Thucydides appears to imply that there was no settlement on Koryphasion (i.e. Paliokastro) when Demosthenes landed there (4.3.2), it is possible that a settlement was established after the Athenians finally evacuated their stronghold. Archaeological investigations in the castle by S. Marinatos (report in Ergon 1958, 149-50) brought to light pottery from roughly the mid fifth century onwards, and a considerable quantity of pottery from the sixth to the fourth centuries has been collected in the area south of the castle, towards the entrance of the Navarino bay; see McDonald, W.M. and Simpson, R. Hope, ‘Prehistoric habitation in southwestern Peloponnese’, AJA 65 (1961) 243CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷² See Pritchett, W.K., Studies in Ancient Greek Topography 5 (Berkeley 1985) 39–46Google Scholar and Pikoulas, G.A., ‘Τὸ πόλισμα ῎Αμφειἀ’, in Πρακτικά Β́ Τοπικοῦ Συνεδρίου Λακωνικών Μελετῶν (Athens 1988) 479–85Google Scholar.

⁷³ On the extension and location of Spartiate land in Messenia, see, among others, Roebuck, C.A., ‘A note on Messenian economy and population’, CPh 40 (1945) 151 and 157–8Google Scholar; D. Lotze, ‘Zu einigen Aspekten des spartanischen Agrarsystems’, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1971(2)) 64-5; Figueira, T.J., ‘Mess contributions and substistence at Sparta’, TAPhA 114 (1984) 100–4Google Scholar; Hodkinson, S., Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta (London 2000) 142–5Google Scholar, who in my opinion overestimates the extension of the land directly controlled by the Spartiates.

⁷⁴ Simpson, R. Hope, ‘Identifying a Mycenaean state’, BSA 52 (1957) 249Google Scholar, mentioned five Early Classical Doric capitals from the site of Petalidi, but later Lazenby (in Lazenby and Hope Simpson (n.70) 89) based on Paus. 4.34.5 called Korone a new foundation of the 360s. Valmin, N., Études topographiques sur la Messénie ancienne (Lund 1930) 177–9Google Scholar, seems to consider the remains of ancient fortifications to antedate the age of Epameinondas and tantalizingly alludes to the richness of ancient remains in Petalidi.

⁷⁵ See Themelis, P.G., ‘Άνασκαφὴ Μεσσήνης’, PAAH 1993 (1996) 57-9; 1994 (1997) 86-8; 1995 (1998) 60–3Google Scholar (soundings in the southern part of the Asklepieion court).

⁷⁶ Judging from the notices published to date, there could be some gap between a Geometric settlement and another (smaller?) one, dating from the late seventh century. At least, the late eighth and early seventh centuries are not as clearly represented as the periods before and after, and Geometric and Archaic–Early Classical materials have not yet been found in the same spots.

⁷⁷ An additional reason for resisting the association of the Archaic materials from Mavromati/Messene with the Helots is the fact that plaques of the same sort as those found there, and also dating to the Archaic period, have been found on the Tourles hill, near Kalamata, i.e. the perioikic settlement of Pharai. I owe this information to the kindness of Gina Salapata.

⁷⁸ The manuscripts of Thuc. 1.101.2 give the eth-nikon in the (obviously corrupted) forms αιθεεις or αιθνεεις generally corrected to Αίθαιῆς based on Philoch. 328 F32 ap. Steph. s.v. Αῐθαια. For earlier attempts to locate Aithaia, see Valmin (n.74) 62-3 and Lazenby and Hope Simpson (n.70) 86 and n.41.

⁷⁹ See Christien, J., ‘L'etranger à Lacedémoine’, in Lonis, R. (ed.), L'étranger dans le monde grec 2 (Nancy 1992) 33Google Scholar. For different locations of Homeric Aipeia, see Strab. 8.4.5.

⁸⁰ That the Spartans consistently called Koryphasion the place that the Messenians and the Athenians called Pylos is stated clearly by Thucydides (4.3.2, and cf. 4.118.4 and 5.18.7, and Xen. Hell. 1.2.18); on the implications, see Hornblower, S., A Commentary on Thucydides (Oxford 1996) 2.154–5Google Scholar. But if Aithaia was the name of the settlement at the foot of Mount Ithome, Thucydides does not seem to have realized it, cf. 1.101.2.

⁸¹ The only perioikic settlements mentioned by Pausanias in Messenia – or rather, the only settlements that he seems to consider to have existed during the Spartan occupation – are Asine and Mothone (4.14.3 and 24.5 respectively), both of which he considers inhabited by refugees from the Argolis settled there by the Spartans after the First and after the Second Messenian War respectively. Although Pausanias does mention, e.g., Thouria in the topographical part of Book 4, he does not say anything about it for the period of the Spartan occupation.

⁸² The beginning and duration of the revolt are highly controversial. The position assumed here is defended in ‘Der Erdbebenaufstand und die Entstehung der messenischen Identität’, in Strocka, V.-M. (ed.), Gab es das griechische Wunder? Griechenland zwischen dem Ende des 6. und der Mitte des 5. Jhs. v.Chr. (Mainz 2001) 280–90Google Scholar.

⁸³ For a discussion of these sources, see my contribution cited in the preceding footnote, 290-2.

⁸⁴ This passage is surprisingly often interpreted as if it meant that in general the majority of the Helots (of Lakonia and Messenia) were of Messenian origin and that for that reason all the Helots were normally called ‘Messenians’. This is the least probable interpretation of the passage, as I try to show in ‘Helots called Messenians? A note on Thuc. 1.101.2’, CQ (forthcoming).

⁸⁵ See Thomas Figueira's brilliant formulation (n.6, 224): ‘…instead of reflecting genealogy, feeling “Messenian” or identifying oneself as “Messenian” appears to be inversely correlated with the degree of compliance with the Spartan government and with the Spartiates as a social class’. Figueira, to be sure, is speaking only of Helots, whom he considers to be the only social surface of Messenian tradition.

⁸⁶ IvO 259 and SEG 32.550 respectively. To them, a further, unpublished inscription should be added, in which also Messenians and Naupaktians appear as two separate groups; the inscription, apparently an agreement between Messenians and Naupaktians, was found about forty years ago in Naupaktos and is mentioned by E. Mastrokostas, AD 19 (1964) 2, 295; cf. W.K. Pritchett, Thucydides' Pentekontaetia and Other Essays (Amsterdam 1995) 69-71. The monuments from which the inscriptions in Olympia and Delphi come are discussed by T. Hölscher, ‘Die Nike der Messenier und Naupaktier in Olympia’, JDAI 89 (1974) 70-111, and A. Jacquemin and D. Laroche, ‘Notes sur trois piliers delphiques’, BCH 106 (1982) 191-207. Both monuments seem to date to the years of the Peloponnesian War. The assertive value of these two dedications, in Panhellenic sanctuaries where the Spartan presence would be very intense, can hardly be overestimated. A further Messenian dedication in Delphi (SEG 19.391) should be mentioned, a base c. 8 m by 2.5 m with two inscriptions, one clearly Hellenistic, the other written in archaizing letters but possibly also Hellenistic. It is difficult to say whether we are dealing here with a fifth-century monument, later refurbished, or with an altogether later dedication, executed in an archaizing style; see Jeffery (n.30) 205, and Pouilloux, J., La région Nord du sanctuaire (FD II, Architecture, Paris 1960) 142–51Google Scholar, who offers by far the most detailed discussion of this monument.

⁸⁷ Bauslaugh, R.A., ‘Messenian dialect and dedications of the “Methanioi”’, Hesperia 59 (1990) 661–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am very grateful to Calvert Watkins for advice on this point.

⁸⁸ Cf. Figueira (n.6) 234-5. Also significant is the fact that Xenophon never mentions the Messenians of Naupaktos in the parts of the Hellenika devoted to the final years of the Peloponnesian wars: cf. Hell. 1.2.18.

⁸⁹ The only exception being Plut. Cim. 16.7, who obviously combines Thucydides' and later accounts of the revolt.

⁹⁰ On the military role of the perioikoi, see e.g. Lotze, D., ‘Bürger zweiter Klasse: Spartas Periöken. Ihre Stellung und Funktion im Staat der Lakedaimonier’, in Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Erfurt. Geisteswissenschaftliche Klasse 2 (1993/1994) 40Google Scholar, and Ducat, J., ‘La société spartiate et la guerre’, in Prost, F. (ed.), Armées et sociétés de la Gréce classique (Paris 1999) 41–2Google Scholar.

⁹¹ Note that Herodotos was obviously thinking of a pitched battle, not of some sort of guerrilla warfare. The military role of the Helots has possibly been underestimated, cf. e.g. Welwei, K.-W., Unfreie im antiken Kriegsdienst I. Athen und Sparta (Wiesbaden 1974) 108–81Google Scholar. Hunt, P., ‘Helots at the battle of Plataea’, Historia 46 (1997) 129–44Google Scholar, and Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians (Cambridge 1998) 23–78Google Scholar, argues against this reductive view, but seems to fall into the other extreme. For a more balanced view, see Ducat (n.90) 43.

⁹² See e.g. Cartledge, P., Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (Baltimore and London 1987) 385Google Scholar: ‘In Messenia it seems that the Perioikoi had remained uniformly loyal to Sparta. The Helots, it is almost superfluous to record, had revolted to a man, woman and child.’ But cf. Hamilton (n.2) 224 and 227.

⁹³ Xen. Hell. 7.1.25; see Roebuck (n.2) 38.

⁹⁴ Diod. 15.77.4; sec Roebuck (n.2) 29 n.9 and 38.

⁹⁵ On Philip's anti-Spartan intervention and its relationship with the League of Corinth, see now the detailed discussion by Magnetto, A., ‘L'intervento di Filippo II nel Peloponneso e l'iscrizione Syll. ³, 665’, in Alessandri, S. (ed.), ‘Ιστορίη. Studi offerti dagli allievi a Giuseppe Nenci in occasione del suo settantesimo compleanno (Galatina 1994) 283–308Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Tac. Ann. 4.43.1 mentions the temple of Diana Limnatis, i.e. Artemis at Volimos; in fact, the controversy involved the whole Dentheliatis, a district in the upper valley of the Nedon, on the Messenian side of the Taygetos (Roebuck (n.2) 118-21); Strabo 8.4.6 knows of a controversy between Messenians and Spartans for an area located south of Kardamyle at the time of Philip; Theop. 115 F172, where Thalamai is called a Messenian city, probably refers to the same events.

⁹⁷ It is tempting to connect these hints with a debate between Agesilaos and Epameinondas referred to by Plutarch (Ages. 27.4-28.2), during the peace conference at Sparta in 371. Epameinondas allegedly replied to Agesilaos' request to allow the Boiotians to be autonomous by asking Sparta to do the same with the Lakoniké, i.e. with the perioikoi; the same information, in slightly different form, is preserved also by Paus. 9.13.2. See Cartledge (n.92) 379-80, and Jehne, M., eirene, Koine. Untersuchungen zu den Befriedungs- und Stabilisierungsbemühungen in der griechischen Poliswelt des 4. Jhs. v. Chr. (Stuttgart 1994) 71–4Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Such precise information on the attitudes of Helots and perioikoi is to be preferred to Xenophon's generic a posteriori allegation (Hell. 7.2.2) that during Epameinondas' invasion many perioikoi and all the Helots had revolted against the Spartiates, as Hamilton (n.2) 227 and n.38, rightly stresses. As many as 1,000 freed Helots fighting on the Spartan side are mentioned by Diod. 15.65.6.

⁹⁹ See the detailed discussion by Dipersia, G., ‘La nuova popolazione di Messene al tempo di Epaminonda’, in Sordi, M. (ed.), Propaganda e persuasione occulta nell'antichità (CISA 2, Milan 1974) 54–61Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ If we combine this with Thucydides' description of the rebels at the time of the earthquake, we may come to a very interesting, if somewhat unexpected result: in all probability, neither Thucydides nor the later sources thought that all Helots in Messenia at the beginning of the fifth century, before the earthquake, were of Messenian origin, unless of course they also believed that all Helots had left Messenia as a consequence of the revolt – not a very probable assumption.

¹⁰¹ There is some disagreement among scholars as to whether Isokrates' Archidamos should be taken as a mere rhetorical exercise or given a proper political meaning; see e.g. Bringmann, K., Studien zu den politischen Ideen des Isokrates (Göttingen 1965) 55–6Google Scholar, and Moysey, R.A., ‘Isokrates' On the peace: rhetorical exercise or political advice?’, AJAH 7 (1982) 118–27Google Scholar. However, the speech was composed in the years immediately following the liberation of Messenia, when the Spartans were trying to challenge the recognition of Messene by the other Greeks, and certainly an Athenian audience knew which arguments the Spartans were deploying; see the judicious discussion by Jehne (n.97) 11 n.21, with further bibliography.

¹⁰² See Dipersia (n.99) 58.

¹⁰³ See Bruce, I.A.F., An Historical Commentary on the ‘Hellenica Oxyrhynchia’ (Cambridge 1967) 129Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ This is at least the record for the only region where archaeological evidence has been collected at all: the area investigated by the Pylos Regional Archaeological Project. See Davis, J.L., Alcock, S.E., Bennet, J., Lolos, Y.G., Shelmerdine, C.W., ‘The Pylos Regional Archaeological Project. Part I: overview and the archaeological survey’, Hesperia 66 (1997) 483CrossRefGoogle Scholar: the end of the Spartan domination ‘is marked by a notable growth in the number and size of settlements’. In this connection, it is interesting to observe that, while four of the five tribes in which the citizen-body of the new Messenian polity was divided were named after Kresphontes and his three direct ancestor's, the fifth was named after the Argive Heraklid Daiphontes; see Jones, N.F., Public Organization in Ancient Greece: A Documentary Study (Philadelphia 1987) 146–8Google Scholar. This is normally, and surely correctly, connected with the role of the Argives in the foundation, but it is tempting to think that this new tribe might have been composed of settlers from outside Messenia.

¹⁰⁵ See the excavation report by Themelis, P.G., ‘Άνασκαφὴ Μεσσήνης’ PAAH 1991 (1994) 86–96Google Scholar, whose interpretation of this monument seems to me more convincing than the one proposed by Morizot, Y., ‘Le hiéron de Messéné’, BCH 118 (1994) 399–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the cult of Artemis Orthia in Messene, see id., ‘Artemis Ortheia at Messene: the epigraphical and archaeological evidence’, in R. Hägg (ed.), Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence (Stockholm 1994) 101-22.

¹⁰⁶ In this connection it is not superfluous to recall that the new city founded by the Messenians in Sicily in 396/5 was called Tyndaris, and its coins show Helen on one side and the Dioskouroi or their symbols on the other; see Langher, S. Consolo, ‘Documentazione numismatica e storia di Tyndaris nel sec. IV a.C.’, Helikon 5 (1965) 66–7Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁷ SEG 23.215 and 217 (both Imperial).

¹⁰⁸ For an introduction, see Kohl, K.-H., ‘Ethnizität und Tradition aus ethnologischer Sicht’, in Assmann, A. and Friese, H. (eds), Identitäten (Frankfurt am Main 1998) 269–87Google Scholar. A great deal of modern research on ethnicity is discussed in Hall (n.5) 17-33.

¹⁰⁹ The importance of the construction of boundaries and the definition of ethnicity as a process of exclusion go back to the Norwegian anthropologist F. Barm; see e.g. his introduction to Barth, F. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Bergen, Oslo and London 1969) parts 15–16Google Scholar. Barth's approach has been discussed and further refined in later scholarship. For a recent definition of the ethnic boundary as the founding element of ethnicity, see Orywal, E. and Hackstein, K., ‘Ethnizität: Die Konstruktion ethnischer Wirklichkeit’, in Schweizer, T., Schweizer, M. and Kokot, W. (eds), Handbuch der Ethnologie (Berlin 1993) 598–600Google Scholar; see also 593-5 on the reception of Barth's theories. Similar results had been reached by R. Wenksus, in his pioneer research on the origins of early mediaeval gentes; see e.g. Stammesbildung und Verfassung. Das Werden der frühmittelalterlichen gentes (Köln 1961) 81Google Scholar: ‘das ethnische Bewußtsein einer Gruppe und ihre Selbstabgrenzung kann allein das Kriterium für ihre jeweilige, vielleicht wechselnde Zugehörigkeit sein.’ For an updated version of Wenskus' approach, see now Pohl, W. and Reimitz, H. (ed.), Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800 (Leiden 1998)Google Scholar. Pohl, W., ‘Tradition, Ethnogenese und literarische Gestaltung: eine Zwischenbilanz’, in Brunner, K. and Merta, B. (eds), Ethnogenese und Über-lieferung. Angewandte Methode der Frühmittelalter-forschung (Vienna 1994) 9–19Google Scholar, discusses the reception and further development of Wenskus' ideas by later scholars.

¹¹⁰ On notional kinship as the foundation of an ethnic group, see already Weber, M., Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriβ der verstehenden Soziologie (5th edn, Tübingen 1972) 235–42Google Scholar. The conclusion that a common name and a myth of common descent are the only absolute preconditions for the existence of an ethnic group is probably not shared by all scholars. It is implicit in Weber's definition and has been stated explicitly by scholars developing Wenskus' approach; see e.g. Daim, F., ‘Gedanken zum Ethnosbegriff’, Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 112 (1982) 63Google Scholar. A similar position in Hall (n.5) 25.

¹¹¹ See e.g. W. Pohl, ‘Telling the difference: signs of ethnic identity’, in Pohl and Reimitz (n.109) 22-7.

¹¹² On the cultural rules that control manipulation of the past, see Appadurai, A., ‘The past as a scarce resource’, Man 16 (1981) 201–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Peel, J.D.Y., ‘Making history: the past in the Ijesha present’, Man 19 (1984) 111–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹³ For a correct approach to the problem of local styles in ancient art, see Raeder, J., ‘Kunstlandschaft und Landschaftsstil. Begriffe, Anschauungen und deren methodische Grundlagen’, in Zimmermann, K. (ed.), Der Stilbegriff in den Altertumswissenschaften (Rostock 1993) 105–9Google Scholar.

¹¹⁴ On this point, and in general on the problem of archaeology and ethnicity, see the discussion of Jonathan Hall's book (n.5) in CAJ 8 (1998) 265–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in particular 270 (I. Morris), 271-3 (S. Jones), and 279-80 (Hall's reply). The problem has a long – and not consistently honourable – history among Early Mediaevalists, but Classical archaeologists might learn something from the methodological level of that debate; cf. Daim (n. 110) 69-71.

¹¹⁵ In the age of Trajan the Thourians called Lakedaimon their mother-city (IG v. 1.1381), but this cannot be taken as a document on the perceptions of their predecessors, more than five centuries earlier.

¹¹⁶ See Strab. 8.6.11 (the last sentence also seems to belong to Theop. 115 F383), and Paus. 4.24.4 and 35.2, with Hall, J., ‘How Argive was the “Argive” Heraion: the political and cultic geography of the Argive Plain’, AJA 99 (1995) 583–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁷ Cf. n.17.

¹¹⁸ The fact that Mount Ithome kept being identified as a focal point of Messenian identity could conceivably be construed as a sign of continuity with ‘ancient Messene’, although it is as possible to interpret it as a nicely fits what we know about the Spartiates and their result of Tyrtaios' associating Messene and Ithome.

¹¹⁹ See Wenskus (n.109) 54-82; Pohl, ‘Introduction’, in Pohl and Reimitz (n.109); and P.J. Heather, ‘Disappearing and reappearing tribes’, in Pohl and Reimitz (n. 109) 95-111.

¹²⁰ See Cartledge, P., ‘Rebels and Sambos in Classical Greece: a comparative view’, in Cartledge, P. and Harvey, F. (eds), Crux: Essays in Greek History presented to G.E.M. de Ste. Croix on his 75th Birthday (London 1985 45Google Scholar. Cf. Armstrong, J.A., Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill 1982) 6–7Google Scholar: ‘Emergence of such a counterelite is especially difficult in sedentary agricultural societies where dominant elites monopolize communication by symbols and supervise the socialization of all members of the polity by inculcation of myths legitimizing the elite's dominance.’ I quote this passage because it so nicely fits what we know about the Spartiates and their treatment of the Helots. Among the factors which could favour the emergence of ethnic consciousness within a lower class, Armstrong lists the presence of very different linguistic patterns between élite and lower class; however, the Helots were apparently indistinguishable from the Spartiates in this respect: Thuc. 4.41.2 and Figueira (n.6) 213.

¹²¹ Ducat, J., Les Hilotes (Athens and Paris 1990) 177–8Google Scholar, discusses cautiously the existence of a specifically Helotic culture, and notices the absence of any traces of it in the sources. Placido, D., ‘Los lugares sagrados de los hilotas’, in Annequin, J. and Garrido-Hory, M. (eds), Religion et anthropologie de I'esclavage et des formes de dépendance (Paris 1994) 127–35Google Scholar, is mostly a discussion of Helotic presence in Spartan sanctuaries. As mentioned above (n.69), cult at Bronze Age tombs was not specifically linked with the Helots. Needless to say, ethnic consciousness and genealogical tradition among the Helots become more plausible, the more one likens the Helots to a dependent population with a complex social structure, and the less plausible, the more one likens them to slaves. For my position, see ‘Helotic slavery reconsidered’, in Hodkinson, S. and Powell, A. (eds), Sparta: Beyond the Mirage (London 2002)Google Scholar, forthcoming.

¹²² See Ducat, J., ‘Le mépris des Hilotes’, Annates (ESC) 30 (1974) 1451–64Google Scholar, and id. (n.121) 105-27, and now Figueira (n.6) 221-5, with further astute observations.

¹²³ Aristot. fr. 538 Rose, ap. Plut. Lyk. 28.7.

¹²⁴ See Cartledge (n.120) 40-6.

¹²⁵ On the fifth century, see Bremmer, J., ‘Myth as propaganda: Athens and Sparta’, ZPE 117 (1997) 13–16Google Scholar. The predominance of Lakedaimonian cults and myths in the pantheon of the new Messenians has been noted since Niese, B., ‘Die ältere Geschichte Messeniens’, Hermes 26 (1891) 13–14Google Scholar.