The Lacedæmonians were therefore in this war really pressed by an enemy of superior force, a fact alluded to by Tyrtæus. Meanwhile Sparta was assisted by the Corinthians,(641) perhaps by the Lepreatans,(642) and even by some ships of the Samians;(643) but chiefly by Tyrtæus of Aphidnæ, whom an absurd and distorted fable has turned into a lame Athenian schoolmaster. The fact of Sparta seeking a warlike minstrel in Aphidnæ, may be accounted for from its ancient connexions with this borough in Attica, which is said to have been in the hands of the Dioscuri. Whether or not Aphidnæ at that time belonged to Attica, and was subject to Athens, is a question we shall leave undecided; but there does not seem to be any reason for inferring with Strabo, from the passage of Tyrtæus itself, that the whole tradition was false, and that Tyrtæus was a Lacedæmonian by birth,(644) though he doubtless became so by adoption. It is to be regretted that we have very little information concerning the war carried on by Sparta with the rest of the Peloponnesians;(645) but the Messenians at a later period withdrew from Andania towards Eira, which is a mountain-fortress on the Neda, the border-stream towards Arcadia, near the sea-coast. When obliged to retire from this stronghold, they were received first by the Arcadians, their ancient and faithful allies (who, according to the tradition, gave them their daughters in marriage(646)); afterwards the exiles sought an asylum with their kinsmen at Rhegium. Aristomenes himself (if he was not put to death by the Spartans) is said to have died at Rhodes, in the house of the noble family of the Eratidæ.(647)
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)