Note 753 — Chapter VII · FIRST AND SECOND MESSENIAN WARS.

Plutarch, De Serâ Num. Vind. p. 548; Pausan. iv. 15, 1; iv. 17, 3; iv. 23, 2.

The date of the second Messenian war, and the interval between the second and the first, are points respecting which also there is irreconcilable discrepancy of statement; we can only choose the most probable: see the passages collected and canvassed in O. Müller (Dorians, i. 7, 11, and in Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hellen. vol. i. Appendix 2, p. 257).

According to Pausanias, the second war lasted from B. C. 685-668, and there was an interval between the first and the second war of thirty-nine years. Justin (iii. 5) reckons an interval of eighty years; Eusebius, an interval of ninety years. The main evidence is the passage of Tyrtæus, wherein that poet, speaking during the second war, says, “The fathers of our fathers conquered Messênê.”

Mr. Clinton adheres very nearly to the view of Pausanias; he supposes that the real date is only six years lower (679-662). But I agree with Clavier (Histoire des Premiers Temps de la Grèce, t. ii. p. 233) and O. Müller (l. c.) in thinking that an interval of thirty-nine years is too short to suit the phrase of fathers’ fathers. Speaking in the present year (1846), it would not be held proper to say, “The fathers of our fathers carried on the war between 1793 and the peace of Amiens:” we should rather say, “The fathers of our fathers carried on the American war and the Seven Years’ war.” An age is marked by its mature and even elderly members,—by those between thirty-five and fifty-five years of age.

Agreeing as I do here with O. Müller, against Mr. Clinton, I also agree with him in thinking that the best mark which we possess of the date of the second Messenian war is the statement respecting Pantaleôn: the 34th Olympiad, which Pantaleôn celebrated, probably fell within the time of the war; which would thus be brought down much later than the time assigned by Pausanias, yet not so far down as that named by Eusebius and Justin: the exact year of its commencement, however, we have no means of fixing.

Krebs, in his discussions on the Fragments of the lost Books of Diodorus, thinks that that historian placed the beginning of the second Messenian war in the 35th Olympiad (B. C. 640) (Krebs, Lectiones Diodoreæ, pp. 254-260).