VII. Messenian Ethnicity and the Free Messenians [*]

Nino Luraghi

The birth of an independent polity in Messenia, in what used to be the western part of the Spartan state, represents the most conspicuous change that the ethnic revival of the early fourth century brought to the political map of the Peloponnese. Although both its extension and its internal structure varied in the following centuries in ways that are difficult to appreciate precisely, [1] the new Messenian polity surpassed in magnitude and long-term resilience all the new ethnic and political entities that emerged in those years. Observing the symbolic expressions of the new polity and the ways in which it positioned itself on the cultural map of Greece and found its place in the shared past of the Greeks, we gain insights into the dynamic mixture of tradition and innovation that always accompanies ethnogenesis. Furthermore, the controversial history of the Messenians between the sixties of the fifth century and the age of Epaminondas offers a unique opportunity to observe the interaction of ethnicity and international politics in classical Greece.

After the disappearance of their predecessors sometime during the archaic period, the fifth century saw the return of the Messenians to the political landscape of Greece. To be sure, they did not appear at first in the area they were most closely associated with, the area we are used to calling Messenia. The first polity that called itself “the Messenians” arose in Sicily, on the site of the ancient Chalcidian colony of Zancle, which was re-founded in 488 or thereabouts by the tyrant of Rhegion Anaxilaos and called Messene. The name of the new colony was apparently part of a broader cultural policy implemented by the tyrant, who considered himself of Messenian descent, to promote the Messenian element in his own city and cut Rhegion loose from its Chalcidian heritage. [2] The new Messenian identity that emerged on the Straits of Messina shows elements that would remain characteristic of the Messenian identity for centuries to come. [3] In other ways, though, this first manifestation of the Messenian identity was different from what came after. Most strikingly, all early documents emanating from this new polity, including its coins and dedications of war booty at Olympia, call its citizens Messênioi, using the Ionic form of the ethnic instead of the Doric form Messanioi. This probably means that Dorianism had not yet been recognized as a necessary component of the Messenian identity, as it later would. [4]

After the earthquake that shattered the southern Peloponnese in the sixties of the fifth century, a new group calling itself “the Messenians” emerged, and this time it was in Messenia. This group was formed by Helots and perioikoi who seceded from Sparta. Ultimately their revolt failed and the rebels, after resisting for many years entrenched on Mount Ithome, had to surrender to the Spartans, but they did so from a relatively strong position, and were able at least to gain the right to leave the Peloponnese. The Athenians settled them in Naupaktos in Ozolian Locris, where the Messenians remained for more than half a century, until after the end of the Peloponnesian War. [5] During the pentekontaetia, the Messenians of Naupaktos seem to have been involved in various campaigns in Northwestern Greece, [6] but their most prominent deeds were performed during the Peloponnesian War. Besides participating in Demosthenes’ campaign in Aetolia in 426, [7] the Messenians played a decisive part in forcing the surrender of the Spartiates blockaded on the island of Sphacteria during the Pylos campaign. [8] For more than a decade, from the Spartan surrender on Sphacteria in the summer of 425 until 408, with an interval of two years, [9] Pylos was garrisoned by Messenians from Naupaktos, later joined by Helots and possibly perioikoi who had deserted from both Messenia and Laconia. Meanwhile, Messenians from Naupaktos participated in the Sicilian expedition, summoned by Demosthenes in 413 (Thucydides 7.31.2) and, under Conon’s guidance, in the repression of the pro-Spartan faction in Corcyra in 410 (Diodorus 13.48).

Clearly, after they left the Peloponnese under the truce that ended the revolt, the Messenians acted as a political community—a polis on the move. Their situation was highly peculiar. We cannot tell under precisely what conditions they held Naupaktos, but it is clear that they did not consider it their real residence. A recently published inscription from Naupaktos records some sort of agreement between Messenians and Naupaktians, who appear to be acting as two independent political communities, living side by side. [10] This confirms what could be inferred, although with less certainty, from the dedicatory inscription of the Nike of Paionios (see below), which called the dedicators “Messenians and Naupaktians.” The Messenians did not see themselves as colonists, founding a new city, witness the fact that they did not change their own name or the name of the place where they settled. Neither were they prepared simply to dissolve into the local, preexisting political community: far from becoming Naupaktians or renaming their new place of residence “Messene,” the Messenians conceived of themselves as a polity in exile, temporarily displaced, obviously in hopes of being able eventually to return to their real fatherland in the Peloponnese. The way in which historians occasionally designate them, hoi Messênioi hoi en Naupaktôi, captures this peculiar situation very clearly. [11]

Beside their seeing themselves as a polis in exile, there was another aspect that made the Messenians untypical: they were in a sense an open-ended polity. All the Helots and perioikoi who succeeded in joining them became themselves Messenian, regardless of where exactly in Lakonike they came from. When the Athenians agreed to withdraw the Messenian garrison from Pylos in 421, Thucydides (5.35.7) describes those who were evacuated as Messenians, Helots and others who had deserted from the Lakonikê, and adds that they were settled on the island of Cephallenia. By 401, all these people were recognized as Messenians. [12]

The new Messenians already show signs of a condition that will affect Messenians for centuries to come, a chronic need to make up for their previous absence from the stage of Greek history. To their inherent weakness in terms of Panhellenic clout the Messenians reacted with what has been aptly called “a virtual Blitzkrieg of self-assertion,” [13] appropriately conducted in the Panhellenic sanctuaries. Their victory in a campaign in northwestern Greece was commemorated at Delphi by an extraordinarily conspicuous offer, a triangular pillar of marble, seven meters and a half tall, decorated by two rows of bronze shields and probably topped by a bronze tripod supported by a marble statue. [14] Then, probably immediately after the Peace of Nicias, their most memorable monument was erected, the statue of Nike by the sculptor Paionios of Mende, again on a tall triangular pillar, right in front of the temple of Zeus at Olympia. This time, the defeated enemies, not explicitly mentioned in the dedicatory inscription, certainly included the Spartans, and the most conspicuous deed celebrated by this monument was the Messenians’ participation in the campaign of Pylos. [15]

It is the Messenians’ never-forgotten aspiration to win back their fatherland, and not only their consistent loyalty to Athens, that explains why, after the end of the Peloponnesian War, after the successful conclusion of their campaign against Elis, the Spartans decided to evict the Messenians from Naupaktos and from a fortress they occupied on the island of Cephallenia. In 401, according to Diodorus (14.34.2–5), faced by the Spartan onslaught, the Messenians left Naupaktos and Cephallenia with their weapons. Some of them moved to Sicily, to fight as mercenaries for Dionysius the First, but the majority, some three thousand according to Diodorus, went to Cyrene, where they helped the Cyrenaean aristocracy to return to the city from which they had been recently exiled. [16] A few years later, Dionysius settled six hundred Messenian mercenaries in Messana, which he was founding anew after the city had been laid waste by the Carthaginians in 397. Then, however, afraid of annoying his allies the Spartans, the Syracusan tyrant decided to relocate the Messenians to another place, still in Messana’s territory. There they founded the city of Tyndaris, a fortress in an important strategic position, defending the approach to Messana along the northern coast of Sicily (Diodorus 14.78.4–6). [17] But the Messenian diaspora must have spread even wider than this. As we happen to know from the Hellenica of Oxyrhynchus (15.3), the personal guard of the exiled Athenian admiral Conon was formed by Messenians, too. [18]

The Messenian experience in the second half of the fifth century had shown that Messenian ethnicity could pose a serious threat to Sparta, as underlined both by the expulsion of the Messenians in 401 and, earlier, by the Spartans’ insistence in 421 on having among the conditions of the peace the removal of the Messenians from Pylos, even if the Athenians kept a garrison there. It is not clear to what extent the Athenians themselves realized what kind of weapon against the Spartans the Messenians represented, and to what extent they were willing to make full use of it; [19] certainly, the lesson was not lost on the Argives, who in 419 urged the Athenians to bring back the Messenians to Pylos, alleging that the Spartans had violated the conditions of the peace (Thucydides 5.56.2). The Argives had been enemies of the Spartans for centuries, and they may have had a better appreciation of Peloponnesian politics and of the strengths and weaknesses of the Spartans. [20]

From the revolt to the final expulsion of the Messenians from Naupaktos and Cephallenia, the Spartans’ attitude to them changed in an important way. The conditions under which the rebels had left Ithome show that the Spartans back then were unwilling to treat them as anything but fugitive slaves. [21] However, the fact that they did not try to enslave the Messenians in 401 implies some redefinition of their views on the identity of these people. One could certainly see here one more expression of the realism for which the Spartans were famous: a community that had lived free for some five decades, with an uninterrupted record of mostly victorious fighting, could not easily be reduced to slavery again without the danger of provoking a massive revolt. However, this change of attitude, dictated by sheer political realism as it may have been, should not be seen as trivial. Some of the Messenians whom the Spartans were evicting from Naupaktos and Cephallenia had been Helots only a few years earlier.

After the foundation of Tyndaris in 396, the sources are completely silent as to the whereabouts of the Messenians for more than two decades. Then, as if from nowhere, came the liberation of Messenia by the allied army led by Epaminondas into the southern Peloponnese in the fall of 370/69. After invading and ravaging Laconia, the army, formed by the Boeotians and their central Greek allies, and by Arcadians, Eleans, and Argives, marched into Messenia. There, Epaminondas founded an independent Messenian state, whose pivotal point was a large fortified settlement at the foot of Mount Ithome. [22] The choice of the site made sense in a number of ways. Mount Ithome has a central position in Messenia, overlooking both the Stenyklaros plain to the north and the lower Pamisos valley to the south. It was within easy reach of Arcadia by way of the Derveni pass, and accordingly, it could be defended in case of a Spartan counterattack, which was definitely to be expected. Moreover, the site had important symbolic overtones. Even though the legends of the Messenian resistance in the archaic period that we find in Pausanias probably originated later, Mount Ithome was associated with the revolt against Sparta in the fifth century. If there was a monument of Messenian resistance, that was Mount Ithome.

The creation of a free polity in Messenia was a striking development, and one wonders who conceived this rather bold plan. Objectively speaking, the final result of the campaign of 370/69, with Sparta still alive but crippled, suited the interests of the Thebans better than those of the other allies. Epaminondas’ personal initiative is stressed in the sources (e.g. Diodorus 15.66.1) and should probably be seen behind a decision that was going to have important consequences both for the initial survival of Messene and for the history of Messenia for centuries to come, the decision to fortify Ithome. Still standing today for long stretches, the imposing fortification wall was the most impressive component of the city for an ancient visitor. Built in stone up to the top, nine kilometers long, it was a true masterpiece of military architecture, exploiting the nature of the terrain to the best effect. Pausanias (4.27.7) explicitly connects the construction of the wall with the liberation of Messenia, insisting that it was built in an extraordinarily short time, and recent studies have shown that in terms of architectural technique a date soon after the liberation of Messenia is likely. Comparison with other fortifications points to the involvement of Theban military architects in the enterprise. [23] This massive work betrays a realistic attitude towards the new polity’s chances of survival if faced with a Spartan onslaught and without external help. Epaminondas must have thought that the Messenians simply had to be in a condition to resist long enough for a rescue army to reach them. The permanence of a strong garrison in the city once Epaminondas left (Diodorus 15.67.1) confirms this point. However, both on a symbolic and on a material level, the imposing walls of Ithome defined in a new way the status of this settlement vis-à-vis the rest of Messenia and the Greek world at large.

Beyond this, it is unclear to what extent Theban initiative left its mark on the new polity. Some sources call Epaminondas its founder, but they may be taken as speaking in a rather loose and unspecific sense. Much later, Ithome—by that time calling itself Messene—seems indeed to have worshipped Epaminondas as founder, [24] but there is no evidence that might suggest considering either Ithome or the whole Messenian polity as a colony of Thebes: none of the ties that normally existed between colonies and mother cities, such as common cults and names of tribes and other civic subdivisions, are documented in their case. This is not surprising, after all. As the Messenians saw it, the birth of their free state was in reality a restoration of something that was supposed to have existed in the past, not a foundation in the strict sense of the word, and the Thebans clearly concurred: the ancestral rights of the Messenians were the foundation of the legitimacy of the new polity, which correspondingly had to depict itself as the revival of something that had already existed in the past.

Beside the Thebans, Argives and Arcadians both appear to have played an important role in the rebirth of Messene. Pausanias (4.26.7) highlights the intervention of the Argive general Epiteles, chosen to lead an army from Argos to found Messene anew. Epiteles was pointed by a dream towards the place on Mount Ithome where, at the time of the final Spartan conquest of Messenia, the Messenian hero Aristomenes had buried a bronze hydria that contained the texts of the mysteries of the Great Goddesses of Andania. Much in this story shows signs of later elaboration. However, some support for Pausanias’ depiction of the Argives’ participation may come from the fact that one of the tribes of the new Messenian polity carried the name of the Argive Heraclid Daiphontes, like an Argive phatra also did (see below). Moreover, a number of clues seem to suggest that the Argives had been keenly aware for quite a while of the fact that rule over Messenia was the cornerstone of Spartan supremacy. The tradition about the division of the Peloponnese among the Heraclids, which implicitly questioned this situation, seems to have originated in Argos, possibly in the first decades of the fifth century, [25] and according to Thucydides (5.69.1) before the battle of Mantinea in 418 the Argive commanders fired up their troops by reminding them that they were fighting to reestablish isomoiria, that is, equality in the division of the Peloponnese—surely a reference to Sparta’s domination over Cresphontes’ lot, i.e. Messenia. Finally, as mentioned above, the Argives seem to have seen the point of having Messenians in Pylos better than the Athenians themselves had. But this is as close as we can get to definite proof that the liberation of Messenia was really an Argive idea.

In the first years after the liberation, the Arcadians were very active in campaigns that resulted in a significant expansion of the original territory of the free Messenians. They unsuccessfully attacked Asine, probably in the summer of 369/8 (Xenophon Hellenica 7.1.25), then conquered Kyparissia and Koryphasion, on the western coast of Messenia, in 365 (Diodorus 15.77.4), adding them to the Messenian territory. Much as the Arcadians were instrumental in the survival of the new polity, however, they had not spent the last two centuries waiting for the right moment to cut down the Spartan supremacy, as the Argives had. On the whole, it is probably correct to connect the Arcadians’ role in the consolidation of Messene with the trend towards a more independent and self-conscious foreign policy on their part, a trend that Xenophon suggests was gaining strength during the sixties. [26]

Given that the legitimacy of the new polity depended on its being the restoration of an entity that had existed before, defining the identity of the new Messenians was crucial, and controversy on this point is to be expected. If the evidence we have is anything to go by, the parties involved in fact held radically divergent views of the identity of the citizens of the new polity. [27] For the Spartans, whose take on the issue can be reconstructed based on Isocrates’ Archidamos, these people were their former slaves, unduly manumitted by the Thebans, and not the “true Messenians.” [28] We are in no position to tell how accurately Isocrates reflects real Spartan views, our only guarantee being that those views were certainly known to Isocrates’ audience. [29] One wonders who, in Isocrates’ view, would have qualified as “the true Messenians.” The Theban line, as reflected in statements attributed to Epaminondas by late sources and most explicitly in the epigram that accompanied his statue, again according to later sources, was that Messene had been liberated and repopulated by bringing back the Messenians from exile. This same view is found in sources that can for other reasons be expected to be more sensitive to the Theban line. [30]

One point needs emphasizing, because it has not always received the attention it deserves: according to the Theban version of the liberation of Messenia, there were no Messenians left in the region itself at the time of Epaminondas’ campaign, which should imply that all descendants of the ancient Messenians had left the country after the revolt in the fifth century at the latest. This is made explicit in Pausanias, but is clearly presupposed by Diodorus and Plutarch as well. None of them speaks of liberation of Messenians living in Messenia, and for that matter, no ancient source does. Paradoxically, on this point the Thebans agreed with the Spartans, in that both denied, directly or by implication, that descendants of the once free Messenians lived in the region at the time of Epaminondas’ expedition.

The rest of Greece seems to have taken these conflicting views of the identity of the new Messenians for the expressions of propaganda they were. The clearest evidence of this is provided by the Athenian orator Lycurgus. In his speech against Leocrates, delivered in 330 BCE, he mentioned Troy and Messene as two examples of cities that had been deserted by their inhabitants at some point in the past and never recovered. According to Lycurgus, five hundred years after its destruction Messene had been repopulated by people assembled randomly (Against Leocrates 62). Certainly Lycurgus did not intend to question the legitimacy of the free Messenian state, but he took for granted that the citizens of this state were not the descendants of the Messenians of the past, and he expected his audience to concur. Even Diodorus (15.66.1), an author who is clearly dependent on sources on the whole not hostile to the Thebans, describes the foundation saying that Epaminondas, after summoning all the Messenians he could find, opened up citizen rights in the new city to whoever wished to partake of them.

It should be clear that both the Spartan and the Theban version of the identity of the Messenians were meant to underpin either side’s take on the Messenian issue in the struggles that followed the liberation. [31] Although there may be some truth to each of them, neither can be taken as a reliable guide to what was happening on the ground. This leaves us in a difficult position, where the best we can do is to discuss the probability of different scenarios and different approaches.

In the first place, it will be helpful to look at the topography of the new Messenian state, since after all, when Messenia was liberated, it may have been less densely populated than other parts of the Peloponnese, but it was certainly not uninhabited. The city that was growing out of a pre-existing perioikic settlement by Mount Ithome was only a component of the new polity. [32] First of all, the Plain of Stenyklaros and the Soulima Valley, in all likelihood Spartiate land tilled and inhabited by Helots, certainly became part of free Messene, and probably, judging by later history, formed the territory of the new city of Ithome. Moreover, other perioikic settlements became part of Messene, although in some cases it is difficult to tell exactly when. According to Pausanias (4.26.5), Epaminondas had been told by a dream to give back to the Messenians “their fatherland and their poleis," and later Pausanias indeed refers briefly to the reconstruction of the “other poleis" as taking place parallel to the foundation of Ithome, which he anachronistically calls Messene (4.27.7). Only in the case of Korone, Kyparissia and Koryphasion is ancient evidence available. As noted above, the latter two were compelled to become part of Messene by the Arcadians in 365/4. Korone, according to Pausanias (4.34.5), was formerly called Aipeia and was founded anew when the Thebans brought the Messenians back to the Peloponnese. Its founder was the Boeotian Epimelides of Koroneia. The Arcadian onslaught on Asine, probably in the summer of 369/8, confirms that the western coast of the Messenian gulf north of Asine was not Lacedaemonian any more at that time. If Korone was really founded anew, however formally, it might parallel Ithome, which also rose on the site of a former perioikic town, one that had been the cradle of the revolt in the fifth century but seems nevertheless to have been in continuing existence in the second half of the century. [33]

More problematic is the fate of the important perioikic settlements east of the Pamisos, Thouria, Pharai and Kalamai. In the late first century BCE Kalamai apparently worshipped an Arcadian hero, which may point to some role played by the Arcadians in its joining Messene; if this were the case, 369 or the years immediately thereafter would be the most likely context. [34] In the case of Thouria, which had taken part in the revolt after the earthquake, definite evidence shows that it had become Messenian again by 322, but strong arguments suggest making it a part of free Messenia from the outset, especially its fortification wall, built in isodomic ashlar masonry in the early fourth century, using the same technique that was used also at Ithome. [35] On balance, the most likely assumption seems to be that at least Thouria and Pharai, and probably also Kalamai, were part of the new Messenian state from the beginning: even if they did not join it of their own free will—which is not at all unlikely considering Thouria’s track record—the Thebans and their allies can scarcely have left these settlements alone, so close to Ithome and with no natural obstacles in between.

Of course, even if we could determine with certitude the territorial extension of free Messene, we would still not know exactly who formed its citizen body, for after all an exchange of population on a large scale cannot be ruled out a priori. However, a general look at the inhabitants of Lakonikê in the years before Epaminondas’ expedition suggests that quite a few of them may not have needed a lot of persuasion to become citizens of the new polity. Unrest among the Helots is normally assumed, and with good reason, although the picture of universal revolt as soon as the Theban army invaded Laconia, found in some ancient sources (Xenophon Hellenica 7.2.2; Life of Agesilaos 2.24), is certainly exaggerated. After all, with Epaminondas just across the Eurotas as many as 6,000 Helots were ready to fight for Sparta in return for the promise to be liberated if they fought well (Xenophon Hellenica 6.5.29). [36] Among the perioikoi, not normally suspected of having a seditious disposition by modern scholars, discontent with the Spartiates must have been fairly widespread. According to Xenophon (Hellenica 6.5.25), an embassy of perioikoi had approached Epaminondas as he still hesitated to march into the Spartan territory, offering themselves as hostages and assuring the Theban that, if he only dared to march further, all the perioikoi would revolt against the Spartiates—already now, they said, they hardly responded when summoned to arms. At least some perioikoi really joined the invading army and participated in Epaminondas’ campaign (Hellenica 6.5.32). Incidentally, these Laconian perioikoi must have formed part of the citizen-body of the new city, since they could hardly expect that the Spartans would leave them in peace as soon as the Theban army had left Laconia. On the other hand, perioikic settlements south of Sparta were laid waste by Epaminondas, and the harbor of Gytheion resisted the Theban onslaught (Xenophon Hellenica 6.5.32). In other words, it seems that the rifts in the Spartan state which became conspicuous on the occasion of Epaminondas’ invasion were not clear-cut and did not simply run between Helots on the one side and Spartiates and perioikoi on the other, nor just between Laconia and Messenia.

In light of this, it is reasonable to assume that Helots and perioikoi, especially but not only from Messenia itself, contributed to the population of Messene, in proportions that we cannot quite determine, both with respect to one another and to any other component of the citizen body. An influx of inhabitants from outside the region is also likely. There may not have been too many Messenians of the diaspora among them: Tyndaris prospered after its foundation and there is no evidence that its population moved away in high numbers. [37] However, even if we do not assume an open invitation to join the new polity, as Diodorus seems to suggest, a suitably ecumenical approach could probably find “old Messenians” quite close to home: one of the earliest sources on the Second Messenian War, a passage from Callisthenes quoted by Polybius (4.33.5 = FGH 124 F 23), speaks of Messenian exiles finding refuge in Arcadia at that time, and it would not be surprising if their “descendants” were among the new Messenians.

In conclusion, we should not be too far from the truth in assuming the population of free Messene to have been comprised of former inhabitants of the region, free and unfree, refugees from Laconia, and settlers from abroad. A close look at their cults confirms the general accuracy of this conclusion and helps to some extent in defining the proportions.

The most revealing evidence on how the new Messenians articulated their identity comes from the names of their tribes. As a number of inscriptions from Ithome/Messene shows, the citizen body was divided into five tribes, called Hyllis, Kleolaia, Aristomachis, Kresphontis and Daiphontis. [38] The presence of two of these tribes at Thouria and possibly of one of them at Korone suggests that they applied to all the free Messenians, as one would expect anyway given the usual association between tribes and ethnic identity. [39] The names of the Messenian tribes are transparent. Hyllos was the son of Heracles, Kleolaios Hyllos’ son and the father of Aristomachos, who was in his turn Kresphontes’ father. Daiphontes was a Heraclid from Argos, who had married Temenos’ daughter Hyrnetho. The choice of these heroes as eponymous for the tribes is remarkable. In the Greek world, the names of subdivisions of the citizen body were typically related to ethnic identity, although not in a systematic way: Dorians normally had the three ancestral tribes of the Pamphyloi, Hylleis, and Dymanes, and often a fourth one, and Argadeis, Aigikoreis, Geleontes, and Hopletes recurred in many Ionian cities, though rarely all together. [40] Considering that the Messenian revolt in the fifth century and the myth of the Dorian invasion had established the Messenians as members of the Dorian ethnos, we might have expected the new Messenians to adopt the names of the Dorian tribes, or at least some of them. Actually, this happened only in the case of the tribe Hyllis. The remaining names delineate a subtle and creative strategy of ethnic self-definition. Exploiting the ambivalence between Heraclids and Dorians in the traditions on the division of the Peloponnese, the Messenians were able to connect themselves to a supposed ancestral Heraclid heritage, which constituted the main mythic charter providing legitimacy to the new Messenian state, [41] while at the same time diverting attention from the Dorian identity they shared with the Spartans—a component of their ethnicity they could not altogether erase, since it had been emphasized by fifth-century Messenians.

However, the new tribal names went much further in placing the new political community on the mythic-historical map of Greece in a very precise way. Heraclid myths were particularly important at Argos. Daiphontes, eponymous of one of the Messenian tribes, was a very prominent character in Argive myth-history: he was Temenos’ son-in-law and successor, de facto or only in pectore depending on the version of the myth. He was also the eponymous of a phatra at Argos, while another Argive phatra was named after Kleolaios. [42] Moreover, the Heraclid heritage formed a strong bond between the Messenians and their new protectors the Thebans: Heracles was a quintessentially Boeotian and more specifically Theban hero. His cult seems to have played a part in the initiation of the warriors of the Sacred Band, the elite Theban unit that had crushed the Spartan hoplites at Leuctra; right before the battle, allegedly the weapons dedicated in the temple of Heracles at Thebes had disappeared, signifying that the hero himself was preparing to join the fight. [43] It is important to note that in exactly the same years the Argives themselves were emphasizing their Heraclid heritage to create a mythic connection with Thebes: the “hemicycle of the kings,” a series of ten bronze statues dedicated at Delphi in the aftermath of the alliance between Thebes and Argos and the liberation of Messenia, depicted Heracles and his Argive ancestors all the way back to Danaos. [44] This parallel strengthens the idea that the Heraclid names of the Messenian tribes were meant to establish a connection with the mythic heritage of Thebes. The assemblage of eponymous heroes of the tribes showcased the ancestral claim of the Messenians to their fatherland, while at the same time emphasizing their mythic connections to Argos and Thebes. This peculiar mix of tradition and innovation, or rather this innovation disguised as the most ancestral of traits, defines fourth-century Messenian ethnicity in an important way.

The extremely consistent and slightly artificial picture offered by the Messenian tribes becomes more concrete and problematic once we compare it with the deities worshipped in post-liberation Messenia. In Greek culture, cults were associated with ethnicity at least as closely as tribal names were. [45] Messenian cults offer evidence for how the Messenians constructed their identity, and also how their identity may have been perceived by other Greeks.

Among the cults documented in Mavromati-Messene itself, only a few can be traced back to the age of the liberation. This is probably the case with the cult of Zeus Ithomatas, practiced in a sacred enclosure on the top of the mountain. [46] Archaeological evidence from there is scarce, but the very first coins struck by the Messenians show an image of Zeus Ithomatas, in an old-fashioned style that was probably meant to suggest some traditional pedigree for the new polity. [47] Material evidence going back to the fourth century is not abundant in the urban area, either, since the sanctuary of Asclepius was completely rebuilt at a later date, covering up to a large extent the traces of earlier phases. The cult in the archaic sanctuary omega-omega continues undisturbed from the archaic period to the late fourth or early third century, when the shrine was totally rebuilt, apparently after being destroyed by a fire. Some of the rather scanty evidence on the early architectural phases of the sanctuary may refer to new buildings erected at the time of the liberation of Messenia. [48] The cult of the Dioscuri is explicitly attested by a votive inscription on a bronze shield dating slightly before the destruction (SEG 45.302). It is not completely certain how far back this cult goes, but the iconography of the dedications would be consistent with their presence from early on. In other words, the cult of the Dioscuri may conceivably have been introduced in this sanctuary at the time of the liberation of Messenia, but it is at least as likely that it simply continued from the period before. The same can be said with more confidence of the kourotrophic deity whose cult is suggested by the iconography of archaic terracottas from the omega-omega sanctuary. [49] In the soundings south of the later temple of Asclepius traces of buildings and an altar have been found that can be connected with Epaminondas’ foundation, but even here it is impossible to say with certainty, on the basis of the votives of classical date, which deity or deities were worshipped in this shrine. Asclepius is extremely likely to have been among them, given his importance in the later history of the sanctuary and the fact that anatomic ex-votos have been found among the materials associated with these early buildings. [50] Traces of cult go back to the archaic age, and it is ultimately only the fact that the cult of Asclepius was apparently expanding precisely in the late fifth and early fourth century that suggests that it may have been introduced here at the time of the liberation of Messenia. Also to be dated in the fourth century, probably close to 369, is a small prostyle temple dedicated to Artemis Orthia. [51]

Asclepius was still a new god in the early fourth century. Even though his early temple may not have been as uniquely prominent among the sanctuaries of the new city as the later Doric temple would be, it is fair to say that the location of his cult speaks in favor of its importance from the beginning. One of the traditions about Asclepius’ birth connected it with Messenia, especially with the eastern coast of the Messenian gulf, [52] and this could explain to some extent why he became part of the pantheon of the new city. Besides the popularity of the cult in the early fourth century, its relative novelty, and the traditions on the Messenian origin of the god, there may be one further reason for its introduction into the pantheon of the free Messenians. The center from which the cult of Asclepius spread was Epidauros, a longstanding object of Argive covetousness and therefore a staunch ally of Sparta, one of the very few that did not desert the Spartans after Leuctra. [53] One version of the myth of the Heraclids in the Argolid attributed the conquest of Epidauros to Daiphontes. By Pausanias’ time at the latest, the Epidaurians had appropriated Daiphontes and his wife Hyrnetho, daughter of Temenos, but the quarrel between Argives and Epidaurians as to which city had Hyrnetho’s tomb (Pausanias 2. 28.3–7) suggests that Daiphontes, too, was a likely object of dispute, in which case one can see the two sides interpreting in diverging ways Daiphontes’ role at Epidaurus: founder for the Epidaurians, conqueror for the Argives. It would be tempting to see in the Messenian cult of Asclepius also the reflection of an attempt by the Argives to hijack the main god of their enemies the Epidaurians. However, given the fragmentary nature of the evidence, this hypothesis has to remain somewhat tentative.

Apart from the strongly Messenian Zeus Ithomatas and the probable newcomer Asclepius, the other cults documented at Ithome in the early fourth century have a striking point in common: an obvious connection with a Spartan heritage. This is hardly surprising in the case of the cults in the sanctuary omega-omega, which simply continued from the time before the liberation. Even in this case, the iconography of the terracotta plaques shows from the fifth century to the fourth no appreciable change that might suggest changes in the deities worshipped in the sanctuary. [54] If one of them was Artemis in her function of kourotrophic goddess, one may speculate about a connection with the little temple in antis dedicated to Artemis Orthia. Be that as it may, Artemis Orthia had herself, if possible, an even stronger Spartan flavor than the Dioscuri, worshipped in the sanctuary. [55]

Of course, there can be no serious doubt as to the fact that the new Messenians put in place discursive strategies to explain the embarrassing presence of prominently Spartan cults in their pantheon, and both in the case of Artemis Orthia and in that of the Dioscuri we seem to catch a glimpse of those strategies. [56] However, aetiology and myth offered a much more malleable surface than actual cult did, which is why the cults of the new Messenians present such an intriguing picture. De-Laconizing the landscape must have been one of the highest cultural priorities in free Messenia, and yet, rather than give up the Spartan gods and try to replace them, the new community by and large preferred to cling to them, reinterpreting the origin of their cults when it was necessary or possible. The assemblage of deities worshipped in the earliest times of free Messenia makes sense only if we admit that the new Messenians had a strong reason to regard those cults as theirs. This situation was the result of the combination of two interrelated factors. The first is the fact that Spartan traits were part of the Messenian identity from its first manifestation, in Rhegion and Sicilian Messene in the early fifth century. The second must be a very strong Lacedaemonian component in the population of the new Messenian polity. The fact that the written sources, ideologically biased as they are, tend to ignore such a component should not surprise or worry us too much.

In the end, one has the impression that in some key aspects the emergence of the new Messenians in the fourth century resembled fifth-century Messenian ethnogenesis. To be sure, massive external intervention in the form of Epaminondas’ campaign and later of ongoing military activity by the Arcadians in southwestern Messenia constitutes an important difference, and the likely influx of population from outside the region was a new factor, too. Beside this, though, the foundation of Messenian identity was still the same: opposition to Sparta. As Thomas Figueira (1999:224) put it, “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 refers to the fifth century, but his formulation seems to hold true to a significant extent for the citizens of free Messene, as well.

The idea that, in spite of a myth of foundation based on an exile and return story, the roots of the new Messenian ethnogenesis of the fourth century lay partly in Messenia itself may receive some support from a very important and characteristically Messenian class of evidence, later materials deposited in Bronze Age tombs. [57] The interpretation of this corpus of evidence is anything but straightforward. In very general terms, since there can be little doubt that Bronze Age tombs were recognized as such, the cult practiced in them was in all likelihood addressed to previous inhabitants of the region. It may be less than crucial from our perspective to decide whether such previous inhabitants were seen as heroes or as ancestors by the worshippers. [58] In either case, they were clearly perceived as a powerful presence that had to be appeased, and one that had a particularly close connection to the territory. Cult created a special relationship between the worshippers and these powers. For an understanding of the meaning of this relationship, the perceptions of the past in whose framework it was embedded are of decisive importance. We cannot be absolutely certain that, prior to the liberation of Messenia, these ancestral dead were not seen as part of a purely Laconian view of the past of the region, but by the mid-fifth century the idea that the region west of the Taygetos was a later addition to the original Spartan lot was widespread enough to suggest that most probably the Bronze Age tombs were seen as pre-Spartan and by implication as Messenian. The absence of comparable evidence of cult at Bronze Age tombs from Laconia somewhat reinforces this conclusion.

In spite of the circumstantial arguments that can be brought to its support, this conclusion is and cannot but be hypothetical. The fact that on the whole the evidence for cult at Bronze Age tombs is much more abundant for the period after 369, and that in some cases the cult seems to start right at the time of the liberation, speak in favor of this hypothesis. [59] The alternative, that the cults may have expressed the attempt of some groups to claim superior status for themselves by hijacking the Bronze Age dead as their own ancestors, cannot be ruled out completely, but the nature of the cultic activities involved, mostly of a rather modest level and apparently discontinuous, does not offer strong support to it. On the whole, it seems more likely that we are dealing with a claim of autochthony, or, in other words, that worshipping local heroes or ancestors in post-liberation Messenia equaled an expression of Messenian ethnicity. But then, it seems reasonable to assume a similar explanation from the beginning for those cults that start before the liberation and continue into free Messenia.

If this conclusion is acceptable, then the chronological distribution of the evidence has striking implications from our point of view. The relative lateness of the evidence from the Pylos region could be connected to the fact that this region had to be won militarily by the Arcadians before it became part of the new Messenian polity. In the area of Nichoria, not far from Korone, the respective timeline of interest for Mycenaean graves and liberation from Sparta is completely different, in what could be a revealing way. Offerings in the graves start around 425, suggesting that Messenian ethnicity may already have been brewing here for some forty to fifty years until finally the area became overtly Messenian. Where the stimuli came from may be indicated by the scanty evidence from the hills overlooking the Pylos bay and from the highlands that connect that area and the northwestern corner of the gulf of Messenia, and the chronological coincidence between possible statements of Messenian identity in the form of worship of autochthonous heroes or ancestors and the presence of Messenians of Naupaktos at Pylos may not be accidental. [60]

This reading of the evidence, hypothetical as it is, could add in an important way to the reconstruction of Messenian ethnogenesis in the fourth century. It would confirm that this phenomenon had an important local dimension. Although the liberation did come abruptly and by external intervention, the Messenian identity was smoldering in Messenia itself. Affirmations of Messenian identity may well have been an early expression of a disaffection analogous to the one that came to the fore among the perioikoi of Laconia at the time of Epaminondas’ invasion in 369. Even more than in the case of the revolt after the earthquake, it is impossible to tell for sure if the carriers of the Messenian identity in late fifth-century Messenia were Helots or perioikoi. The latter are likely to be archaeologically more visible. In the case of Nichoria, the cult in the tholos F is but one manifestation of renewed human presence on the plateau, and is apparently accompanied by a substantial building whose foundations made of large limestone blocks have been tentatively identified by the excavators as belonging to a temple. [61] This might suggest connecting the area with the perioikic town that became Korone. However, it would probably be wrong, especially at this date, to take an either-or approach to this question. In all likelihood, both Helots and perioikoi were involved in the claim of Messenian identity expressed by tomb worship.

To conclude, the birth of a free Messenian polity was made possible by an extraordinary convergence of favorable conditions. It could not have happened without the Theban victory at Leuctra and subsequent invasion of Laconia. Arcadian and Argive involvement was clearly very important, and a peculiar ethnic dynamic in the Peloponnese must have made it easier for the new ethnic entity to be accepted as such. However, the preexistence of Messenian ethnicity and the fact that it had meanwhile gained some acceptance throughout the Greek world were necessary preconditions for the success of the new polity carved out of the Lacedaemonian state. Massive external influence on the shape of Messenian ethnicity should not completely divert our attention from the very important fact that cultic activity at Bronze Age tombs may point to the articulation of claims of Messenian identity from the last decades of the fifth century in parts of the region that would become free Messene in 369. If that is correct, upon gaining their freedom thanks to the Theban victory, these Messenians probably sacrificed their own constructions of their past to the Messenian master narrative that was to survive in the written sources, without any contrasting voice but the—equally self-interested, equally implausible—Spartan image of the city of slaves.