rlike prowess to extend their dominions. Laconia, their country, was
situated in the southeast section of the Peloponnesus, that southern
peninsula which is attached to the remainder of Greece by the narrow
neck of land known as the Isthmus of Corinth. Their capital city was
anciently called Lacedaemon; it was later known as Sparta. In consequence
they are called in history both Spartans and Lacedaemonians.

In the early history of the Spartans they did not trouble themselves
about Northern Greece. They had enough to occupy them in the
Peloponnesus. As the Romans, in after-time, spent their early centuries
in conquering the small nations immediately around them, so did the
Spartans. And the first wars of this nation of soldiers seem to have
been with Messenia, a small country west of Laconia, and extending like
it southward into the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

There were two wars with the Messenians, both full of stories of daring
and disaster, but it is the second of these with which we are specially
concerned, that in which the hero Aristomenes won his fame. We shall
not ask our readers to believe all that is told about this ancient
champion. Much of it is very doubtful. But the war in which he took part
was historical, and the conquest of Messenia was the first great event
in Spartan history.

Now for the story itself. In the first Messenian war, which was fought
more than seven hundred years B.C., the leader of the Messenians was
named Aristodemus. A quarrel had arisen between the two nations during
some sacrifices on their border lands. The Spartans had laid a snare for
their neighbors by dressing some youths as maidens and arming them with
daggers. They attacked the Messenians, but were defeated, and the
Spartan king was slain.

In the war that ensued the Messenians in time found themselves in severe
straits, and followed the plan that seems to have been common throughout
Grecian history. They sent to Delphi to ask aid and advice from the
oracle of Apollo. And the oracle gave them one of its often cruel and
always uncertain answers; saying that if they would be successful a
virgin of the house of AEpytus must die for her country. To fulfil this
cruel behest Aristodemus, who was of that ancient house, killed his
daughter with his own hand,--much as Agamemnon had sacrificed his
daughter before sailing for Troy.

Aristodemus afterwards became king, and had a stirring and tragic
history, which was full