ARISTODEMUS (8th century s.c.)

This article appears in Volume V02, Page 499 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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ARISTODEMUS (8th century s.c.) , semi-legendary ruler of Messenia in the time of the first Messenian War. Tradition relates that, after some six years' fighting, the Messenians were forced to retire to the fortified summit of Ithome. The Delphic oracle bade them sacrifice a virgin of the

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

of Aepytus. Aristodemus offered his own daughter, and when her lover, hoping to save her

life

LIFE

, declared that she was no longer a maiden, he slew her with his own hand to prove the assertion false. In the thirteenth year of the war, Euphaes, the Messenian king, died. As he left no children, popular election was resorted to, and Aristodemus was chosen as his successor, though the national soothsayers objected to him as the murderer of his daughter. As a ruler he was mild and conciliatory. He was victorious in the pitched battle fought at the foot of Ithome in the fifth year of his reign, a battle in which the Messenians, reinforced by the entire Arcadian levy and picked contingents from Argos and Sicyon, defeated the combined Spartan and Corinthian forces. Shortly afterwards, however, led by unfavourable omens to despair of final success, he killed himself on his daughter's tomb. Though little is known of his

life

LIFE

and the chronology is uncertain, yet Aristodemus may fairly be regarded as a historical

character

CHARACTER (Gr. xapareri7p, from xap&crew, to scratch)

. His reign is dated 731724 B.C. by Pausanias, and this may be taken as approximately correct, though Duncker (History of

Greece

GREECE

, Eng. trans., ii. p. 69) inclines to place it eight years later.
Pausanias iv. 9-13 is practically our only authority. He followed as his

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

source the

prose

PROSE

history of Myron of

Priene

PRIENE (mod. Samsun kale)

, an untrustworthy writer, probably of the 2nd

century

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

Inc.; hence a good deal of his story must be regarded as fanciful, though we cannot distinguish accurately between the true and the fictitious. (M. N. T.)

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