Description of Greece

​After this, during all the rest of the time, their hatred against the Lacedaemonians pressed upon them, and they especially demonstrated their hostility toward them during the war that arose between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians; for they provided Naupactus as a base of operations against the Peloponnese, and the slingers of the Messenians from Naupactus helped to capture those of the Spartans who were cut off on Sphacteria.

​But when the defeat of the Athenians occurred at Aegospotami, then also the Lacedaemonians, prevailing with their ships, expelled the Messenians from Naupactus, who were dispatched both to Sicily to their kinsmen and to Rhegium, but the majority of them arrived in Libya, and of Libya, at Euesperides; for the Euesperitae, having been harassed in war by the neighboring barbarians, were calling upon every Greek to be a fellow settler. To these, the majority of the Messenians withdrew; and their leader was Comon, who had also commanded them at Sphacteria.

​But a year before the Thebans succeeded at Leuctra, the divinity portended to the Messenians their return to the Peloponnese. On the one hand, they say that the priest of Heracles in Messene by the strait saw a vision of a dream—it seemed that Heracles was invited by Zeus to Ithome to host Manticlus—and on the other hand, in Euesperides, Comon seemed to have intercourse with his deceased mother, and after his intercourse, his mother seemed to come to life again. And Comon hoped that, if the Athenians became powerful with their fleet, there would be a return for them to Naupactus; but the dream, as it turned out, indicated that Messene would be recovered.

​And not long after, the misfortune of the Lacedaemonians occurred at Leuctra, which had been owed of old; for to Aristodemus, who had been king of the Messenians, at the end of the oracle that was given to him, there was this: “Do as thou must; but ruin falls on some before others”; meaning that, for the present indeed, it was necessary for him and the Messenians to fare ill, but in later time ruin would also seize Lacedaemon.

​Then, having conquered at Leuctra, the Thebans dispatched messengers to Italy and Sicily and to the Euesperitae, and from everywhere else, if there was any Messenian anywhere, they summoned them back to the Peloponnese. And they assembled more quickly than anyone would have expected, out of longing for their fatherland and because of their hatred toward the Lacedaemonians, which had always remained with them.

​But to Epaminondas, on the one hand it did not seem easy in any case to establish a city capable of fighting against the Lacedaemonians, nor on the other hand could he discover where in the country he ought to found it; for the Messenians said they would not rebuild Andania and Oechalia, because their disasters had occurred while they were living there. Therefore, while he was in doubt, they say that an old man, closely resembling a hierophant, stood over him at night and said: “To you indeed there are gifts from me to conquer whomever you attack with arms; and if you depart from among men, I, O Theban, will make sure that you never become nameless or without glory. But do you restore to the Messenians both their fatherland and their cities, since the wrath of the Dioscuri against them has now ceased.”

​To Epaminondas indeed he was saying these things, but to Epiteles, the son of Aeschines, he revealed the following—now the Argives had chosen this Epiteles to be general and to rebuild Messene—the dream therefore commanded this man, wherever on Ithome he should find a wild convolvulus and a myrtle growing, to dig between them and rescue the old woman; for she was suffering, shut up in a bronze chamber, and was already fainting. And Epiteles, as day was breaking, having come to the prescribed place, succeeded by digging in finding a bronze urn, and immediately to Epaminondas ​carrying [it], he related the dream and urged him to remove the lid himself and examine what was inside. And Epaminondas, having sacrificed and prayed to the dream that had appeared, opened the urn, and having opened it, found tin beaten into the thinnest sheet; and it was rolled up like a scroll. Therein was written the ritual of the Great Gods, and this was the deposit of Aristomenes. They say that this one who visited Epiteles and Epaminondas as they slept was Caucon, who had come from Athens to Andania to Messene, the daughter of Triopas.