In the year 30 before the founding of the City, a very great war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians was joined with all their strength and spirit; in it they were driven by mutual slaughter to the point where, as if both defeated, they drew back from one another and abandoned the war.
1 Anno ante urbem conditam XXX Peloponnensium Atheniensiumque maximum bellum totis uiribus animisque commissum est: in quo mutuis caedibus ad hoc coacti sunt, ut uelut uicti se ab alterutro subtraherent bellumque desererent.
At that time, too, a sudden invasion of Asia by the nation of the Amazons and the Cimmerians wrought very great devastation and slaughter far and wide for a long time.
2 tunc etiam Amazonum gentis et Cimmeriorum in Asiam repentinus incursus plurimam diu late uastationem stragemque edidit.
In the year 20 before the founding of the City, the Lacedaemonians, waging war against the Messenians for twenty years with untiring fury because their maidens had been outraged at a solemn sacrifice of the Messenians, entangled the entire strength of Greece in their own ruin.
3 Anno XX ante urbem conditam Lacedaemonii contra Messenios propter spretas uirgines suas in sollemni Messeniorum sacrificio, per annos uiginti indefesso furore bellantes, ruinae suae totas Graeciae uires inplicuerunt.
They had bound themselves by great imprecations and sworn oaths never to return home unless Messene had been taken; and when, worn out by a long siege of ten years and yet having won no fruit of victory, they were further moved by the complaints of their wives, who protested at their long widowhood and the danger of childlessness, and were being called back,
4 qui cum se magnis exsecrationibus deuouissent sacramentisque obstrinxissent domum nisi Messena expugnata numquam esse redituros, ac per decem annos longa fatigati obsidione nec tamen aliquem uincendi fructum adepti, porro autem et querellis uxorum super longa uiduitate et periculo sterilitatis contestantium permoti reuocarentur,
they held a council and, fearing lest, with the hope of offspring cut off, their persistence should breed destruction for themselves rather than for the Messenians, they sent back to Sparta men picked from the army who had come as reinforcements after the oath had been sworn; and to these they permitted indiscriminate union with all the women — a licence infamous enough, and yet of no use.1
5 consultatione habita ueriti, ne intercepta spe subolis sibi magis hac perseuerantia quam Messeniis perditio nutriretur, selectos in exercitu eos qui post iusiurandum in supplementum militiae uenerant Spartam remittunt, quibus promiscuos omnium feminarum concubitus permisere, infami satis nec tamen utili licentia.
1The children born of these unions were the Partheniae, who later founded Tarentum (Justin 3.4).
They themselves, persisting in their purpose, took the Messenians by treachery and crushed the vanquished with slavery. But the Messenians, after long enduring a bloody domination amid scourges and chains, shook off the yoke, took up arms and renewed the war.
6 ipsi autem proposito insistentes expugnant fraude Messenios, uictos seruitio premunt. at illi, diu cruentam dominationem inter uerbera et uincla perpessi, iugum excutiunt, arma sumunt, bellum instaurant.
The Lacedaemonians chose Tyrtaeus, an Athenian poet, as their leader in battle. Routed in three engagements, they made good the army they had lost by calling a band of slaves to freedom.2
7 Lacedaemonii Tyrreum, Atheniensem poetam, ducem proelio legunt. qui tribus conflictibus fusi, amissum exercitum uocata in libertatem seruorum manu suppleuerunt.
2Tyrtaeus was the poet of the Second Messenian War in the seventh century BC; the tradition that he was an Athenian, found from Plato onwards, is probably false.
But when even so they judged that they must give up the struggle for fear of the danger, they were fired again by a poem composed by Tyrtaeus, their poet and leader, and recited before the assembly, and soon rushed into the fight. The clash came with such force of spirit that rarely has a bloodier battle ever blazed up; in the end, however, the victory was the Lacedaemonians’.
8 sed cum sic quoque desistendum certamine propter metum periculi arbitrarentur, Tyrrei poetae et ducis conposito carmine et pro contione recitato rursus accensi mox in certamen ruunt; tanta autem ui animorum concursum est, ut raro umquam cruentius proelium exarserit; ad postremum tamen uictoria Lacedaemoniorum fuit.
A third time the Messenians renewed the conflict. Nor did the Lacedaemonians delay. Both sides brought many forces to their aid. The Athenians, meanwhile, prepared to attack the Lacedaemonians from the other side while they were intent on matters elsewhere.
9 tertio Messenii reparauere certamen. nec Lacedaemoniis mora. multas in auxilium copias utrimque duxerunt. Athenienses uero Lacedaemonios alibi intentos e diuerso adgredi parant.
Nor did the Lacedaemonians rest: being themselves occupied against the Messenians, they sent the Peloponnesians to meet the Athenians in battle. The Athenians, having sent a small fleet to Egypt, were unequal in strength and were easily beaten in a naval engagement. Then, when their fleet had come back and they had been reinforced by strong bodies of soldiers, they challenged the victors to battle.3
10 nec Lacedaemonii quieuere: nam ipsi in Messenios occupati Peloponnenses inmiserunt, qui Athenienses proelio exciperent. Athenienses autem, missa in Aegyptum parua classe inpares uiribus, nauali congressu facile uincuntur. dehinc recepta classe, aucti etiam militum robore, uictores in proelium uocant.
3Following Justin (3.6), Orosius runs the Messenian Wars straight on into fifth-century history: the Athenian expedition to Egypt (459–454 BC), the Theban alliance and Pericles’ generalship belong some three centuries after the dates given in this chapter.
The Lacedaemonians too, leaving the Messenians aside, turned their arms against the Athenians. For a long time the fighting was varied and heavy and the balance of victory doubtful, and at last both sides withdrew with the outcome still undecided.
11 Lacedaemonii quoque omissis Messeniis in Athenienses arma conuertunt. diu uariae et graues pugnae et anceps uictoriae status ac postremum pendente euentu utrimque discessum est.
It should be particularly understood, however, that Sparta is the same city as Lacedaemon, and that this is why the Lacedaemonians are called Spartans.
12 sciendum tamen est maxime, ipsam esse Spartam quam et Lacedaemonam ciuitatem, atque inde Lacedaemonios Spartanos dici.
So the Lacedaemonians, called back from there to the war with the Messenians, in order not to leave the Athenians the time between at leisure, made a pact with the Thebans to restore to them the leadership of the Boeotians, which they had lost at the time of the Persian War, if they would take on the war with the Athenians.
13 igitur inde reuocati Lacedaemonii ad Messeniorum bellum, ne medium tempus otiosum Atheniensibus relinquerent, cum Thebanis paciscuntur, ut Boeotiorum imperium eis restituerent, quod temporibus belli Persici amiserant, si illi Atheniensium bella susciperent.
So great was the fury of the Spartans that, though entangled in two wars, they did not refuse to take on a third, provided they could win enemies for their enemies.
14 tantus furor Spartanorum erat, ut duobus bellis inpliciti suscipere tertium non recusarent, dummodo inimicis suis hostes adquirerent.
The Athenians, alarmed by so great a storm of wars, chose two generals, Pericles, a man of proven valour, and Sophocles, the writer of tragedies; dividing the army between them, they ravaged the territory of the Spartans far and wide and added many cities of Asia to the empire of the Athenians.
15 Athenienses tanta bellorum tempestate permoti duo duces deligunt Periclen spectatae uirtutis uirum et Sophoclen scribtorem tragoediarum: qui diuiso exercitu et Spartanorum fines late populati sunt et multas Asiae ciuitates Atheniensium imperio adiecerunt.
From then on, for fifty years, they fought on land and sea with victory ever uncertain, until the Spartans, their wealth diminished and their good faith ruined, became a disgrace even to their allies.
16 hinc porro per annos quinquaginta incerta semper uictoria terra marique pugnatum est, donec Spartani, et opibus inminutis et fide profligata, sociis quoque probro fuere.
But that these things weighed upon Greece through so many volumes of ages is counted of little account. Now, however, that pleasures should sometimes be interrupted and lusts hindered for a little while is not to be borne.
17 Sed haec per tot aetatum uolumina incubuisse Graeciae parui penditur. nunc autem interpellari interdum uoluptates et impediri parumper libidines non sustinetur.
Yet there is this difference between the men of that time and those of this: the former bore these unbearable things with equanimity, because they had been born or brought up among them and knew nothing better; while the latter, accustomed all their lives to an unbroken clear sky of tranquillity and delights, are disturbed by every cloud of anxiety that gathers over them, however slight.
18 quamquam inter illius temporis homines atque istius hoc interest, quod illi aequo animo haec intoleranda tolerabant, quia in his nati uel enutriti erant et meliora non nouerant: isti autem, perpetuo in uita sua tranquillitatum et deliciarum sereno adsuefacti, ad omne uel modicum obductae sollicitudinis nubilum commouentur.
And would that they prayed to him who drives away even this slight unrest, by whose gift they have had this continuous peace unknown to other times!
19 atque utinam ipsum depulsorem huius uel modicae inquietudinis precarentur, cuius munere hanc ignoratam aliis temporibus iugitatem pacis habuerunt.
And since I remember having promised, when I marked out the order of my account in certain divisions, as it were, that I would speak from the founding of the world to the founding of the City,
20 et quoniam spopondisse memini, cum ueluti articulis quibusdam dicendi ordinem definirem, dicturum me esse ab orbe condito usque ad urbem conditam,
let this be the end of this volume, which we have unfolded from the founding of the world, so that the next book may begin from the founding of the City. It will contain the more closely woven evils of those times, when men were, of course, more practised and more learned in wickedness.
21 huic uolumini quod ab orbe condito explicuimus finis hic sit, ut ab urbe condita sequens libellus incipiat, qui contextiora illorum temporum mala, exercitatioribus quippe ad nequitiam atque eruditioribus hominibus, continebit.