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He was a king of Messenia,
celebrated for his struggle with the Spartans in theSecond Messenian War
685–668 , and his resistance to them on Mount Eira for 11 years. At length
the mountain fell to the enemy, while he escaped and, according to legend, was
snatched up by the gods; in fact he died at Rhodes. Aristomenes was a member of
the Aepytid family, the son of Nicomedes (or, according to another version, of
Pyrrhus) and Nicoteleia, and took a prominent part in stirring up the revolt
against Sparta and securing the co-operation of Argos and Arcadia. He showed
such heroism in the first encounter, at Derae, that the crown was offered to
him, but he would accept only the title of commander-in-chief. His daring is
illustrated by the story that he came by night to the temple of Athene "of
the Brazen House" at Sparta, and there set up his shield with the
inscription "Dedicated to the goddess by Aristomenes from the
Spartans." His prowess contributed largely to the Messenian victory over
the Spartan and Corinthian forces at "The Boar's Barrow" in the plain
of Stenyclarus, but in the following year the treachery of the Arcadian king
Aristocrates caused the Messenians to suffer a crushing defeat at "The
Great Trench." Aristomenes and the survivors retired to the mountain
stronghold of Eira, where they defied the Spartans for eleven years. On one of
his raids he and fifty of his companions were captured and thrown into the
Caeadas, the chasm on Mount Taygetus into which criminals were cast.
Aristomenes alone was saved, and soon reappeared at Eira: legend told how he
was upheld in his fall by an eagle and escaped by grasping the tail of a fox,
which led him to the hole by which it had entered. On another occasion he was
captured during a truce by some Cretan auxiliaries of the Spartans, and was
released only by the devotion of a Messenian girl who afterwards became his
daughter-in-law. At length Eira was betrayed to the Spartans in 668 according
to Pausanias, and after a heroic resistance Aristomenes and his followers had
to evacuate Messenia and seek a temporary refuge with their Arcadian allies. A
desperate plan to seize Sparta itself was foiled by Aristocrates, who paid with
his life for his treachery. Aristomenes retired to Ialysus on Rhodes, where
Damagetus, his son-in-law, was king, and died there while planning a journey to
Sardis and Ecbatana to seek aid from the Lydian and Median sovereigns.
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