426 STRABO. CASAUB. 279. all slain. They left only the youngest and oldest of the citi- zens to keep their own country. After this, in the tenth [year] of the war, the Lacedaemonian matrons assembled and deputed certain women to remonstrate with the citizens, and show them that they were carrying on the war with the Mes- senians on very disadvantageous terms, for they, abiding in their own country, procreated children, while the Lacedemo- nians, leaving their wives in a state like widowhood, remained away in the war ; and to expose the great peril there was of the depopulation of their country. The Lacedaemonians, being both desirous of observing their oath, and taking into consideration the representations of their wives, sent a deputa- tion of the most vigorous, and, at the same time, most juvenile of the army, whom they considered, in a manner, not to have participated in the oath, because they had been but children when they accompanied their elders to the war, and charged them all to company with all the maidens, reckoning that by that means they would bear the more children ; which having been accordingly obeyed, the children who were born were denominated Partheniae. Messene was taken after a war of nineteen years, as Tyrtaeus says, " The fathers of our fathers, armed for war, Possessing ever patient courage, fought at Messene For nineteen years with unremitting toil. Till on the twentieth, leaving their rich soil, The enemy forsook the towering heights of Ithome." 1 Thus then did they destroy Messenia, but returning home, they neglected to honour the Partheniee like other youths, and treated them as though they had been born out of wedlock. The Partheniae, leaguing with the Helots, conspired against the Lacedaemonians, and agreed to raise a Laconic felt hat 2 in the market-place as a signal for the commencement of hos- tilities. Some of the Helots betrayed the plot, but the government found it difficult to resist them by force, for they were many, and all unanimous, and looked upon each other as brothers ; those in authority therefore commanded such as were appointed to raise the signal, to depart out of the market-place ; when they therefore perceived that their plot 1 Statius, lib. 4, Theb., thus mentions Ithome, " Planaque Messenai montanaque nutrit Ilhome." ACIKWVIKOC.
