MESSENIA'S capital, the coastal city of Kalamata, is built on the site of ancient Pharai.
This raiding included an attack on the city of Methone in the helot homeland of
Messenia, a strike into an area where the Spartans felt particularly vulnerable.
Entre os seculos IX-VIII a.C., "os objetos votivos evidenciam que o santuario havia alcancado notoriedade alem desse rio", como indicam a dedicacao de tripodes monumentais por visitantes da
Messenia e da Arcadia e a presenca, no santuario, de artesaos provenientes da Arcadia,
Messenia, e de Argos, conforme estudo de tipologia e de proveniencia dos objetos votivos dedicados no local nessa epoca (Morgan 1994: 89-90; Taita 2007: 102).
Quam non ex pluribus historicis consutam esse sed ab uno Epaminondae biographo transcriptam omnino probabile est in Pausania, qui Herodotum quidem et Thucydidem penitus inbiberat ..." Later Wilamowitz went further in his Textgeschichte der griechischen Lyriker, Berlin: Weidmann, 1900, 102n1, and added potential influence from Plutarch's Life of Epaminondas at
Messenia, 4.
It's nestled in
Messenia, in the southwest of the country's Peloponnese peninsula.
The Spartans faced an immense internal threat from thousands of state-owned serfs known as helots, who in abject servitude farmed the lands of Laconia and
Messenia. These Greek peoples longed to overthrow their Spartan overlords.
Dr Gilbert, one of the scientists in the study, told WAM: "These fossils indicate that, instead, Old World monkey dispersal could have taken place through the Arabian Peninsula even before the
Messenia Crisis."
The Spartans traced their enmity with
Messenia to a supposed historical incident in which the Messenians abducted, raped and murdered several Spartan girls while they performed a ritual in honor of Artemis (Larson, Ancient 106).
She gained control of a rich territory in the valley of the Eurotas and in
Messenia which gave her food enough for her citizens-warriors while she gained and maintained a political control of the commercial communities that lined the coasts of the Peloponessus.