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In a world that stretched (west to east) from mainland Greece to modern-day Afghanistan and northwest India, and north to south, from Macedonia and Thrace to Egypt and the Gulf of Arabia, the number of such possible local studies is legion. Here a case from the 'heartland' of Hellenic culture will be considered: the changing circumstances and history of Messenia, in the southwestern corner of the Greek Peloponnese. Messenia is, of course, most famous for its pre-Hellenistic history: the fact that in the 8th/7th century B.C. this land was conquered by its neighbors to the east, the Spartans of Lakonia. Many Messenians fled their country, and many were enslaved, transformed into the famous 'helots' of antiquity who farmed for, and drudged for, their Spartan masters. The sight of a Greek people thus in bondage to fellow Greek was disturbing to contemporaries, and the years of Spartan domination are in turn what have dominated most later interest in the Messenians.
Yet the Messenians deserve better than that. Not only does it appear that they preserved a sense of their common history and destiny, revolting against Spartan control on more than one occasion, but they did eventually recover their freedom (if with help from other Greek states). In July 371 B.C. a battle was fought which irrevocably altered the relationship of Sparta and Messenia. In Boeotia, on the plain of Leuktra, troops led by the Theban general Epaminondas soundly defeated the Spartan forces -- their first major defeat in open combat for some three centuries. In the following year, Epaminondas invaded Sparta's home territory, at which point many Messenians rose up in revolt against their overlords. Their rejection of Spartan domination was sealed by Epaminondas' liberation of the Messenians and his foundation of the polis (city-state) of Messene on the slopes of a prominent local landmark, Mount Ithome.
With the foundation of Messene, named after an early mythical queen of the region, and the creation of other Messenian cities, our story might have appeared to reach a fairy tale 'happy ending' -- another reason why Messenia's post-liberation, Hellenistic history has been little explored by classical scholars. Yet it is not enough to say that the people of Messenia lived 'happily ever after' -- what happened to them after they were freed?
As might be expected, relations between Sparta and the new state of Messenia remained deeply hostile. Sparta refused to acknowledge the existence of Messene, while still claiming Messenia as 'ancestral' territory. A speech attributed to a Spartan king at this time bitterly commented: 'the most painful thing is the prospect not of being deprived unjustly of our own territory but of seeing our own slaves become masters of it'. Messenia's fear and loathing of Sparta appears to have influenced many of her post-liberation political friendships. For example, despite the arguments of Demosthenes of Athens, Messenia allied herself with Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, casting him as a bulwark against the Spartans. Despite embassies from Athens, Messene (together with many other Peloponnesian cities) remained neutral in the Battle of Chaironeia (338 B.C.). That encounter, a victory for Philip and Alexander, sealed Greece's fate as a secondary player in the power politics of the Hellenistic world. To reward his allies, the victorious Philip subsequently marched south to Sparta, stripping her still further of pride and of territory (some of which was given over to Messenia).
As the alliance with Philip suggests, the cities of Messenia, under the leadership of Messene, were now fully involved in the political and military machinations of the age. In other words, following their liberation Messenia resumed a more 'normal' role in Greek politics and warfare. The saga of alliances and betrayals among the Greek cities during the Hellenistic period is too complicated to rehearse in detail. One development to note, however, was the increasing political and military intervention in internal Greek affairs by larger and more powerful states, especially by the Antigonid kingdom in Macedon to the north. As such external authorities became involved in Greek power politics, they quickly identified Messene as a crucial point to control, given the strategic importance of Mount Ithome in the southern Peloponnese. At the end of the third century B.C., King Philip V of Macedon was advised, as he contemplated an invasion of the Peloponnese, to seize both Acrocorinth (the fortified citadel of Corinth) and Messene: 'for if you hold both horns, you will hold down the ox' -- or hold, in other words, the entire Peloponnese.
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Aside from resuming its place as a player in the political and military life of Hellenistic Greece, Messenia assumed as well a role in Greek social and cultural life, not least by her production of talented and much heralded individuals. One such person was Damophon, a citizen of Messene whose family tree can be traced through inscriptions found by excavations in the city. Damophon was a celebrated artist whose career seems to have been at its height in the late third/early second B.C. He is best known for working in what is called the 'neoclassical' style, with his sculptures deliberating evoking the artistic styles and ethos of the classical age of the fifth century B.C. His best preserved sculptural group comes from the sanctuary of Despoina at Lykosoura in Arcadia; the group includes Despoina (the 'Maiden', or Persephone), Demeter her mother, Artemis, and the Titan Anytos. In antiquity, Damophon was also famous for repairing Pheidias' statue of Zeus at the great panhellenic sanctuary at Olympia, a task for which he was publicly honored.