Aristomenes, a Messenian general and statesman, the hero of the second Messenian war, of the royal line of Aepytus. The Mes-senians, having determined to free themselves from the tyranny of their Spartan conquerors, selected him as their chief He formed an alliance with Argos, Elis, Sicyon, Arcadia, and Pisa; but before the troops they promised him could arrive, he began the war by the indecisive battle of Derae, 685 B. G. His exploits in this conflict induced his countrymen to offer him the throne of Messenia, but he refused it. In the same year he entered Sparta alone, by night, and fastened a shield with a taunting inscription to the temple of Minerva. During the next year he won great victories at the Boar's Pillar in the plain of Stenyclerus, and at Pharae, which latter place he sacked. But in 682, betrayed by his ally Aristoerates of Arcadia, who deserted him in the midst of the fight, he was utterly defeated, his army almost destroyed, and he himself compelled to take refuge in the mountains with his few remaining troops. Here he continued the war with great pertinacity for 11 years. Having been captured by the Spartans in one of his incursions, he was thrown into a cavern into which malefactors were cast; but he was uninjured by the fall, and escaped by following a fox through a passage leading from the cave. Again captured, he escaped by the aid of a young girl, He twice offered to Zeus the hekatomphonia, or sacrifice prescribed for one who had slain with his own hands 100 enemies in battle. At last the Spartans surprised at night his fortress of Ira, in the mountains; but even then they encountered such a resistance that they were obliged to consent to his terms, which permitted him and his followers to retire unmolested. Soon after this he formed a new plan of attack on Sparta; but for the second time he was betrayed by Aristoerates, who was killed for his treachery.

The countrymen of Aristomenes were now exhausted, and their army was too small to continue the war. Many of them, under the hero's two sons, went to Rhegium and formed a colony there. Aristomenes went to Rhodes, where one of the reigning princes had married his daughter, and there ended his life peacefully.