Messenian Wars
At a glance:
- Series: Magill’s Guide to Military History
- Categories: Military History, Land Acquisition and Expansion, Territory Redistribution
- Subcategories: Wars, Battles, Invasions, Raids, Conquests, Sieges, Hellenistic Age, Ancient Greece
- Curriculum: Western Civilization/European History, Ancient History
- Geographical Location: Greece, Greece (ancient)
- Date: c. 736-455
Article abstract: At issue: Spartan control of the southern Peloponnese. Result: Spartan victory; reduction of Messenians to state slaves (helots) of Sparta and partition of Messenia into plots of land assigned to individual Spartan citizens.
Background
The Messenian Wars were the result of Spartan expansion in the southern Peloponnese. Both the Messenians and Spartans were Dorians, a tribe of Greeks who supposedly settled in the Peloponnese during the Dorian Invasion of the eleventh and tenth centuries b.c.e. One group of Dorians settled at Sparta in...
[The entire page is 998 words long]
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