Sparta succeeded in ending the Messenian revolt, but it took over five years to do so. She also battled Athens twice: inconclusively in 457 B.C, and more decisively in 446 B.C. when the Athenians where forced to rein in their designs on central Greece. But Sparta remained weak as we shall see from the casualty estimates.
Plutarch describes the catastrophe as follows:
“They say that a little before any motion was perceived, as young men and the boys grown up were exercising themselves together in the middle of a portico, a hare, of a sudden, started out just by them, which the young men, though all naked and daubed with oil, ran after for sport. No sooner were they gone from the place, than the gymnasium fell down upon the boys who stayed behind, and killed them all.”