[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]
Sparta had never been so overcome by Macedon as the states north of the
Isthmus, but all the discipline of Lycurgus had been forgotten, and the
Ephors and Kings had become greedy, idle, and corrupt. One of the kings,
named Leonidas, had gone to Antioch, married an Eastern wife, and learned
all the Syrian and Persian vanities in which King Seleucus delighted, and
he brought these home to Sparta. The other king, Eudamidas, was such a
miser, that on his death, in 244, his widow and his mother were said to
possess more gold than all the rest of the people in the state put
together; but he left a son of nineteen, named Agis, most unlike himself.
As soon as, in his childhood, Agis had heard the story of his great
forefathers, he set himself to live like an ancient Spartan, giving up
whatever Lycurgus had forbidden, dressing and eating as plainly as he
could, and always saying that he would not be king if he did not hope to
make Sparta her true self again. When he became king, he was seen in the
usual dress of a Greek, uncrowned, as the first Leonidas and Agesilaus
had been; while the other king, ill named Leonidas, moved about in a
diadem and purple robes and jewels, like a Persian Shah.
[Picture: Greek figure] Agis was resolved to bring back all the old rule.
There were but 700 old Dorian Spartans left, and only about 100 of these
still had their family estates, while the others were starving; and most
of the property was in the hands of women. Therefore the young king was
resolved to have all given up and divided again, and he prevailed on his
mother and grandmother to throw all their wealth into the common stock,
as also his mother's brother Agesilaus, who was willing, because he was
so much in debt that he could hardly lose by any change. The other
ladies made a great outcry, and Leonidas was very angry, but he did not
dare to hinder all this, because all the high-born men, who had been so
poor, were on the young king's side.
So there was a public assembly, and one of the Ephors proposed the
reform, showing how ease and pleasure had brought their city low, and how
hardihood and courage might yet bring back her true greatness. Leonidas
spoke against the changes, but Agis argued with such fire and force that
he won over all that were high-minded enough to understand him, and in
especial Cleombrotus, the son-in-law of Leonidas. Agis laid down before
the assembly all his father's vast hoards, and his example was followed
by many; but the other king put such difficulties in the way that the
reformers found that they could do nothing unless they removed him, so
they brought forward an old law, which forbade that any son of Hercules
should reign who had married a foreign woman, or sojourned in a strange
land.
On hearing of this, Leonidas took refuge in the temple of Athene, and as
he did not appear when he was summoned before the Ephors, they deposed
him, and named Cleombrotus in his stead; but when Agis found there was a
plan for killing the old king, he took care to send him away in safety to
Tegea, with his daughter Chilonis, who clave to him in trouble.
Agis thought his uncle Agesilaus was heartily with the change, and so had
him chosen one of the Ephors; but, in truth, all Agesilaus wanted was to
be free from his debts, and he persuaded the young king that the lands
could not be freshly divided till all debts had been cancelled. So all
the bonds were brought into the market-place and burnt, while Agesilaus
cried out that he had never seen so fine a fire; but having done this, he
was resolved not to part with his wealth, and delayed till the AEtolians
made an attack on the Peloponnesus, and Aratus called on Sparta to assist
the Achaians. Agis was sent at the head of an army to the Isthmus, and
there behaved like an ancient Spartan king, sharing all the toils and
hardships of the soldiers, and wearing nothing to distinguish him from
them; but while he was away everything had gone wrong at Sparta; people
had gone back to their old bad habits, and Agesilaus was using his office
of Ephor so shamefully that he had been obliged to have a guard of
soldiers to protect him from the people. This behaviour had made the
people suspect his nephew of being dishonest in his reforms, and they had
sent to recall Leonidas.
Agesilaus fled, and Agis was obliged to take sanctuary in Athene's
temple, and Cleombrotus in that of Neptune, where Leonidas found him.
His wife Chilonis, with her two little children, threw herself between
him and her father, pleading for his life, and promising he should leave
the city; and Leonidas listened, trying to make her remain, but she clung
to her husband, and went into exile with him.
Agiatis, the young wife of Agis, could not join him in the temple, being
kept at home by the birth of her first babe. He never left the
sanctuary, except to go to the baths, to which he was guarded by armed
friends. At last two of these were bribed to betray him. One said,
"Agis, I must take you to the Ephors," and the other threw a cloak over
his head; while Leonidas came up with a guard of foreign soldiers and
dragged him to prison, where the Ephors came to examine him. One asked
him if he repented. "I can never repent of virtue," he said.
They sentenced him to die; and finding that his mother and grandmother
were trying to stir up the people to demand that he should be heard in
public, they sent the executioners at once to put him to death. One of
them came in tears, but Agis quickly said, "Weep not, friend; I am
happier than those who condemn me;" and he held out his neck for the rope
which strangled him just as his grandmother and mother came in. The
grandmother was strangled the next moment. The mother said, "May this be
for the good of Sparta," and after laying out the limbs of her son and
mother, was also put to death; and the young widow Agiatis, with her
babe, was carried to the house of Leonidas. The reform of Agis had
lasted only three years, and he was but twenty-two, when his plans were
thus cruelly cut short.
Leonidas was thus left to reign alone, the first time such a thing had
happened in Sparta. As poor Agiatis was a rich heiress, he kept her in
his house, and married her to his son Cleomenes, a mere boy, much younger
than herself. She was the fairest and wisest woman in Greece; and though
she always was cold, grave, and stern towards the wicked old king, she
loved his wife, and was gentle towards the young boy, who was blameless
of his father's sin, and gave her all his heart for his whole life. He
cared for nothing so much as to hear from her of Agis, his brave,
self-denying ways, and noble plans; and thus did they live, after the
untimely death of Agis, strengthened by the study of the Stoic
philosophy, which taught that virtue was the highest good, and that no
suffering, not even death, was to be shunned in pursuit of her.
When Leonidas died, in 236, Cleomenes became the only king, but he was so
young that Aratus and the Achaians thought it a good time for extending
the power of their league at the expense of Sparta; so, though no war was
going on, Aratus sent a troop by night to seize Tegea and Orchomenus,
cities in alliance with Sparta. But his designs were found out in time
for Cleomenes to strengthen the garrisons in both places, and march
himself to a place called the Athenaeum, which guarded one of the passes
into Laconia.
This made the attempt fail, and Cleomenes wrote to ask the cause of the
night march of the Achaians. Aratus answered that it was to hinder the
fortification of the Athenaeum.
"What was the use, then, of torches and scaling-ladders?" asked
Cleomenes.
Aratus laughed, and asked a Spartan who was in exile what kind of youth
this young king was; and the Spartan made reply, "If you have any designs
against Sparta, you had better begin them before the game chicken's spurs
are grown."
It was a great pity that these two free states in Laconia and Achaia were
only wasting their strength against each other, instead of joining
against Macedon.
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