Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Not absurdly, nor without point, do some suspect that the myth about Ixion was constructed with an eye to men who love glory: as he took hold of the cloud instead of Hera, and from this the Centaurs came to be, so such men, consorting with glory as with a kind of phantom image of virtue, do nothing pure or consistent, but many things bastard and mixed, carried now this way, now that, following their zeal and their passions—exactly what the herdsmen of Sophocles say of their flocks: "Though we are their masters, we are slaves to these, and must listen to them even when they are silent."
This is truly what happens to those who conduct politics in service of the desires and impulses of the crowds: they are slaves and followers, even while wearing the titles of popular leaders and rulers. Much as the men stationed at a ship's bow, who spot what lies ahead, still fix their gaze on the helmsmen and carry out what is commanded, so too those who engage in politics with an eye toward glory become servants of the multitude, though they bear the label of rulers.
The man who is perfect and completely good has no requirement of glory whatsoever, apart from the way it opens, by winning trust, a path toward action; but a young man, still full of ambition, must be allowed to take some pride and boast a little from his good deeds. For virtues that are sprouting in men of that age and beginning to bud, as Theophrastus says, are confirmed by praise, and for the rest grow, lifted up along with a sense of pride.
But excess is everywhere dangerous, and in political ambitions it is deadly; for it carries those who have laid hold of great power out into madness and derangement, whenever they are unwilling that the good should be what wins them glory, but instead consider the glorious to be the good. This, then, is what Phocion said to Antipater when he asked of him something not honorable: "You cannot have Phocion as both friend and flatterer at once"—this, or something like it, must be said to the multitude:
"You cannot have the same man as both ruler and follower." Since it comes about, in this way too, just as in the fable of the serpent, whose tail, so the story goes, quarreled with the head and demanded to lead in its turn and not follow it forever; and having taken the leadership, it fared badly, journeying in folly, and tore up the head, which was compelled, against nature, to follow blind and deaf parts of itself:
This is what we see has happened to many of those who have conducted all their politics to please the crowd; for having hung themselves upon mobs carried along at random, they were unable afterward either to recover themselves or to check the disorder. These thoughts occurred to us to say concerning the reputation gained from the many, when we considered how great a power it had in the affair of Tiberius and Gaius the Gracchi, men who were born most nobly, raised most nobly, and took up the noblest foundation for their political career, yet were destroyed not so much by an immoderate desire for glory as by a fear of disgrace that sprang from no ignoble cause.
For having received great goodwill beforehand from the citizens, they were ashamed to abandon it as though it were a debt; and always competing to outdo their honors with good measures of policy, and being honored the more for the favors by which they governed, and in this way kindling each other with equal ambition, the people toward them and they toward the people, they did not notice that they had taken hold of affairs in which it was no longer honorable to persist, yet already shameful to stop.
These things, then, you will judge for yourself from the narrative; let us set beside them a Laconian pair of popular leaders, Agis and Cleomenes the kings. For these men too, in raising up the people, as those others did, and restoring a fine and just constitution that had lapsed for a long time, likewise incurred the hatred of the powerful, who were unwilling to give up their accustomed greed. The Laconians, then, were not brothers to one another, but they took hold of a kindred and sisterly policy, having such a beginning as this.
Since a passion for silver and gold first crept into the city, and along with the acquisition of wealth came greed and stinginess, and with its use and enjoyment came luxury and softness and extravagance, Sparta fell from most of its noble ways, and continued to fare meanly, below its worth, until those times in which Agis and Leonidas were kings,
Agis, of the Eurypontid house and son of Eudamidas, sixth in line from Agesilaus, the one who crossed into Asia and rose to be foremost in power among the Greeks. For Agesilaus's son was Archidamus, who died near Mandurium in Italy at the hands of the Messapians; and of Archidamus the elder son was Agis, and Eudamidas the younger, who, when Agis was killed by Antipater near Megalopolis without children, took the kingship; and of this Eudamidas came Archidamus, and of Archidamus another Eudamidas, and of Eudamidas Agis, concerning whom these things have been written:
Leonidas, whose father was Cleonymus, belonged to the other royal line, the Agiad house, and stood eighth after Pausanias, victor over Mardonius at Plataea. Now Pausanias fathered a son named Pleistoanax, and Pleistoanax in turn fathered a Pausanias, who, having fled from Lacedaemon to Tegea, was succeeded by his elder son Agesipolis as king, and when he died without children, by the younger son, Cleombrotus,
and from Cleombrotus again came another Agesipolis and Cleomenes, of whom Agesipolis neither ruled long nor had children, while Cleomenes, becoming king after Agesipolis, lost his elder son Acrotatus while he himself was still alive, and left behind the younger, Cleonymus, who did not become king; but Areus, grandson of Cleomenes and son of Acrotatus, did; and when Areus fell near Corinth, his son Acrotatus held the kingship.
This man likewise met death, beaten in combat near Megalopolis by the tyrant Aristodemus, and he left behind a pregnant wife. When a male child was born, Leonidas son of Cleonymus held the guardianship, and then, when the child died before reaching manhood, the kingship passed around to him, though he was not at all well suited to the citizens.
For although the whole citizen body had by now sunk gradually into corruption, there was in Leonidas a conspicuous departure from his ancestors' ways, since he had spent a long time rolling about in satrapal courts and had paid court to Seleucus, and then transferred the pomp of that world into Greek affairs and a lawful rule, without doing it gracefully.
But Agis so far surpassed in natural gifts and loftiness of spirit not only this man but nearly all who had reigned as kings since Agesilaus the Great, that although not yet twenty years old, and reared in the wealth and luxury of women—Agesistrata his mother and Archidamia his grandmother, women whose fortunes exceeded those of any other Lacedaemonian—he at once steeled himself against pleasures, and stripped off from his body the very adornment of grace that seemed to suit his beauty best, casting off and escaping all extravagance, took pride instead in the plain cloak, and sought out Laconian dinners, baths, and ways of life, and said that he had no need of the kingship at all, except insofar as through it he might restore the laws and the ancestral discipline.
The beginning, then, of the corruption and disease that afflicted the affairs of the Lacedaemonians came about virtually from the time when, after overthrowing the empire of the Athenians, they filled themselves with gold and silver. Yet still, so long as the number of households which Lycurgus had fixed was preserved through the successions, and a father left his portion to his child, this order and equality, somehow surviving, kept the city clear of its other faults.
But a certain powerful man who had served as ephor, headstrong and harsh in character, named Epitadeus, when a quarrel arose with his son, drafted a decree allowing a man to give his house and his portion of land to whomever he wished, whether as a gift while living or by testament at death.
This man, then, introduced the law to satisfy some private anger of his own; but the rest accepted and ratified it out of greed, and so destroyed the best of institutions. For the powerful now acquired without restraint, thrusting aside the rightful heirs from the successions, and quickly, as wealth flowed together into the hands of a few, poverty took hold of the city, bringing with it a want of leisure for noble pursuits and an illiberal meanness, together with envy and hostility toward those who had property,
so that there were left no more than seven hundred Spartiates, and of these perhaps a hundred were men who possessed land and an allotment; while the rest of the crowd sat idle in the city, without means and without honor, defending themselves against wars from abroad sluggishly and without enthusiasm, but always watching for some opportunity to change and overturn the present state of affairs,
For these reasons Agis, considering it a noble thing, as indeed it was, to level and fill up the city again, made trial of the people. The young men, then, quickly and beyond expectation gave heed to him, and stripped for the contest of virtue together with him, exchanging their manner of life, as one exchanges a garment, for the sake of freedom,
yet among the elder men, corrupted by now to a deep degree, the majority, as though being led back to a master from whom they had run away, feared and trembled at the name of Lycurgus, and found fault with Agis for lamenting the present state of affairs and longing for the old dignity of Sparta. Lysander son of Libys, and Mandrocleidas son of Ecphanes, and further Agesilaus, welcomed and urged on his ambition.
Lysander was foremost among the citizens in reputation; Mandrocleidas was the cleverest of the Greeks at putting affairs together, having this shrewdness and craft mixed with boldness; Agesilaus, who was the king's uncle and a capable speaker, but otherwise soft and fond of money, was openly stirred up and emboldened by his son Hippomedon, a man of good repute from many wars and possessing great influence through the goodwill of the young men:
but the true cause that persuaded Agesilaus to take part in what was being done was the multitude of his debts, from which he hoped to be freed by a change in the constitution. As soon as Agis had won this man over, he immediately set about persuading, along with him, his mother, who was Agesilaus's sister, and who, through the great number of her clients, friends, and debtors, had great power in the city and managed much of the public business.
She, on hearing it, was at first astonished and tried to stop the young man, thinking he was reaching for something neither possible nor advantageous; but when Agesilaus explained that it would turn out well and be brought about to their advantage, and the king himself begged his mother to give up her wealth for his glory and ambition, saying that in money he could not
be made equal to the other kings—for the servants and slaves of satraps, the stewards of Ptolemy and Seleucus, held riches greater than every Spartan king combined—but that if in self-control, simplicity, and greatness of soul he should surpass their luxuries, and establish equality and fellowship among the citizens, he would win the name and reputation of a truly great king—so the women's minds were changed, lifted up by the young man's ambition, and they were seized by something like an inspiration toward the good,
so that they urged Agis on and hastened him further, and summoning their friends they conversed with them and with the other women as well, knowing that the Lacedaemonians were always obedient to their women, and allowed them to meddle more in public affairs than they themselves did in their own. But in that era the greater part of Laconian riches rested with the women, a fact that rendered the undertaking difficult and troublesome for Agis.
For the women resisted, not only because they were being cast out of the luxury that, through poor taste, was accounted happiness, but also because they saw being cut away the honor and power which they reaped from being wealthy. And turning to Leonidas, they urged him, as the elder, to check Agis and hinder what was being done.
Leonidas wished, then, to help the rich, but fearing the people, who desired the change, he did not openly oppose it; instead he sought secretly to sabotage and undermine the undertaking, meeting with the magistrates and slandering Agis, saying that he was offering the property of the rich as a reward to the poor in payment for a tyranny, and that by distributions of land and cancellations of debts he was buying himself many bodyguards, not citizens for Sparta.
Nevertheless, Agis, having managed to get Lysander made ephor, straightway introduced through him a rhetra before the elders, the chief points of which were that debts should be cancelled, and that the land should be redistributed: the portion from the ravine at Pellene toward Taygetus and Malea and Selasia to be made into four thousand five hundred lots, and that outside it into fifteen thousand:
and this latter to be divided among the perioikoi who were able to bear arms, and the inner portion among the Spartiates themselves; and their number to be filled up from perioikoi and foreigners, as many as had shared a free upbringing, were physically attractive, and stood at the height of their bodily prime; and that they were to be arranged into fifteen dining-messes of four hundred and two hundred members, and should live the manner of life their ancestors had lived.
When the rhetra had been drawn up, and the elders were not agreed among themselves in their opinions, Lysander called an assembly and himself addressed the citizens, and Mandrocleidas and Agesilaus begged them not to allow, for the sake of a few living luxuriously, the dignity of Sparta to lie cast down, but to remember the oracles of old, which enjoined them to guard against love of money as ruinous to Sparta, and also the oracle recently brought to them from Pasiphae.
There was a shrine and oracle of Pasiphae at Thalamae held in honor, which some accounts hold to be one among the daughters of Atlas, she who bore Ammon to Zeus, while others say it was Cassandra the daughter of Priam, who died there, and because she reveals her oracles to all was called Pasiphae. But Phylarchus says she was the daughter of Amyclas, named Daphne, who, fleeing from Apollo who wished to lie with her, was changed into the plant, and so came into honor with the god and received the power of prophecy.
They said, then, that the oracles from her too commanded the Spartans to become all equal, according to the law which Lycurgus had established from the beginning. And after all this King Agis, coming forward into their midst and speaking briefly, said that he was contributing to the constitution he was establishing the greatest of contributions: for he was first putting into the common stock his own property, which was great both in cultivated and pasture lands, and besides these he held six hundred talents of coined money; and that his mother and his friends and relatives, who were the richest of the Spartans, were doing the same.
Now the people were amazed at the young man's greatness of soul, and were overjoyed that after nearly two hundred years a king worthy of Sparta had appeared; but Leonidas at that point set himself in the strongest opposition. For, reckoning that he too would be compelled to do the same things, yet would not receive the same gratitude from the citizens, but that, since all alike were putting down what they possessed, they would attribute the honor solely to the one who had begun it, he asked Agis whether he considered Lycurgus to have been a just and worthy man.
When Agis agreed, Leonidas said, "Where then did Lycurgus ever grant cancellations of debts, or enroll foreigners into the citizen body, he who did not even consider the city healthy unless it practiced the expulsion of foreigners?" Agis replied that he was not surprised that Leonidas, having been raised abroad and having had children by a marriage with a satrap's family, was ignorant of Lycurgus — namely, that Lycurgus banished owing and lending from the city together with coined money,
but of the foreigners in the cities he was more displeased with those unsuited by their pursuits and manner of life; for he drove those out, warring not against their persons, but fearing their ways of living and their characters, lest by mingling with the citizens they should implant in them a taste for luxury and softness and greed; since Terpander and Thales and Pherecydes, though foreigners, because they continued doing the same things as Lycurgus in their songs and their philosophy, were held in special honor at Sparta.
"But you," he said, "praise Ecprepes, who as ephor took an axe and cut out two of the nine strings of Phrynis the musician, and those who did this same thing again to Timotheus, yet you blame us for removing luxury and extravagance and pretension from Sparta — as if it were not the very same guarding against the showy and excessive in music, so that it should not advance further here, where when excess and discord of living and manners come to be, they make the city out of tune and out of harmony with itself."
After this the multitude followed Agis, but the rich kept urging Leonidas not to abandon them, and by beseeching and persuading the elders, in whose hands lay the power over the preliminary decree, they prevailed so far that those voting against the rhetra were more numerous by just one.
But Lysander, still holding his office, set out to prosecute Leonidas under a certain ancient law, which does not allow a Heraclid to father children by a foreign woman, and orders one who has left Sparta to settle among others to be put to death — having instructed others to bring these charges against Leonidas, while he himself, together with his fellow officials, kept watch for the sign.
It is of this sort: once every nine years the ephors, choosing a clear and moonless night, sit in silence gazing up at the sky. If then a star shoots across from one region to another, they judge the kings to have sinned against the divine, and suspend them from office, until an oracle comes from Delphi or Olympia to help the king thus caught.
Lysander now declared that this sign had appeared to him, and brought Leonidas to trial, producing witnesses that he had begotten two children by an Asiatic wife, whom he had taken to live with him when he was in the service of a certain Seleucus, and, being disliked and hated by his wife, had returned home against her will, and had taken up the kingship though without proper succession.
At the same time as the trial he was persuading Cleombrotus, who was son-in-law of Leonidas and of the royal line, to lay claim to the kingship. Leonidas, therefore, in fear, became a suppliant of the goddess of the Bronze House, and his daughter joined him as a suppliant, leaving Cleombrotus. And when he was summoned to trial and did not come down, they voted him out and handed the kingship over to Cleombrotus.
Meanwhile Lysander's term of office expired with the passing of time. The ephors who were then installed raised up Leonidas from his supplication, and brought a suit against Lysander and Mandrocleidas for having proposed, contrary to law, the cancellation of debts and the redistribution of land.
Being in danger, therefore, they persuaded the kings, coming together, to let the resolutions of the ephors stand aside; for this office, they argued, had its power from disagreement between the kings, the vote being added to whichever spoke the better course whenever the one contended against the other's advantage; but when both were resolved on the same thing, the authority was without force, and it was unlawful for them to contend against the kings, whose proper function it was, when the kings were in dispute, to arbitrate and give judgment between them, not to meddle when they were of one mind.
Persuaded thus, both kings went down into the market-place together with their friends, and lifted the ephors bodily out of their chairs, putting new men in their positions, one of whom was Agesilaus; and arming many of the young men, and releasing those who had been imprisoned, they became fearsome to their opponents, as though they would put many to death.
But no one was killed by them; rather, when Agesilaus wished to destroy Leonidas as he was withdrawing to Tegea, and sent men to waylay him on the road, Agis, learning of it, sent other trusted men, who surrounded Leonidas and brought him safely into Tegea.
So while the enterprise was proceeding on its way for them, with no one opposing or hindering, one man, Agesilaus, overturned everything and ruined it, corrupting the noblest and most truly Laconian design with the most shameful of diseases, love of wealth.
For since he possessed, among the largest holdings, much good land, but owed a very great deal, and was able neither to pay off his debts nor willing to give up the land, he persuaded Agis that if both measures were carried out together there would be great upheaval in the city, but that if the propertied men were first won over by the cancellation of debts, they would afterward easily and quietly accept the redistribution.
Lysander's circle too thought this good, being themselves deceived along with the rest by Agesilaus, and they gathered together into the market-place the bonds of the debtors, which they call *klaria*, and, piling them all together, burned them. And when the flame rose up, the rich and the money-lenders went away in great distress, but Agesilaus, as if mocking them, said he had never seen a brighter light nor a purer fire than that one.
When the multitude demanded that the land be divided at once, and the kings ordered it be done so, Agesilaus, forever throwing in some occupation or other and citing pretexts, kept delaying the time, until a military expedition fell to Agis, the Achaeans, who were allies, sending for aid from Lacedaemon. For the Aetolians were expected to invade the Peloponnese through Megarian territory, and Aratus, general of the Achaeans, was gathering a force to prevent this and wrote to the ephors.
They at once sent Agis out, elated by the eagerness and enthusiasm of those campaigning with him; for most of them were young men and poor, and, having already gained relief from their debts and being freed of them, and hoping for the fields, if they returned from the campaign, to be distributed to them, they showed themselves marvelous in Agis' service:
and the cities gazed on them as a spectacle while they made their way across the Peloponnese, doing no injury, mild in bearing, moving in near silence, so that the Greeks marveled and reasoned among themselves what sort of order there must have been in a Laconian army when Agesilaus or that famous Lysander or Leonidas of old commanded it, seeing that toward a mere youth, nearly the youngest of them all, there was such reverence and fear among those campaigning with him.
And indeed the young man himself, priding himself on his frugality and diligence, and on being dressed and armed no more splendidly than a common man, was a sight worth seeing and was admired by the multitude; though the wealthy were not pleased by his revolutionary program, fearing it might become an example and a stirring for the common people everywhere.
When Agis joined Aratus near Corinth, who was still deliberating about battle and formation against the enemy, he displayed much eagerness and a boldness that was neither reckless nor unreasoning. For he said that it seemed to him best to fight it out and not let the war pass within, having abandoned the gates of the Peloponnese, but that he would do whatever seemed best to Aratus; for Aratus was older and was general of the Achaeans, whom he had come not to command or lead, but to campaign alongside and to help.
Baton of Sinope says that Agis was unwilling to fight when Aratus ordered it, but he has not read what Aratus himself wrote about these matters in his own defense — that he considered it better, since the farmers had already gathered in nearly all their crops, to let the enemy pass by rather than risk everything in a battle.
When, then, Aratus decided against fighting and dismissed the allies with thanks, Agis, having won admiration, broke camp and returned home, at a time when those within Sparta were already in great turmoil and upheaval.
For Agesilaus, holding the office of ephor, freed from the humble state he had formerly been in, spared no man who could bring in money, however wrong the charge; but though the reckoning did not yet demand it, he inserted a thirteenth month into the tax year, contrary to the established order of the seasons, and levied taxes on it—and, fearing those he wronged and hated by everyone, he kept sword-bearing bodyguards, and went down to his office under their protection.
Of the two kings, he wished one to be altogether despised, and the other, Agis, to be held in some honor because of kinship rather than because of his kingship. He also spread word that he intended to serve as ephor again. So his enemies, taking the risk more quickly, banded together and openly brought Leonidas back from Tegea to his office, and most people watched this gladly too—for they were angry at having been deceived, since the land had not been redistributed.
As for Agesilaus, his son Hippomedon, entreating the citizens and beloved by all for his manly courage, got him away and kept him safe. Of the two kings, Agis took flight and sought sanctuary at the temple of Athena Chalcioecus, while Cleombrotus went to the sanctuary of Poseidon and sat as a suppliant—for Leonidas seemed to be harsher toward him. Passing over Agis, Leonidas went up against Cleombrotus with soldiers and accused him angrily, since he had schemed against him despite being married to his daughter, taken away his kingship, and joined in driving him from his homeland.
Cleombrotus had nothing to say, but sat there at a loss and in silence. But Chilonis, the daughter of Leonidas, who had earlier shared in her father's suffering when he was wronged, and who, when Cleombrotus took the kingship, had left him to tend her father's misfortune—being present with him as a suppliant while he was there, and while he was in exile grieving and remaining harshly disposed toward Cleombrotus—now, in turn, changing with the shift of fortune, could be seen seated beside her husband as a suppliant, her arms wrapped around him, and her children, one on this side and one on that, kept close beneath her,
and as everyone marveled and wept at the woman's goodness and affection, touching her robes and her hair, which were unkempt, she said, "Father, this dress and this appearance of mine were not put upon me by pity for Cleombrotus; rather, ever since your misfortunes and your exile, this mourning has stayed with me as a companion and housemate. So must I now live out my life amid these misfortunes while you reign in Sparta and are victorious, or must I take up bright royal clothing, while through you I watch the husband of my youth being murdered?
If he does not win your pardon, and is not persuaded by the tears of his children and his wife, he will pay a harsher penalty for his ill counsel than you intend, once he has seen me, who am dearest to him, die before him. For with what boldness ought I to live before other women, I who find pity neither from a husband nor from a father? No—I was born to be both a woman and a daughter who shares in misfortune and dishonor along with my own.
As for him, even if he had some plausible argument, I stripped it away when I took my stand alongside you then and testified against what he had done. But you are making his wrongdoing easy to excuse, by showing that kingship is so great a prize and so much worth contending over that killing a son-in-law for it counts as justified and to neglect one's children."
Such were Chilonis's pleas; and she laid her face upon Cleombrotus's head, and turned her gaze, ruined and wasted by grief, upon those present. Leonidas, after conferring with his friends, ordered Cleombrotus to rise and go into exile, yet asked his daughter to stay and not forsake him, so great was his fondness for her and had granted her, as a favor, the safety of her husband.
Yet she was not persuaded, but as her husband rose she put one of the children into his arms, took up the other herself, and, after bowing before the altar of the god, went out with him—so that, had Cleombrotus not been utterly corrupted by empty ambition, he would have counted his exile from the kingship a greater blessing, because of his wife. Having removed Cleombrotus and cast the first ephors from office, putting others in their place, Leonidas at once began plotting against Agis.
First he tried to persuade him to rise from sanctuary and share the kingship with him, on the ground that the citizens had granted pardon—for he had been deceived by Agesilaus, being young and ambitious. But since Agis remained wary and stayed where he was, Leonidas himself gave up his deceiving and dissembling; but Amphares, Damochares, and Arcesilaus, going up regularly, used to converse with him, and once even took him along down from the sanctuary to bathe, and after he had bathed brought him back up into the sanctuary again,
and all were on familiar terms with him. But Amphares, who had recently borrowed expensive garments and cups from Agesistrata, for this reason plotted against the king and the women, meaning to keep the goods for himself. And it is said that he above all listened to Leonidas and incited the ephors, of whom he himself was one.
Since Agis remained in the sanctuary for most of each day, though he customarily went down to bathe when the occasion arose, they resolved to seize him there, once he was outside the sanctuary. So, watching for their moment, they met him after he had bathed and greeted him, and walked along together conversing and joking as with a familiar young friend.
There was a turn off the road leading sideways to the prison, and when they came to it as they walked, Amphares, because he held office, laid hold of Agis and said, "I am taking you, Agis, before the ephors, to give account of your public conduct." And Damochares, who was strong and tall, threw his cloak around his neck and dragged him.
Others, as arranged, pushed him from behind, and since no one came to help—with no one nearby to help him, they shoved him into the prison. Leonidas showed up immediately with many mercenaries and surrounded the building from outside, while the ephors went in to Agis, and after summoning into the building those of the elders who shared their purpose, as though a trial were actually taking place, ordered him to defend himself concerning what he had done.
When the young man laughed at their pretense, Amphares told him he would soon be groaning and would pay the penalty for his insolence. Another of the ephors, as though granting Agis some concession and showing him a way to escape the charge, asked whether he had done these things under compulsion from Lysander and Agesilaus.
When Agis answered that he had been compelled by no one, but had, in emulation and imitation of Lycurgus, come to the same form of government, the same man asked again whether he now repented of what he had done. When the young man said he did not repent of policies so nobly conceived, even though he saw himself about to suffer the ultimate penalty, they voted him guilty of death, and ordered the officers to take him to the place called the Dechas.
This chamber of the prison was the place where condemned men were strangled to death. Seeing that the officers did not dare lay hands on Agis, and likewise that the mercenaries standing by turned away and shrank from the deed, thinking it neither lawful nor customary to lay hands upon the body of a king, Damochares, with threats and abuse toward them, himself dragged Agis into the chamber.
For by now many had learned of the arrest, and there was an uproar at the doors and many torches, and Agis's mother and grandmother were present, crying out and pleading that the Spartan king be granted a public hearing and trial before the assembled citizens. For this very reason they hastened his execution all the more, fearing he might be snatched away by night if more people came to his aid.
So Agis, being led to the noose, when he saw one of the officers weeping and overcome with pity, said, "Stop weeping for me, man; for even though I am perishing thus unlawfully and unjustly, I am better than those who are killing me." And having said this, he willingly gave his neck to the noose,
while Amphares, going out to the doors, and raising up Agesistrata, who fell before him out of long acquaintance and friendship, said that nothing violent or irreparable would happen to Agis, and told her that she might go in to her son if she wished. And when she asked that her mother might come in with her, Amphares replied that nothing stood in the way of it;
and having received both of them, and having ordered the doors of the prison shut again, he first handed over Archidamia, who was already very old and had grown old in the greatest esteem among the women of the city; and when she was dead, he ordered Agesistrata to go inside.
When she entered and saw her son lying on the ground and her mother hanging dead from the noose, she herself, with the help of the officers, took down the body, and having laid it out beside Agis, covered and wrapped it; then throwing herself over her son and pressing kisses on his face, she spoke these words, "Your great caution, my child, and your gentleness and kindness toward men, have destroyed you along with us."
Amphares, watching from the door what was happening and hearing what was said, came in and said to Agesistrata in anger, "Since you approved the same things as your son, you shall suffer the same fate too." And Agesistrata, rising toward the noose, said only, "May this at least turn out well for Sparta."
When word of the disaster reached the city and the three corpses were brought forth, the fear was not so great but that the citizens were plainly seen grieving over what had happened, and hating Leonidas and Amphares, thinking that no deed more dreadful or impious had occurred at Sparta since the Dorians settled in the Peloponnese.
For it seems that not even enemies, meeting a king of the Lacedaemonians easily in battle, would readily lay hands on him, but turned aside, in fear and reverence for his dignity; wherefore, though the Lacedaemonians fought many contests against the Greeks, only one king was ever killed—Cleombrotus, struck by a spear at Leuctra, before the time of Philip. And though the Messenians say that Theopompus too fell at the hand of Aristomenes, the Lacedaemonians deny it,
saying he was only wounded—but this matter admits of some dispute. In Lacedaemon, however, Agis became the first reigning king whom the ephors condemned to death—a man who had chosen noble deeds befitting Sparta, at an age at which men who err still find pardon, and blamed by his friends more justly than by his enemies, because he had spared Leonidas and trusted the others, having become the gentlest and mildest of men.