Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
When he died, Leonidas did not manage to arrest his brother Archidamus, who fled at once, but he dragged the man's wife from the house by force, though she had a newborn child, and married her to his own son Cleomenes, though the boy was not yet quite of marrying age—simply because he did not want the woman given to anyone else. For Agiatis, daughter of Gylippus, was heiress to a great estate, and in beauty and bloom far surpassed the women of Greece, and was besides of a reasonable character. That is why, as they say, she did a great deal
in her pleas not to be forced into it, but once she was joined to Cleomenes, she came to hate Leonidas, while toward the young man himself she proved a good and affectionate wife. He, for his part, had fallen passionately in love with her from the moment he took her, and in a way shared her feeling for Agis and her memory of him as her former husband, so that he often asked her about what had happened and listened carefully as she told him of the purpose and character that Agis had had.
Cleomenes himself was ambitious and high-minded, and by nature no less inclined than Agis toward self-control and simplicity of life, but he lacked that excessive caution and gentleness; instead a kind of goad of spiritedness was fixed in his nature, together with a vehement impulse toward whatever appeared to him at any time to be noble. It seemed to him noblest of all to rule over willing subjects, but it was also noble, when men would not obey, to force them by compulsion toward what was better.
He was displeased, then, with the state of affairs in the city—the citizens bewitched by idleness and pleasure, and the king letting everything go its own way so long as no one troubled him in his desire for abundant leisure and self-indulgence, while public affairs were neglected and each man dragged what profit he could toward his own household; and since the events surrounding Agis had come to ruin, it was not even safe to mention the training of the young, endurance, and equality.
It is said that Cleomenes also had a share in philosophical discourse while still a lad, when Sphaerus of Borysthenes came to Lacedaemon and spent no little care on the young men and the ephebes. Sphaerus had been among the foremost pupils of Zeno of Citium, and it seems he came to admire the manly quality in Cleomenes' nature and to kindle further his ambition,
for they say that the elder Leonidas, when asked what sort of poet Tyrtaeus seemed to him to be, said, "Good at inflaming the souls of the young." For filled with a kind of enthusiasm from his poems, men would spare themselves nothing in battle. Now the Stoic doctrine carries something perilous and hazardous for great and keen natures, but when it is blended with a deep and gentle character it contributes most of all toward that character's own proper good.
When, upon the death of Leonidas, he took over the kingship and saw the citizens by then altogether unstrung—the rich looking past the common good toward their own private pleasures and gains, and the many, because their own affairs were going badly, grown reluctant for war and without ambition for the traditional discipline, while he himself was king in name only and all authority lay with the ephors—
he set his mind at once on shifting and stirring up the present state of things. He had a friend, Xenares, who had been his lover (this the Lacedaemonians call "being inspired"), and he sounded him out, asking repeatedly what sort of king Agis had been, and by what manner and with whose help he had set out on that course. Xenares at first recalled those events without displeasure, telling the story of how each thing had been done in detail,
but when it became plain that Cleomenes was attending with too much feeling, stirred to an extraordinary degree by Agis's revolutionary policy, and wanting to hear the same things told again and again, Xenares grew angry and rebuked him as being unsound of mind, and in the end broke off talking with him and visiting him, though he told no one the reason for the falling-out, only saying that Cleomenes himself knew it.
With Xenares thus turned against him, and supposing the others felt the same way, Cleomenes worked out the undertaking by himself. And thinking he would be better able to change the present state of things in war than in peace, he brought the city into collision with the Achaeans, who themselves gave him grounds for complaint. For Aratus, who held the greatest power among the Achaeans, had wished from the start to bring the Peloponnesians into a single confederation, and this was the aim of his many generalships and his long political career, since he believed that only in this way would they be unassailable by enemies from outside.
Since almost all the others had by now joined him, and only the Lacedaemonians, the Eleans, and such Arcadians as adhered to the Lacedaemonians were left out, as soon as Leonidas died he began harassing the Arcadians and cutting away especially those of them bordering on the Achaeans, testing the Lacedaemonians and despising Cleomenes as young and inexperienced.
After this the ephors first sent Cleomenes to seize the Athenaeum near Belbina, a place that is an entry-point into Laconia and was at that time in dispute with the Megalopolitans. When Cleomenes had seized it and fortified it, Aratus made no complaint but marched out by night and made an attempt on Tegea and Orchomenus.
But since the traitors lost their nerve, Aratus withdrew, thinking his move had gone unnoticed; Cleomenes, however, using irony, wrote to him, asking as if in friendly curiosity where he had gone off to that night. When Aratus wrote back that he had heard Cleomenes was about to fortify Belbina and had gone down to prevent it, Cleomenes wrote again saying he was persuaded this was so, but added: "the torches, though, and the ladders—if it makes no difference to you—write and tell me what they were following you for."
When Aratus laughed at the jibe and asked what sort of young man this was, Damocrates the Lacedaemonian exile said, "If you are up to anything against the Lacedaemonians, it is time for you to make haste, before this chick grows its spurs." After this, while Cleomenes was encamped in Arcadia with a few horsemen and three hundred foot, the ephors ordered him to withdraw, fearing the war.
But when, after his withdrawal, Aratus took Caphyae, they sent Cleomenes out again; and when he had taken Methydrium and overrun the Argive territory, the Achaeans took the field with twenty thousand foot and a thousand horse, under the generalship of Aristomachus. Cleomenes met them near Pallantium and was eager to fight,
but Aratus, fearing his boldness, would not let the general risk battle, and withdrew, reviled by the Achaeans and mocked and despised by the Lacedaemonians, who numbered not even five thousand. Cleomenes, then, grown great in confidence, began speaking boldly to his fellow citizens, and reminded them of one of the old kings who had said, not without reason, that the Lacedaemonians ask not how many the enemy are, but where they are.
When he went to help the Eleans, who were being attacked by the Achaeans, and fell upon the Achaeans as they were already withdrawing near Mount Lycaeum, he routed their whole army utterly and threw it into panic, killed many, and took many alive, so that a rumor even spread among the Greeks that Aratus was dead. Aratus, making the best possible use of the occasion, went straight from that rout to Mantinea and, when no one expected it, took the city and held it,
and when the Lacedaemonians had entirely lost heart and were resisting Cleomenes' calls for further campaigns, he set out to summon Archidamus, Agis's brother, from Messene, to whom the kingship belonged by right from the other royal house, thinking that the ephors' power would be blunted once the kingship became balanced and whole again,
but those who had earlier put Agis to death, perceiving this and fearing they would pay the penalty once Archidamus returned, received him into the city when he arrived secretly and helped bring him in, but killed him at once—whether against Cleomenes' will, as Phylarchus supposes, or because he had been persuaded by his friends and had given the man up to them. For most of the blame for this fell on those who were thought to have coerced Cleomenes into it.
Nevertheless, being resolved from the start to alter the state of the city, he persuaded the ephors with money to vote him a campaign. He also won over many others through his mother Cratesicleia, who spent lavishly and shared eagerly in his ambition—she who, though she had no need of marriage, is said for her son's sake to have taken a husband who ranked first among the citizens in reputation and power,
Leading out the army, he seized Leuctra, in the territory of Megalopolis; and when the Achaeans came swiftly to its aid under the generalship of Aratus, and battle was joined under the city itself, he was defeated in part of his force. But when Aratus would not let the Achaeans cross a deep ravine,
and called off the pursuit, Lydiadas the Megalopolitan, indignant, charged forward with the horsemen about him, and in the pursuit rushed into ground full of vineyards, ditches, and walls, and was scattered and badly mauled among them. Cleomenes, seeing this, sent the Tarentines and Cretans against him, and Lydiadas, defending himself vigorously, fell beneath them. Emboldened by this, the Lacedaemonians charged the Achaeans with a shout and routed the whole army.
Many having fallen, Cleomenes gave back the rest under truce, but ordered Lydiadas's body brought to him, and after dressing it in a purple robe and setting a crown on it, sent it to the gates of the Megalopolitans. This was the Lydiadas who had laid down his tyranny, restored freedom to his citizens, and brought the city over to the Achaeans.
After this Cleomenes, now grown high in confidence and persuaded that if he handled affairs as he wished and made war on the Achaeans he would easily prevail, instructed his mother's husband Megistonous that they must be rid of the ephors, put all property in common among the citizens, and, once Sparta was made equal, raise her up and lead her forward to the leadership of Greece. Megistonous, once persuaded, brought in two or three more of his friends.
It happened around those days that one of the ephors, sleeping in the shrine of Pasiphae, saw a marvelous dream: it seemed to him that in the place where the ephors are accustomed to sit and give judgment, only one chair remained standing, and the other four had been taken away, and as he marveled a voice came from the sanctuary declaring that this was better for Sparta.
When the ephor described this vision to Cleomenes, at first he was disturbed, suspecting that he was being tested in some way, but when he was convinced that the man telling it was not lying, he took courage. And taking with him those citizens he most suspected would oppose the undertaking, he captured Heraea and Alsaea, cities aligned under the Achaeans, brought in grain for the Orchomenians, and encamped before Mantinea,
and altogether, wearing out the Lacedaemonians up and down with long marches, he left the greater part of them, at their own request, in Arcadia, and himself, keeping the mercenaries, made for Sparta. And along the way he shared his intention with those he trusted most to be well disposed toward him, and advanced at a measured pace, so as to fall upon the ephors while they were at their supper.
As Cleomenes drew close to the city, he dispatched Euryclidas ahead to the mess where the ephors dined together, on the pretense that he carried word from the army on Cleomenes' behalf, while Therycion, Phoebis, and a pair of Cleomenes' foster-brothers (those the Spartans term mothakes) trailed behind with a handful of soldiers. While Euryclidas kept the ephors occupied in conversation, this group burst in, swords bared, and cut them down.
The first, Agylaeus, when he was struck, fell and, thought to be dead, quietly gathered himself and dragged himself out of the building, unnoticed, and crept into a small chamber, a shrine of Phobos which was otherwise always kept locked but happened by chance to be open at that time. Bringing himself into it he shut the little door. The other four were killed, and of those coming to their aid no more than ten. For they did not kill those who kept quiet, nor did they hinder those leaving the city. They spared Agylaeus too, when by day he came out of the shrine.
The Lacedaemonians have shrines not only of Phobos (Fear) but also of Thanatos (Death) and Gelos (Laughter) and other such experiences. They honor Phobos not as they do those spirits they avert, thinking them harmful, but because they believe their whole civic order is held together above all by fear.
That is why, as Aristotle says, the ephors on entering office would proclaim to the citizens to shave their moustaches and obey the laws, so that the laws might not be harsh toward them—putting forward the matter of the moustache, I think, as a way of accustoming the young to obedience even in the smallest things.
And courage itself, it seems to me, the ancients considered not fearlessness, but rather fear of blame and dread of disgrace. For the most cowardly toward the laws are the boldest toward the enemy, and those who fear most to be spoken of ill are least afraid of suffering. Hence the poet was right who said:
"For where there is dread, there also is reverence." And Homer: "You are reverend to me, dear father-in-law, and terrible"; and "fearing their commanders, in silence." For it happens that men feel shame most before those whom the many also fear; that is why the Lacedaemonians set up the shrine of Phobos right beside the common mess of the ephors, having made that office nearest of all to a monarchy.
Cleomenes, then, when day came, posted the names of eighty citizens who had to leave the country, and took away the chairs used by the ephors, keeping only a single one in place, meaning to occupy it himself for conducting business. He called an assembly and defended what he had done, saying that Lycurgus had joined elders to the kings, and that for a long time the city had been governed in this way, needing no other office;
but later, when the war against the Messenians dragged on, the kings, being too occupied with their campaigns for judging cases, picked out several friends and installed them as substitutes to handle matters for the citizens, officials known as ephors, and that these continued at first to be servants of the kings, but then little by little turned the power to themselves, so that without anyone noticing they had built up an office of their own.
A sign of this is that even to this day, when the ephors summon the king, he refuses the first and second time, and only on the third summons rises and goes to them; and the first man to make the office formidable and to stretch it out, Asteropus, became ephor many generations later. Now, he said, if they had kept to moderation it would have been better to put up with them, but since by usurped power they were overturning the ancestral rule — so that of the kings some they drove out, others they killed without trial, and they threatened those who longed to see again the fairest and most divine constitution at Sparta — this was not to be endured.
If, then, it had been possible to rid Lacedaemon of the imported plagues without bloodshed — luxuries and extravagances and debts and loans, and the still older evils of poverty and wealth — he would have considered himself the most fortunate of all kings, having healed his country painlessly like a physician; but as it was, he had the excuse of necessity, the same necessity Lycurgus had, who held no royal title or public office, a mere private citizen acting the part of a king, came forward into the marketplace under arms, so that King Charillus in fear fled to an altar.
But that king, being good and a lover of his country, quickly took part in what Lycurgus was doing and accepted the change of constitution; and by his action Lycurgus bore witness that it is difficult to change a constitution without violence and fear — means which he himself said he had used most moderately, putting out of the way those who stood in the way of Lacedaemon's salvation.
As for everything else, he said, he was putting all the land into a common fund, freeing debtors from their debts, and instituting a scrutiny and examination of the foreigners, so that those who proved the best might become Spartiates and save the city by arms, and so that we might stop watching Laconia be plundered by the Aetolians and Illyrians for want of defenders.
After this, first he himself put his property into the common fund, and Megistonous his stepfather and each of his other friends did likewise, and then all the rest of the citizens too, and the land was distributed. He also assigned a portion to each of the exiles created by his own action, and promised to bring all of them back once matters were settled in peace.
Having filled out the citizen body with the most suitable of the perioikoi, he made four thousand hoplites, and having taught them to use the sarissa with both hands instead of the spear, and to carry the shield by a strap rather than by an armband, he turned to the education of the young and to the so-called agoge, most of which Sphaerus, being present, helped him set up; and quickly the proper order of the gymnasia and the common messes was restored, with a few submitting under compulsion but most voluntarily accepting that frugal and Laconian way of life.
Yet, to soften the name of sole rule, he appointed his brother Eucleidas as king along with himself; and that was the only time it happened to the Spartiates to have two kings from one house.
Perceiving that the Achaeans and Aratus, because their affairs stood precariously on account of the revolution, would not think he would go outside Lacedaemon nor leave the city exposed in so great an upheaval, he thought it neither ignoble nor useless to display the army's eagerness to the enemy.
So invading the territory of Megalopolis, he gathered great spoils and inflicted much destruction on the land; and finally, catching the performers of Dionysus passing through from Messene, and setting up a theater in enemy territory, and offering a prize of forty minae for a contest, he sat and watched for a single day — not because he needed the show, but as it were reveling over the enemy, and displaying a certain superabundance of mastery through his contempt for them.
For otherwise, of all Greek and royal armies, his alone had no mimes following it, no jugglers, no dancing-girls, no harp-girls, but was pure of all licentiousness and buffoonery and festivity, the young men mostly training and the older men teaching, and their recreations, whenever they had leisure, being conducted among themselves with their customary wit and with saying something graceful and Laconic; what benefit this kind of play brings has been written in the Life of Lycurgus.
Of all this he himself became the teacher, keeping his own life frugal and simple and in no way ostentatious or above the common run, setting it up as a pattern of self-control in the midst of them all — which also gave him a certain leverage over the affairs of Greece. For when people met other kings, they were not so much struck by their wealth and extravagance as they were disgusted by their arrogance and by the harsh and difficult manner in which their pomp treated those who approached them; but going to meet Cleomenes,
seeing him indeed a king and called one, and then seeing no purple robes about him, no cloaks, no elaborate couches and litters, nor being kept waiting with difficulty through a crowd of messengers and doorkeepers or transacting business by written petitions, but himself meeting people in whatever cloak he happened to have, conversing and giving his time cheerfully and kindly to those who needed him — they were charmed and won over, and said that he alone was descended from Heracles.
As for his dinners, his everyday one was in a triclinium, very modest and Laconian; but if he received ambassadors or foreign guests, two more couches were added, and his servants brightened the table a little more, not with any elaborate sauces or pastries, but by making the servings more generous and the wine more liberally poured. Indeed he once rebuked one of his friends when he heard that in entertaining foreign guests the man had served them black broth and barley cake, as was the custom in the common messes; for he said one need not be so strictly Laconic in these matters, even toward foreigners.
When the table was removed, a tripod was brought in holding a bronze mixing-bowl full of wine, and two silver bowls each holding two cotylae, and very few silver cups, from which whoever wished could drink, but no one was forced to take a cup against his will. There was no entertainer, nor was one asked for; for he himself guided the drinking-party with conversation, sometimes asking questions, sometimes telling stories, his seriousness never unpleasant in its talk nor his playfulness ill-bred or crude,
for the kind of hunting after men that the rest of the kings practiced, luring and corrupting them with money and gifts, he considered artless and unjust; but to win over and draw to oneself those one met by pleasing and trustworthy conversation seemed to him the finest thing and the most kingly, on the ground that nothing differs from a hired friend except that the one is caught by character and speech, the other by money.
First, then, the Mantineans invited him in, and when he slipped into the city by night they helped him drive out the Achaean garrison and put themselves in his hands; and he gave them back both their laws and their constitution and departed that very day for Tegea. A little later, going around through Arcadia, he came down against the Achaean city of Pherae, wishing either to force a battle with the Achaeans or to discredit Aratus as running away and abandoning the territory to him. For Hyperbatas was general at the time, but all the power among the Achaeans lay with Aratus.
When the Achaeans went out in full force and camped at Dyme near the Hecatombaeum, Cleomenes came up and it seemed not wise for him to camp in the midst of the hostile city of Dyme and the army of the Achaeans; but boldly challenging the Achaeans he forced them to engage, and defeating them decisively and routing their phalanx, he destroyed many of them in the battle and took many alive as well. He then marched on Langon, expelled the garrison the Achaeans had stationed there, and restored the town to the Eleans.
With the Achaeans so shattered, Aratus, who was accustomed to hold the generalship every other year, renounced the office and declined it, though they called on him and begged him unworthily — as it were in a worse storm of affairs than ever — letting go the rudder to another and giving up his authority. Cleomenes at first seemed to make moderate demands of the Achaean envoys, sending others to bid them hand over the leadership to him, saying he would not otherwise differ with them, but would even at once give back the captives and the places he held,
and when the Achaeans were willing to accept the settlement on these terms and summoned Cleomenes to Lerna, where they were going to hold the assembly, it happened that Cleomenes, after a strenuous journey, took to drinking water at an ill-chosen moment, coughed up a large amount of blood, and could no longer speak. So he sent back to the Achaeans the most distinguished of the captives, and putting off the meeting, withdrew to Lacedaemon.
This ruined the affairs of Greece, which could still, somehow, from its present state, have recovered itself and escaped the insolence and greed of the Macedonians. For Aratus, whether from distrust and fear of Cleomenes, or out of envy at his unexpected good fortune, thinking it a terrible thing that after being first for thirty-three years he should now, as an old man, be brought down by a young man springing up beside him in both reputation and power,
and should take over an office whose affairs had been increased and mastered by another for so long a time — first he tried to force and hinder the Achaeans; but when they would not listen to him, being struck with fear of Cleomenes' boldness, and even thought the demand of the Lacedaemonians just, that the Peloponnese be arranged according to its ancestral form,
he turned to a deed fitting for none of the Greeks, and most shameful for himself and most unworthy of all he had done and stood for in politics — calling in Antigonus against Greece and filling the Peloponnese with Macedonians, whom he himself, as a young man, had driven out of the Peloponnese by freeing the Acrocorinth, and had thereby become suspect and at odds with all the kings; and this same Antigonus he had spoken countless ills of in the memoirs he left behind,
and yet he himself says he suffered much and risked much on behalf of the Athenians, so that the city might be freed of a garrison and of the Macedonians; and then he brought these very Macedonians under arms into his own homeland and hearth, even into the women's quarters; while the man descended from Heracles and reigning as king of the Spartiates, who was tuning the ancestral constitution back again, like a slackened harmony, to that temperate and Dorian law and life of Lycurgus, he did not think worthy to be enrolled as leader of the men of Sicyon and Tritaea,
but fleeing the barley cake and the coarse cloak, and — the most terrible of the charges he brought against Cleomenes — the abolition of wealth and the relief of poverty, he flung himself along with Achaea under the diadem and the purple and the commands of Macedonians and satraps, so that he might not seem to be doing what was ordered by Cleomenes, sacrificing at the Antigoneia and singing paeans, himself garlanded, to a man rotting away from consumption.
But we write this not wishing to accuse Aratus — for in many respects this man proved himself Greek and great — but out of pity for the weakness of human nature, if not even in characters so estimable and so distinguished for virtue can the good be brought forth free of blame.
When the Achaeans came again to Argos for the assembly, and Cleomenes had come down from Tegea, there was great hope among the people that a settlement would be reached. But Aratus, since the greatest matters had already been agreed between him and Antigonus, fearing that Cleomenes, by winning over the crowd or even by force, might accomplish everything, demanded that he take only three hundred hostages and enter alone to meet them, or else come up with his forces to the gymnasium called the Cyllarabium outside the city and confer there.
Hearing this, Cleomenes said he was being wronged; for they ought to have told him this at once, not now, when he had come to their very doors, to distrust and drive him away. He wrote a letter to the Achaeans about this, the bulk of it laying blame on Aratus, while Aratus in turn poured abuse on Cleomenes in front of the assembled crowd; and Cleomenes broke camp in haste and sent a herald to declare war on the Achaeans, not against Argos, but against Aegium instead, according to Aratus's account, in order to steal a march on their preparations.
There had already been unrest among the Achaeans, and the cities were moving toward revolt, the common people hoping for redistribution of land and cancellation of debts, and the leading men in many places being weary of Aratus, and some too being angry at him for bringing Macedonians into the Peloponnese. Emboldened by this, Cleomenes invaded Achaea; and first he took Pellene by a sudden attack and drove out the Achaean garrison there; after that he won over Pheneus and Penteleum.
When the Achaeans, fearing some treachery being carried out in Corinth and Sicyon, sent their cavalry and mercenaries from Argos to guard those places, while they themselves went down to Argos for the Nemean games, Cleomenes, hoping — as indeed happened — that by an unexpected attack he would throw the city, crowded with festival crowds and spectators, into greater confusion, led his army by night against the walls,
and seizing the place called the Aspis above the theater, which was difficult and hard of access, he so terrified the people that no one turned to resist, but they even accepted a garrison, and gave twenty hostages from among the citizens, and became allies of the Lacedaemonians, with him holding the leadership.
This, then, was no small thing for his reputation and power. For not even the ancient kings of the Lacedaemonians, for all their efforts, had been able to win Argos over securely, nor had Pyrrhus, most formidable of generals, who entered and used force, been able to hold the city, but died there, and a great part of his army perished with him.
This is why people marveled at Cleomenes' sharpness and intelligence: even those who had before mocked those who claimed to be imitating Solon and Lycurgus in their cancellation of debts and equalization of property were now completely persuaded that this had been the cause of the change that had come over the Spartans,
for previously they had been in such a humbled and helpless state that when the Aetolians invaded Laconia and carried off fifty thousand slaves, one of the older Spartans is said to have remarked that the enemy had done Laconia a favor by lightening it of its burden.
But a short time later, once they had merely touched their ancestral customs and set foot again on the track of that discipline, they made, as though Lycurgus himself were present and sharing in their civic life, a great display of courage and obedience, recovering for Lacedaemon the leadership of Greece and winning back the Peloponnese.
When Argos had been captured, and immediately after it Cleonae and Phlius had gone over to Cleomenes, Aratus happened to be in Corinth conducting an inquiry into those said to be Laconizing; when news of these events fell upon him he was thrown into confusion, and perceiving that the city was inclining toward Cleomenes and wished to be rid of the Achaeans, he summoned the citizens to the council chamber, but slipped away unnoticed as far as the gate, and there, when his horse was brought up, he mounted and fled to Sicyon.
As the Corinthians raced to Argos to join Cleomenes, Aratus says that all his horses broke down, and that Cleomenes blamed the Corinthians for not seizing him but letting him escape; nevertheless Megistonous came to him on Cleomenes' behalf, asking him to hand over Acrocorinth (for it had an Achaean garrison) and offering a great sum of money; and he answered that he was not master of events, but was rather held fast by events. This is what Aratus himself has written.
Cleomenes, advancing from Argos and winning over the Troezenians, the Epidaurians, and the Hermioneans, came to Corinth and threw a palisade around the citadel, since the Achaeans refused to abandon it; then, summoning Aratus's friends and stewards, he ordered them to take charge of his house and property and keep them safe.
He again sent Tritymallus the Messenian to Aratus, asking that Acrocorinth be guarded jointly by the Achaeans and Lacedaemonians together, and privately promising Aratus double the stipend he was receiving from King Ptolemy; but since Aratus would not comply, but instead sent his son to Antigonus along with the other hostages and persuaded the Achaeans to vote to hand Acrocorinth over to Antigonus, Cleomenes in response invaded and ravaged the territory of Sicyon, and received as a gift, by vote of the Corinthians, the property of Aratus.
When Antigonus with a large force was crossing the Geraneia, Cleomenes did not think it necessary to hold the Isthmus itself, but rather to fortify and guard the Onean hills with a palisade and wall, and by fighting from position to wear down the Macedonians rather than engage a well-drilled phalanx in close combat. By this reasoning he reduced Antigonus to great difficulty.
For Antigonus had neither adequate provisions laid in, nor was it easy to force a passage while Cleomenes sat blocking the way; and when he attempted to slip through by night past Lechaeum, he was driven back and lost some of his soldiers, so that Cleomenes and his men, elated by their success, turned altogether to their dinner in confidence, while Antigonus grew despondent, shut up by necessity into a set of unpromising calculations,
for he was considering breaking camp for the Heraeum and from there ferrying his forces across to Sicyon by ship, a plan that would require a great deal of time and no ordinary preparation. But already toward evening some friends of Aratus arrived by sea from Argos, calling him, since the Argives were defecting from Cleomenes — the man managing the defection being Aristoteles — and he had persuaded the populace without difficulty, since they were angry that Cleomenes had not, as they had hoped, canceled their debts.
So Aratus, taking fifteen hundred soldiers from Antigonus, sailed along the coast to Epidaurus. But Aristoteles did not wait for him; instead, taking the citizens with him, he attacked those guarding the acropolis, and Timoxenus, coming to his aid from Sicyon with the Achaeans, joined him.
Hearing of this about the second watch of the night, Cleomenes sent for Megistonous, and in anger ordered him to go at once to the relief of Argos, for it was he above all who had guaranteed the Argives' loyalty to him, and had prevented the expulsion of the suspect ones; so, having sent Megistonous off with a force of two thousand, Cleomenes remained behind to watch Antigonus in person, and reassured the Corinthians that nothing of great importance had happened at Argos, only some disturbance caused by a few men.
But when Megistonous, having burst into Argos, was killed fighting, and the garrison held out only with difficulty and kept sending frequent messages to Cleomenes, he grew afraid that the enemy, gaining control of Argos and blocking off the passes, might ravage Laconia unopposed and besiege Sparta, left defenseless; so he withdrew his army from Corinth.
And that city he immediately lost, as Antigonus entered and established a garrison; but falling upon Argos at the wall, he attempted to leap in, rallying his forces straight from the march, and having broken open the vaulted passages beneath the Shield he climbed up and joined those inside who were still holding out against the Achaeans, and with the help of some inside who set up ladders he seized ground and cleared the narrow streets of enemies, ordering the Cretans to use their missiles.
But when he saw Antigonus descending from the heights into the plain with his phalanx, and the cavalry already riding at full speed into the city, he gave up hope of prevailing, and gathering all his men safely to himself he withdrew along the wall, having in the shortest time gained mastery over the greatest affairs, and having come within a little of becoming master of nearly the whole Peloponnese in a single circuit, only to fall quickly again from everything — for some of his troops deserted him at once, and others a little later handed their cities over to Antigonus.
While he had been faring thus in the campaign and was leading his forces back, near Tegea in the evening some men arrived from Lacedaemon bringing news of a misfortune no less than the one already at hand: that his wife had died — she for whose sake he had not even endured the most successful of campaigns without constantly coming down to Sparta, so much did he love Agiatis and hold her above all else.
He was struck and grieved, as was natural for a young man bereft of a most beautiful and most virtuous wife; yet he did not disgrace himself, nor did he let the suffering betray his resolve and greatness of soul, but keeping his voice, bearing, and expression in their accustomed character, he gave his commanders their orders and took thought for the safety of the people of Tegea.
At daybreak he went down to Lacedaemon, and having grieved out his mourning at home with his mother and children, he was at once immersed in calculations concerning the whole state of affairs. And when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, promising him aid, asked to receive his children and his mother as hostages, for a long time he was ashamed to tell his mother, and often, going in and coming right up to the subject in speech, he fell silent, so that she began to suspect it and inquired of his friends whether there was something he was hesitant to bring up with her.
At last, when Cleomenes ventured to say it, she burst out laughing and said, "Was this the thing you so often set out to say and then lost your nerve? Hurry and put us on a ship and send us wherever you think this body of mine may still be of use to Sparta, before it wastes away sitting here in old age."
So when everything was ready they went on foot as far as Taenarum, and the army escorted them under arms; but as Cratesicleia was about to board the ship, she took Cleomenes alone aside into the temple of Poseidon, and embracing him and drawing him close as he was overcome with grief and shaken,
she said, "Come, king of the Lacedaemonians, let no one, once we are outside, see us weeping or doing anything unworthy of Sparta. For this alone is in our power; as for fortunes, they come as the god gives them." Having said this and composing her face, she went to the ship carrying the child, and told the pilot to put out at once.
When she arrived in Egypt and learned that Ptolemy was receiving envoys and proposals from Antigonus, and heard about Cleomenes, that when the Achaeans invited him to a settlement he was afraid, for her sake, to end the war without Ptolemy's consent, she sent word to him to do what was fitting and advantageous for Sparta, and not to go on fearing Ptolemy forever for the sake of one old woman and a small child. Such, then, is said to have been her conduct amid these fortunes.
When Antigonus had captured Tegea and laid waste to both Orchomenus and Mantinea, Cleomenes, now shut up within Laconia itself, freed those of the helots who paid down five Attic minas, and thereby collected five hundred talents, and equipped two thousand additional men in Macedonian style to match Antigonus's white-shields, and set his mind on a great undertaking, unexpected by everyone.
Megalopolis at that time was, in itself, in no way inferior or weaker than Lacedaemon, and it had besides the support of the Achaeans and of Antigonus, who was encamped on its flank and was thought to have been summoned there chiefly at the urging of the Megalo
politans. It was this city that Cleomenes planned to plunder — for there is nothing that more resembles the speed and unexpectedness of that action — and ordering his men to take five days' rations, he led his force out toward Sellasia as though he meant to raid the Argolid; then, descending from there toward the territory of Megalopolis and having his men take their evening meal near Rhoeteum, he marched at once by way of
Helicus toward the city. When not far off he sent Panteus with two divisions of Lacedaemonians, ordering him to seize a stretch of wall between towers which he had learned was the most undefended part of the Megalopolitans' fortifications, while he himself followed on slowly with the rest of the force. Panteus found not only that spot but a great part of the wall unguarded, and at once began tearing down some sections and undermining others, killing every one of the guards he came upon, and Cleomenes came up in time to join him, and before the Megalopolitans were aware of it he was inside the city with his force.
When the disaster had at last become plain to the people in the city, some fled at once, snatching up whatever property they could, while others banded together under arms and, standing against the enemy and attacking them, though they could not drive them out, they did enable their fleeing fellow citizens to get away safely, so that no more than a thousand people were captured, and all the rest, together with their children and wives, managed to escape in time to Messene.
The greater number of those who had come to help and had fought also got safely away; only a few were caught outright, among them Lysandridas and Thearidas, men of distinction and the most powerful of the Megalopolitans. For this reason the soldiers who had seized them brought them straight to Cleomenes. Lysandridas, seeing Cleomenes from a distance, cried out, "It is in your power now, king of the Lacedaemonians, to perform a deed finer than the one you have just done and to become the most glorious of kings."
Cleomenes, suspecting what he was about to ask, said, "What do you mean, Lysandridas? Surely you are not telling me to give the city back to you?" And Lysandridas replied, "That is exactly what I mean and advise: not to raze so great a city, but rather to populate it anew with loyal and dependable friends and allies, giving the fatherland back to the Megalopolitans and thereby becoming the savior of so great a people."
Cleomenes, falling silent a little while, said, "It is hard to trust in this, but among us the love of glory must always prevail over expediency," and having said this he sent envoys to Messene, together with a herald of his own, proposing to restore the city to the Megalopolitans on condition that they become allies and friends, breaking away from the Achaeans.
But although Cleomenes had made this fair and generous offer, Philopoemen would not let the Megalopolitans abandon their loyalty to the Achaeans; instead, accusing Cleomenes of seeking not to restore the city but to win over its citizens, he drove Thearidas and Lysandridas out of Messene. This was the same Philopoemen who afterward became foremost among the Achaeans and won the greatest renown among the Greeks, as has been written separately about him.
When this was reported to Cleomenes, who had kept the city untouched and intact, so that no one had so much as taken the smallest thing without his knowledge, he now, altogether embittered and enraged, plundered its wealth, sent its statues and paintings off to Sparta, and having razed and destroyed the greatest and largest part of the city, marched back home, fearing Antigonus and the Achaeans,
though nothing was in fact done against him by them, for they happened to be holding a council at Aegium; and when Aratus, mounting the platform, wept for a long time with his cloak held before his face, and, since they marveled and urged him to speak, said that Megalopolis had been destroyed by Cleomenes, the assembly of the Achaeans broke up at once, stunned by the swiftness and magnitude of the disaster,
Antigonus set out to help, but since his forces were slow in rising up from their winter quarters, he ordered them to remain again in position, while he himself went ahead to Argos, not having many soldiers with him. This is why Cleomenes' second undertaking seemed to have been ventured recklessly and madly, yet was in fact carried out with great forethought, as Polybius says.
For knowing that the Macedonians were scattered in winter quarters throughout the towns, and that Antigonus, wintering in Argos with his friends, did not have many mercenaries with him, he invaded the Argive territory, calculating that either Antigonus, provoked by shame, would be spurred into a battle he could win, or that by not daring to fight he would discredit himself before the Argives. And this is exactly what happened, for as the country was being ravaged by him and everything was being carried off and driven away,
the Argives, unable to bear it, gathered at the doors of the king and shouted him down, demanding that he either fight or yield his command to better men. But Antigonus, as a sensible general should, considered it shameful to run into danger recklessly and throw away safety, not to be spoken ill of by outsiders, and so he did not come out but held firm to his own calculations. Cleomenes, however, advanced with his army right up to the walls, insulted and ravaged the place, and withdrew without fear.
A little later, hearing that Antigonus was advancing on Tegea intending to invade Laconia from there, he quickly took up his soldiers, cut across by other roads, and at daybreak appeared before the city of the Argives, ravaging the plain — not cutting the grain, as others do, with sickles and knives, but beating it down with great wooden clubs fashioned into the shape of swords, so that his men, treating it as a game as they marched, ground down and destroyed the whole crop without any effort.
When, however, they reached the Cyllarabis and were attempting to set fire to the gymnasium, he stopped them, on the grounds that even the events near Megalopolis had been done by him more out of anger than well. Then, when Antigonus withdrew at once to Argos and afterward occupied all the mountains and passes with garrisons, Cleomenes, pretending to be careless and contemptuous of him, sent heralds asking to be given the keys of the Heraeum, so that he might depart after sacrificing to the goddess.
Having thus mocked and made sport of him, and having sacrificed to the goddess beneath the closed temple, he led his army away to Phlius; from there he drove out the men guarding Oligyrtus and came down to Orchomenus, having instilled not only in his own citizens confidence and boldness, but also making himself seem to his enemies a man fit to command and worthy of great affairs,
for that a man setting out from a single city should wage war at once against Macedonian might, the combined forces of the Peloponnesians, and royal resources, and not merely keep Laconia untouched but also ravage their country and capture such great cities, seemed to be no ordinary display of skill and greatness of spirit.
But the one who first called money the sinews of affairs seems to have said this with an eye chiefly to the business of war. And Demades, when the Athenians once ordered the triremes to be launched and manned but had no money, said, "It is necessary first to knead the dough before baking it." And it is said that old Archidamus too, at the start of the Peloponnesian War, when the allies urged him to fix the contributions, said that war does not feed on a fixed ration.
For just as athletes who have trained their bodies wear down and overpower in time those who are graceful and skilled, so too Antigonus, drawing on great resources for the war, wore down and exhausted Cleomenes, who was scraping together with difficulty pay for his mercenaries and food for his citizens.
since in other respects time was on Cleomenes' side, as troubles at home were rousing Antigonus to leave. For barbarians were cutting off and overrunning Macedonia in his absence, and just then a great army of Illyrians had poured down from the north, and being ravaged by them the Macedonians were sending for Antigonus, and it happened that this letter arrived to him only a little before the battle — had it arrived, he would have departed at once, bidding the Achaeans a long farewell.
But fortune, which decides the greatest of affairs, showed by a hair's breadth such a weight and power in timing that, the battle at Sellasia having taken place and Cleomenes having lost his army and his city, immediately afterward those summoning Antigonus arrived. And this above all made Cleomenes' misfortune more pitiable.
For if he had held back only two days and put off the fight, avoiding battle, he would not have needed to fight at all, but could have come to terms on his own conditions with the Achaeans once the Macedonians had departed. As it was, however, as has been said, because of his lack of money he staked everything on arms and was forced, with twenty thousand men, as Polybius says, to array himself against thirty thousand.
And though he showed himself a wonderful general amid the danger, and his citizens fought with great spirit, and the mercenaries too fought not blamably, he was squeezed out by the manner of arming and the weight of the hoplite phalanx of his enemies. Phylarchus says that a betrayal too occurred which did the most to undo Cleomenes' cause.
For when Antigonus ordered the Illyrians and Acarnanians to circle around secretly and encircle the other wing, on which Eucleidas, Cleomenes' brother, was stationed, and then drew up the rest of his forces for battle, Cleomenes, watching from a lookout point, and seeing nowhere the arms of the Illyrians and Acarnanians, grew afraid that Antigonus had used them for some such purpose.
Calling Damoteles, the man in charge of the secret service, he ordered him to look and find out how matters stood at the rear and around the flanks of the battle line. Damoteles — who had, it is said, already been corrupted with money by Antigonus into carelessness — told him that those matters were fine, and that he should attend to the enemy closing from the front and repel them; and Cleomenes, trusting this, advanced against Antigonus,
and with the charge of the Spartans around him he pushed back the phalanx of the Macedonians, driving and overpowering them as they retreated for about five stadia, and he pursued. Then, when Eucleidas' men were encircled from the other wing, he stopped, and seeing the danger, said, "You are gone, my dearest brother," he said, "you are gone — noble as you were, and admired by the boys of Sparta and sung of by its women."
With Eucleidas' men thus destroyed, and the enemy from that quarter, now victorious, bearing down upon him, seeing his soldiers thrown into confusion and no longer daring to hold their ground, he saved himself; but they say that many of the mercenaries died too, and all the Lacedaemonians except two hundred, out of six thousand.
When he arrived in the city, he urged those citizens who met him to receive Antigonus, while he himself said he would do whatever, whether he lived or died, would be of benefit to Sparta. Seeing the women running out to those who had fled with him, taking their weapons and bringing them drink,
he himself went into his own house; and when the girl he kept — a freeborn woman from Megalopolis whom he had taken up after his wife's death — came forward, as was her custom, wishing to attend to him now that he had come from the campaign, he neither, though parched with thirst, would drink, nor, though exhausted, would sit down, but just as he happened to be, still in his breastplate, leaning his hand sideways against one of the columns and resting his face upon his forearm,
and after resting his body thus for no long time, and running through in his mind all his calculations, he set out with his friends for Gythium. And from there, boarding ships that had been prepared for this very purpose, they put out to sea.
Antigonus, having taken the city by storm, and having treated the Lacedaemonians humanely, and neither disgracing nor insulting the dignity of Sparta, but restoring its laws and constitution and sacrificing to the gods, withdrew on the third day, on receiving word that a major war had broken out in Macedonia and that barbarians were laying waste to the land; and by now, too, his illness had taken hold of him, having turned into a severe consumption with a violent catarrh.
He did not, however, give up, but held out through his own country's struggles long enough to die more gloriously, with the greatest victory and the greatest slaughter of the barbarians — as is likely, and as Phylarchus and his school say, having ruptured his body by the very shouting during the battle; and it was said in the schools that, shouting after the victory out of joy, "O glorious day," he brought up a great quantity of blood, and after a violent fever, died. Such were the affairs concerning Antigonus.
Cleomenes, sailing from Cythera to another island, Aegialia, put in there. From there, as he was about to cross over to Cyrene, one of his friends, named Therycion, a man who had always carried himself with great pride in action and had always been lofty and boastful in speech, came to him privately and said, "We let slip, O king, the most beautiful death, the one in battle.
And yet all heard us say that Antigonus would never step over the king of the Spartans except as a corpse. But the second in reputation and valor is still present with us now. Where are we sailing to so senselessly, fleeing an evil that is near and pursuing one far off? For if it is not shameful for the descendants of Heracles to be slaves to the descendants of Philip and Alexander, we will gain a great deal of sailing by handing ourselves over to Antigonus, who is likely to differ from Ptolemy as much as Macedonians differ from Egyptians,
but if we do not think it fitting to be ruled by those who have conquered us in arms, why do we make ourselves subject to one who has not even defeated us, so that we may appear worse than before by two masters instead of one — fleeing Antigonus while flattering Ptolemy? Or shall we say we have come to Egypt because of your mother? A fine and enviable spectacle you would make for her, displaying to Ptolemy's women her son as a captive and a fugitive instead of a king.
Should we not, while we still command our own swords and can look upon Laconia, free ourselves right here from fortune and give an account to those lying at Sellasia on behalf of Sparta, rather than sit in Egypt asking what satrap Antigonus has left in charge of Lacedaemon?" When Therycion had said such things, Cleomenes answered, "You pursue, wretch, the easiest of human things, ready at hand for all — dying — and think yourself brave, while fleeing a more shameful flight than the earlier one.
For even men better than us have already yielded to enemies, either stumbling by fortune or overpowered by numbers; but the one who gives up in the face of hardships and toils, or the blame and opinions of men, is defeated by his own softness. For a self-chosen death must not be a flight from action, but an action in itself. For it is shameful to live for oneself alone, and shameful too to die for oneself alone — which is what you are now urging us to, hastening to escape our present troubles while accomplishing nothing noble or useful in the process,
whereas I think that both you and I ought not to abandon our hopes on behalf of our fatherland; but wherever those hopes abandon us, it will be easy enough for us to die whenever we wish." To this Therycion made no reply, but at the first opportunity he had to leave Cleomenes' side, he turned aside along the shore and killed himself.
Cleomenes, putting out from the Aegialiae, made for Libya, and being escorted through the king's territory arrived at Alexandria. Being seen by Ptolemy, at first he met with a general kindliness and moderation from him; but when, upon giving proof of his judgment, he showed himself to be a sensible man, and the Laconic plainness of his daily conversation had a free and gracious charm, and he in no way disgraced his noble birth nor bent beneath fortune, he appeared more persuasive than those who spoke for the sake of pleasure and flattery,
much shame and regret possessed Ptolemy for having neglected such a man and abandoned him to Antigonus, who had thereby gained such reputation and power besides; and, restoring him with honors and kindness, he encouraged Cleomenes with the promise that he would send him to Greece with ships and money and restore him to his kingdom.
He also gave him an allowance of twenty-four talents each year, from which Cleomenes, managing himself and his friends frugally and moderately, spent most of it on acts of kindness and gifts to those who had been driven out of Greece into Egypt.
Now the elder Ptolemy died before he could carry out the sending of Cleomenes; and as the kingdom immediately fell into much licentiousness and drunkenness and rule by women, Cleomenes' affairs too were neglected,
for the king himself was so corrupted in soul by women and drink that, whenever he happened to be most sober and most serious about himself, he would perform mystic rites and go about the palace holding a tambourine, while the greatest affairs of the kingdom were managed by Agathoclea, the king's mistress, and her mother, and the procuress Oenanthe.
Yet even so it seemed at the start that there had been some use for Cleomenes as well. For Ptolemy, fearing his brother Magas, who was powerful in the army through his mother, took Cleomenes into his confidence and let him share in the secret councils, since he was planning to do away with his brother. Cleomenes, though everyone else urged this course, alone spoke against it, saying that it would be better, if it were possible, for the king to have more brothers born to him, for the safety and permanence of his affairs.
When Sosibius, who had the greatest influence among the king's friends, said that the loyalty of the mercenaries could not be relied upon while Magas lived, Cleomenes told him not to worry on that account: for more than three thousand of the foreign soldiers were Peloponnesians devoted to him, and if he merely gave a nod they would eagerly appear under arms on his side.
This remark, at the time, gave Cleomenes no small measure both of credit for goodwill and reputation for power; but later, as Ptolemy's ill health increased his timidity, and as—according to his habit of having no judgment at all—being afraid of everything and distrusting everyone seemed to him the safest course, it made Cleomenes an object of fear to the courtiers, as a man of strength among the foreign troops.
And one could hear many saying, "This lion is prowling among these sheep." For indeed such a character he showed among the royal court, watching quietly and keeping an eye on what was going on.
So then he asked for ships and an army, and was refused; but when word reached him of Antigonus's death, of the Achaeans being locked in conflict with the Aetolians, and of home affairs yearning for him and summoning his return, since the Peloponnese had fallen into turmoil and division, he asked to be sent off alone with his friends, but he could persuade no one,
since the king would not listen at all, but kept himself occupied among women and revels and drinking-parties, while Sosibius, who stood at the head of everything and took the decisions, considered that Cleomenes, if he remained against his will, would be hard to manage and dangerous, but that if he were let go, he would be a bold man, one prone to great undertakings, who had become a spectator of the sickness of the kingdom.
For not even the gifts calmed him, but just as Apis, though living amid abundance and seeming to enjoy luxury, still feels a longing for his natural way of life, for unrestrained runnings and leapings, and plainly chafes at his confinement in the hands of the priests, so nothing soft pleased Cleomenes, but his heart pined away, like Achilles', as he remained there, and he longed for the war-cry and for war.
While matters concerning him stood thus, Nicagoras the Messenian arrived in Alexandria, a man who hated Cleomenes but pretended to be his friend; he had once sold him a fine piece of land, and, it seems, owing to preoccupation with wars, had not received the money. Seeing him then disembarking from his merchant ship—for Cleomenes happened to be walking on the mole of the harbor—he greeted him warmly and inquired what errand had brought him to Egypt.
When Nicagoras returned the greeting cordially and said he was bringing fine war-horses for the king, Cleomenes laughed and said, "I would rather you had come bringing harp-girls and catamites; for these are what the king is most eager for now." Nicagoras smiled at the time, but a few days later, reminding Cleomenes of the piece of land, he now asked to be paid the price, saying he would not have troubled him except that he had suffered some loss in the disposal of his cargo.
When Cleomenes said that he had nothing left over from what had been given him, Nicagoras, offended, carried Cleomenes' jest to Sosibius, who was glad to receive this too, but, seeking a greater ground on which to provoke the king, persuaded Nicagoras to write a letter against Cleomenes and leave it behind, to the effect that he had planned, if he obtained triremes and soldiers from him, to seize Cyrene.
So Nicagoras wrote this and sailed away; and Sosibius, four days later, brought the letter to Ptolemy as though it had just been delivered to him, and provoked the young man's anger, and it was decided to bring Cleomenes into a large house, and, while providing him with the same manner of living as before, to shut off his ways out.
Now this too was distressing to Cleomenes, but he came to hold still worse hopes for the future because of the following chance event. Ptolemy the son of Chrysermus, a friend of the king, had always spoken to Cleomenes on fair terms, and there existed between them a certain familiarity and frankness of speech with one another,
This man, then, when Cleomenes begged him to come to him, came and spoke moderately, removing his suspicion and making excuses on the king's behalf; but as he was leaving the house again, not noticing that Cleomenes was following behind him as far as the doors, he bitterly rebuked the guards for keeping so great and hard-to-guard a beast so carelessly and negligently.
Cleomenes, having heard this himself, withdrew before Ptolemy noticed, and told his friends. At once, then, all of them, casting aside the hopes they had previously held, resolved in anger to avenge Ptolemy's wrongdoing and to die in a manner worthy of Sparta for the outrage done them, rather than wait to be slaughtered like fattened victims: for it would be terrible,
if Cleomenes, who had scorned to make terms with Antigonus, a warlike and energetic man, should now sit waiting for the leisure of a begging-priest of a king, until he should first put away his tambourine and bring his revel-band to a halt, before he put him to death.
When this had been resolved, and by chance Ptolemy had set out for Canopus, first they spread a rumor that he was to be released from custody; then, since it was a certain royal custom for those about to be freed from confinement to be sent a dinner and gifts of hospitality, his friends prepared many such things and sent them in from outside, deceiving the guards into thinking they had been sent by the king.
For indeed Cleomenes made sacrifice and shared these things generously with them, and putting on garlands and reclining he feasted with his friends. The story goes that he launched the deed earlier than planned, because he learned that one of the servants who knew of the plot had slipped out to sleep with a woman he loved. And fearing an informer, since it was midday and he perceived that the guards were asleep from drink, he put on his tunic, loosened the seam from the right shoulder, and burst out with his friends, sword in hand, all similarly equipped, thirteen in number,
Hippitas, being lame, rushed out eagerly with the first onset, but when he saw that they were moving too slowly on his account, he ordered them to kill him and not ruin the undertaking by waiting for a useless man. It happened that one of the Alexandrians was leading a horse past the doors; taking this from him and setting Hippitas upon it, they rushed at a run through the narrow streets, calling on the crowd to join the cause of freedom.
But the people, it seems, had just enough spirit to praise and admire the daring of Cleomenes, but no one dared to follow and help. So then, three of them, falling at once upon Ptolemy the son of Chrysermus as he came out of the court, killed him; and when another Ptolemy, the guardian of the city, drove toward them in his chariot, they rushed to meet him, scattered his attendants and spearmen, and, dragging him down from the chariot, killed him.
Then they made for the citadel, intending to break open the prison and make use of the multitude of those in bonds. But the guards got ahead of them and barricaded it well, so that Cleomenes, repulsed also in this attempt, wandered about distracted through the city, no one joining him, but all fleeing and afraid,
So then, giving up, he said to his friends, "It was no wonder, then, that women should rule over men who flee from freedom," and he called on them all to die in a manner worthy of himself and of what they had done. And first Hippitas, at his own request, was struck down by one of the younger men; then each of the others, easily and fearlessly, killed himself, except Panteus, the first man to have taken Megalopolis.
Him the king, since he had been the handsomest in his prime and the most naturally gifted of the young men for training, and had been his beloved, had ordered to wait, once he saw him and the others fallen, to die in that way. And now that all lay there, Panteus went about, touching each with his little sword, testing whether anyone might be lying hidden still alive. And when he pricked Cleomenes near the ankle and saw his face contract, he kissed him, then sat down beside him; and when he was dead, he embraced the corpse and slew himself upon it.
Cleomenes, then, having reigned over Sparta for sixteen years, and having become such a man, met his end in this way. When the report had spread through the whole city, Cratesicleia, though she was a noble woman, gave up her composure before the magnitude of the disaster, and, embracing Cleomenes' children, wailed aloud.
But the elder of the children, in a way no one would have expected, leapt from the roof headfirst, and though badly hurt he did not die, but was picked up crying out and angry at being prevented from dying. And Ptolemy, when he learned of this, ordered that the body of Cleomenes be flayed and hung up, and that the children and their mother and the women around her be put to death,
among whom was also the wife of Panteus, most beautiful and most noble in appearance. Their fortunes had befallen them while they were still newly married and at the height of their love; when Panteus was about to sail off, her parents at first would not allow her to go with him, wishing to sail with him, but shut her up by force
and kept guard over her; but a little later, having procured for herself a horse and a small amount of gold, she escaped by night, and, riding hard to Taenarum, from there boarded a ship sailing to Egypt; and she was brought to her husband and shared with him his life in a foreign land, without sorrow and cheerfully. It was she who then, as Cratesicleia was being led out by the soldiers, took her by the hand, holding up her robe and encouraging her not to be terrified of death, she who was herself not dismayed, but asked only one thing, to die before the children.
When they came to the place where the executioners were accustomed to carry out such things, first, with Cratesicleia looking on, they slaughtered the children; then they killed her, who, amid such great sufferings, uttered only this one thing: "O children, where have you gone?" But the wife of Panteus, girding up her garment, being strong and tall, tended to each of the dying women in silence and with quiet composure, and arranged their bodies as best she could.
Finally, after all the rest, having arranged herself, and drawing down her garment, and allowing no one to come near or see her except the man appointed for the slaughter, she died heroically, asking no one to arrange or cover her after her death. So did the orderliness of her soul remain with her even in death, and she preserved to the end the guard she had set about her body while alive.
So Lacedaemon, having contended on equal terms in this drama of women against that of men, showed in its last extremities that valor could not be outraged by fortune. A few days later those who were keeping watch over the impaled body of Cleomenes saw a great serpent coiled about his head and hiding his face, so that no carrion bird could fly upon it.
Because of this, superstition and fear fell upon the king, giving occasion for other rites of purification among the women, on the ground that a man beloved of the gods and greater than human nature had been put to death. And the Alexandrians even took to visiting the spot, addressing Cleomenes as a hero and child of the gods, until the wiser among them put a stop to it,
explaining that just as bees are born from decaying oxen, and wasps from horses, and beetles are engendered when donkeys undergo the same process, so human bodies, when the fluids about the marrow gather and combine within themselves in a certain flow, give rise to serpents. And observing this, the ancients above all other creatures associated the serpent with heroes.