[19] Al. 'on the coming round of the next year.' See Jowett (note to Thuc. i. 31), vol. ii. p. 33.
[20] On the south. For the history, see Busolt, 'Die Laked.' pp. 146-200. 'The river' is the Alpheus.
[21] See below, VI. v. 11; Paus. IV. xv. 8.
B.C. 400 (?). Upon this he pushed on into Olympian territory and did sacrifice to Olympian Zeus. There was no attempt to stay his proceedings now. After sacrifice he marched against the capital,[22] devastating and burning the country as he went. Multitudes of cattle, multitudes of slaves, were the fruits of conquest yielded, insomuch that the fame thereof spread, and many more Arcadians and Achaeans flocked to join the standard of the invader and to share in the plunder. In fact, the expedition became one enormous foray. Here was the chance to fill all the granaries of Peloponnese with corn. When he had reached the capital, the beautiful suburbs and gymnasia became a spoil to the troops; but the city itself, though it lay open before him a defenceless and unwalled town, he kept aloof from. He would not, rather than could not, take it. Such was the explanation given. Thus the country was a prey to devastation, and the invaders massed round Cyllene.
[22] I.e. Elis, of which Cyllene is the port town. For the wealth of the district, see Polyb. iv. 73; and below, VII. iv. 33.
Then the friends of a certain Xenias--a man of whom it was said that he might measure the silver coin, inherited from his father, by the bushel--wishing to be the leading instrument in bringing over the state to Lacedaemon, rushed out of the house, sword in hand, and began a work of butchery. Amongst other victims they killed a man who strongly resembled the leader of the democratic party, Thrasydaeus.[23] Everyone believed it was really Thrasydaeus who was slain. The popular party were panic-stricken, and stirred neither hand nor foot. On their side, the cut-throats poured their armed bands into the market-place. But Thrasydaeus was laid asleep the while where the fumes of wine had overpowered him. When the people came to discover that their hero was not dead, they crowded round his house this side and that,[24] like a swarm of bees clinging to their leader; and as soon as Thrasydaeus had put himself in the van, with the people at his back, a battle was fought, and the people won. And those who had laid their hands to deeds of butchery went as exiles to the Lacedaemonians.
[23] See Paus. III. viii. 4. He was a friend of Lysias ('Vit. X. Orat. 835).
[24] The house was filled to overflowing by the clustering close- packed crowd.
After a while Agis himself retired, recrossing the Alpheus; but he was careful to leave a garrison in Epitalium near that river, with Lysippus as governor, and the exiles from Elis along with him. Having done so, he disbanded his army and returned home himself.
B.C. 400-399 (?).[25] During the rest of the summer and the ensuing winter the territory of the Eleians was ravaged and ransacked by Lysippus and his troops, until Thrasydaeus, the following summer, sent to Lacedaemon and agreed to dismantle the walls of Phea and Cyllene, and to grant autonomy to the Triphylian townships[26]-- together with Phrixa and Epitalium, the Letrinians, Amphidolians, and Marganians; and besides these to the Acroreians and to Lasion, a place claimed by the Arcadians. With regard to Epeium, a town midway between Heraea and Macistus, the Eleians claimed the right to keep it, on the plea that they had purchased the whole district from its then owners, for thirty talents,[27] which sum they had actually paid. But the Lacedaemonians, acting on the principle 'that a purchase which forcibly deprives the weaker party of his possession is no more justifiable than a seizure by violence,' compelled them to emancipate Epeium also. From the presidency of the temple of Olympian Zeus, however, they did not oust them; not that it belonged to Elis of ancient right, but because the rival claimants,[28] it was felt, were 'villagers,' hardly equal to the exercise of the presidency. After these concessions, peace and alliance between the Eleians and the Lacedaemonians were established, and the war between Elis and Sparta ceased.
[25] Grote ('H. G.' ix. 316) discusses the date of this war between Elis and Sparta, which he thinks, reaches over three different years, 402-400 B.C. But Curtius (vol. iv. Eng. tr. p. 196) disagrees: 'The Eleian war must have occurred in 401-400 B.C., and Grote rightly conjectures that the Eleians were anxious to bring it to a close before the celebration of the festival. But he errs in extending its duration over three years.' See Diod. xiv. 17. 24; Paus. III. viii. 2 foll.
[26] Grote remarks: 'There is something perplexing in Xenophon's description of the Triphylian townships which the Eleians surrendered' ('H. G.' ix. 315). I adopt Grote's emend. {kai Phrixan}. See Busolt, op. cit. p. 176.
[27] = 7,312 pounds: 10 shillings.
[28] I.e. the men of the Pisatid. See below, VII. iv. 28; Busolt, op. cit. p 156.
III
After this Agis came to Delphi and offered as a sacrifice a tenth of the spoil. On his return journey he fell ill at Heraea--being by this time an old man--and was carried back to Lacedaemon. He survived the journey, but being there arrived, death speedily overtook him. He was buried with a sepulchre transcending in solemnity the lot of ordinary mortality.[1]
[1] See 'Ages.' xi. 16; 'Pol. Lac.' xv. 9.
When the holy days of mourning were accomplished, and it was necessary to choose another king, there were rival claimants to the throne. Leotychides claimed it as the son, Agesilaus as the brother, of Agis. Then Leotychides protested: 'Yet consider, Agesilaus, the law bids not 'the king's brother,' but 'the king's son' to be king; only if there chance to be no son, in that case shall the brother of the king be king.' Agesilaus: 'Then must I needs be king.' Leotychides: 'How so, seeing that I am not dead?' Agesilaus: 'Because he whom you call your father denied you, saying, 'Leotychides is no son of mine.'' Leotychides: 'Nay, but my mother, who would know far better than he, said, and still to-day says, I am.' Agesilaus: 'Nay, but the god himself, Poteidan, laid his finger on thy falsity when by his earthquake he drove forth thy father from the bridal chamber into the light of day; and time, 'that tells no lies,' as the proverb has it, bare witness to the witness of the god; for just ten months from the moment at which he fled and was no more seen within that chamber, you were born.'[2] So they reasoned together.
[2] I have followed Sauppe as usual, but see Hartman ('Anal. Xen.' p. 327) for a discussion of the whole passage. He thinks Xenophon wrote {ex ou gar toi ephugen} ({o sos pater}, i.e. adulterer) {ek to thalamo dekato meni tu ephus}. The Doric {ek to thalamo} was corrupted into {en to thalamo} and {kai ephane} inserted. This corrupt reading Plutarch had before him, and hence his distorted version of the story.
Diopethes,[3] a great authority upon oracles, supported Leotychides. There was an oracle of Apollo, he urged, which said 'Beware of the lame reign.' But Diopethes was met by Lysander, who in behalf of Agesilaus demurred to this interpretation put upon the language of the god. If they were to beware of a lame reign, it meant not, beware lest a man stumble and halt, but rather, beware of him in whose veins flows not the blood of Heracles; most assuredly the kingdom would halt, and that would be a lame reign in very deed, whensoever the descendants of Heracles should cease to lead the state. Such were the arguments on either side, after hearing which the city chose Agesilaus to be king.
[3] See Plut. 'Ages.' ii. 4; 'Lys.' xxii. (Clough, iv. 3; iii. 129); Paus. III. viii. 5.
Now Agesilaus had not been seated on the throne one year when, as he sacrificed one of the appointed sacrifices in behalf of the city,[4] the soothsayer warned him, saying: 'The gods reveal a conspiracy of the most fearful character'; and when the king sacrificed a second time, he said: 'The aspect of the victims is now even yet more terrible'; but when he had sacrificed for the third time, the soothsayer exclaimed: 'O Agesilaus, the sign is given to me, even as though we were in the very midst of the enemy.' Thereupon they sacrificed to the deities who avert evil and work salvation, and so barely obtained good omens and ceased sacrificing. Nor had five days elapsed after the sacrifices were ended, ere one came bringing information to the ephors of a conspiracy, and named Cinadon as the ringleader; a young man robust of body as of soul, but not one of the peers.[5] Accordingly the ephors questioned their informant: 'How say you the occurrence is to take place?' and he who gave the information answered: 'Cinadon took me to the limit of the market-place, and bade me count how many Spartans there were in the market-place; and I counted--'king, ephors, and elders, and others--maybe forty. But tell me, Cinadon,' I said to him, 'why have you bidden me count them?' and he answered me: 'Those men, I would have you know, are your sworn foes; and all those others, more than four thousand, congregated there are your natural allies.' Then he took and showed me in the streets, here one and there two of 'our enemies,' as we chanced to come across them, and all the rest 'our natural allies'; and so again running through the list of Spartans to be found in the country districts, he still kept harping on that string: 'Look you, on each estate one foeman--the master--and all the rest allies.'' The ephors asked: 'How many do you reckon are in the secret of this matter?' The informant answered: 'On that point also he gave me to understand that there were by no means many in their secret who were prime movers of the affair, but those few to be depended on; 'and to make up,' said he, 'we ourselves are in their secret, all the rest of
