EXPEDITION OF PYRRHUS AGAINST SPARTA
[272 B.C.]
This opportunity was offered to him by Cleonymus of Sparta, the same who had been before him in making an expedition to Tarentum. He requested Pyrrhus to support the rights which he pretended to have to the throne of Sparta. The ephors had set him aside in favour of Areus, the son of his eldest brother; and to complete his chagrin his wife Chelidonis, who was much beloved by him, did not conceal her aversion, and showed her preference for the son of Areus, named Acrotatus.
This seemed to Pyrrhus a sufficient pretext for invading the Peloponnesus with twenty-five thousand footmen, two thousand horses, and twenty-four elephants. He declared, moreover, that his sole object was to restore liberty to the towns which Antigonus was keeping in subjection. As to the Spartans, far from wishing them ill, he proposed, he said, to confide his younger sons to their care, that they might be educated in the discipline of Lycurgus. When his soldiers began pillaging, the Spartans reproached him with his breach of faith. He answered, “Neither are you in the habit of saying beforehand what you will do.” There had been nothing to give warning of this aggression in time of peace and the town was not in a state of defence: the whole army had followed the king Areus to Crete whither he had been summoned by the Gortynians. Cleonymus would have liked to attack immediately; but Pyrrhus preferred to wait for a capitulation which seemed inevitable. He established his camp before Sparta believing himself certain of being able to enter whenever he might wish.
Sparta was saved by the women. It had been proposed to send them to Crete, a suggestion which roused their indignation. Archidamia, mother of Acrotatus and the richest heiress in Sparta, entered the senate, sword in hand, and protested in the name of the women against their being thought capable of surviving the ruin of their country. The walls raised in preceding wars left the town exposed at several points: the night was spent in digging a great ditch parallel with the enemy’s camp, and barricades were formed on each side by means of chariots with their wheels buried in the ground. The women undertook a third of the work and obliged those who were to fight next day to rest. In the morning they armed the young men and exhorted them to die under the eyes of their mothers. During the fight, which lasted all day, they kept close to them, handing them weapons, carrying them food and drink and tending the wounded. But as Rollin has pointed out, if the women of Sparta practised masculine virtues they sometimes forgot the virtues of their sex: seeing the young Acrotatus who had fought like a lion return covered with blood and dust, they envied the lot of Chelidonis. Plutarch adds a detail which shows how far the Spartans carried the sacrifice of the family to the city: the old men, he says, cried out: “Bravo, Acrotatus. Retain Chelidonis, and may she give the country children as brave as thou.” As to Chelidonis herself, not wishing to fall into the hands of her husband, she had prepared a rope to hang herself if the town were taken.
The combat began again the next day. The Macedonians endeavoured to fill up the trench with branches. Pyrrhus even succeeded in crossing it and galloped towards the town; but his horse was killed and threw him on a steep slope; his friends had great difficulty in rescuing him. Almost all the Spartans were killed or wounded, and the town was on the verge of being taken when a lieutenant of Antigonus brought help. Almost at the same time Areus arrived from Crete with two thousand Spartans. Pyrrhus decided to raise the siege. He turned in the direction of Argos, where one party had summoned him to oppose another faction supported by Antigonus. Areus pursued him as he retreated, harassing him in the defiles and destroying his rear-guard composed of Galatæ and Molossians. To avenge the death of his son Ptolemy, who had been killed in this fight, Pyrrhus destroyed almost the whole Spartan army and then continued his route towards Argos.