Plutarch's Lives, Volume 4 (of 4)

by Plutarch

VII. When she first heard of Agis’s designs she was much startled, and dissuaded the youth from an enterprise which she thought neither practicable nor desirable. However, when Agesilaus pointed out to her what a notable design it was, and how greatly to the advantage of all, while the young king himself besought his mother to part with her wealth in order to gain him glory, arguing that he could not vie with other kings in riches, as the servants of Persian satraps, and the very slaves of the intendants of Ptolemy and Seleukus possessed more money than all the kings that ever reigned in Sparta; but that, if he could prove himself superior to those vanities by his temperance, simplicity of life, and true greatness of mind, and could succeed in restoring equality among his fellow-countrymen, he would be honoured and renowned as a truly great king. By this means the youth entirely changed his mother’s mind, and so fired her with his own ambition, as if by an inspiration from heaven, that she began to encourage Agis and urge him on, and invited her friends to join them, while she also communicated their design to the other women, because she knew that the Lacedæmonians were in all things ruled by their women, and that they had more power in the state than the men possessed in their private households. Most of the wealth of Lacedæmon had fallen into female hands at this time, and this fact proved a great hindrance to the accomplishment of Agis’s schemes of reform; for the women offered a vehement opposition to him, not merely through a vulgar love for their idolised luxury, but also because they saw that they would lose all the influence and power which they derived from their wealth. They betook themselves to Leonidas, and besought him, as being the elder man, to restrain Agis, and check the development of his designs. Leonidas was willing enough to assist the richer class, but he feared the people, who were eager for reform, and would not openly oppose Agis, although he endeavoured secretly to ruin his scheme, and to prejudice the Ephors against him, by imputing to him the design of hiring the poor to make him despot with the plunder of the rich, and insinuating that by his redistribution of lands and remission of debts he meant to obtain more adherents for himself instead of more citizens for Sparta.

VIII. In spite of all this, Agis contrived to get Lysander appointed one of the Ephors, and immediately brought him to propose a rhetra before the Gerusia, or Senate, the main points of which were that all debts should be cancelled; that the land[4] should be divided, that between the valley of Pellene and Mount Taygetus, Malea, and Sellasia into four thousand five hundred lots, and the outlying districts into fifteen thousand: that the latter district should be distributed among the Periœki of military age, and the former among the pure Spartans: that the number of these should be made up by an extension of the franchise to Periœki or even foreigners of free birth, liberal education, and fitting personal qualifications: and that these citizens should be divided into fifteen companies some of four hundred, and some of two hundred, for the public meals, and should conform in every respect to the discipline of their forefathers.

IX. When, this rhetra was proposed, as the Senate could not agree whether it should become law, Lysander convoked a popular assembly and himself addressed the people. Mandrokleidas and Agesilaus also besought them not to allow a few selfish voluptuaries to destroy the glorious name of Sparta, but to remember the ancient oracles, warning them against the sin of covetousness, which would prove the ruin of Sparta, and also of the responses which they had recently received from the oracle of Pasiphae. The temple and oracle of Pasiphae at Thalamae was of peculiar sanctity. Pasiphae is said by some writers to have been one of the daughters of Atlas, and to have become the mother of Ammon by Zeus, while others say that Kassandra the daughter of Priam died there, and was called Pasiphae because her prophecies were plain to all men. Phylarchus again tells us that Daphne the daughter of Amyklas, while endeavouring to escape from the violence of Apollo, was transformed into the laurel,[5] which bears her name, and was honoured by the god and endowed by him with the gift of prophecy. Be this as it may, the oracular responses which were brought from this shrine bade the Spartans all become equal according as Lykurgus had originally ordained. After these speeches had been delivered, King Agis himself came forward, and, after a few introductory words, said that he was giving the strongest possible pledges of his loyalty to the new constitution; for he declared his intention of surrendering to the state, before any one else, his own property, consisting of a vast extent of land, both arable and pasture, besides six thousand talents of money; and he assured the people that his mother and her friends, the richest people in Sparta, would do the same.

X. The people were astounded at the magnanimity of the youth, and were filled with joy, thinking that at last, after an interval of three hundred years, there had appeared a king worthy of Sparta. Leonidas, on the other hand, opposed him as vigorously as he could, reflecting that he would be forced to follow his example, and divest himself of all his property, and that Agis, not he, would get the credit of the act. He therefore inquired of Agis whether he thought Lykurgus to have been a just and well-meaning man. Receiving an affirmative reply, he again demanded, “Where, then, do we find that Lykurgus approved of the cancelling of debts, or of the admission of foreigners to the franchise, seeing that he did not think that the state could prosper without a periodical expulsion of foreigners?” To this Agis answered, that it was not to be wondered at if Leonidas, who had lived in a foreign country, and had a family by the daughter of a Persian satrap, should be ignorant that Lykurgus, together with coined money, had banished borrowing and lending from Sparta, and that he had no hatred for foreigners, but only for those whose profession and mode of life made them unfit to associate with his countrymen. These men Lykurgus expelled, not from any hatred of their persons, but because he feared that their manners and habits would infect the citizens with a love of luxury, effeminacy, and avarice. Terpander, Thales, and Pherekydes were all foreigners, but, since they sang and taught what Lykurgus approved, they lived in Sparta, and were treated with especial honour. “Do you,” asked he, “praise Ekprepus, who when Ephor cut off with a hatchet the two additional strings which Phrynis the musician had added to the original seven strings of the lyre, and those who cut the same strings off the harp of Timotheus, and yet do you blame us when we are endeavouring to get rid of luxury, extravagance, and frivolity, just as if those great men did not merely mean thereby to guard against vain refinements of music, which would lead to the introduction of extravagant and licentious manners, and cause the city to be at discord and variance with itself?”

XI. After this the people espoused the cause of Agis, while the rich begged Leonidas not to desert them, and by their entreaties prevailed upon the senators, who had the power of originating all laws, to throw out the rhetra by a majority of only one vote. Lysander, who was still one of the Ephors, now proceeded to attack Leonidas, by means of a certain ancient law, which forbade any descendant of Herakles to beget children by a foreign wife, and which bade the Spartans put to death any citizen who left his country to dwell in a foreign land. He instructed his adherents to revive the memory of this law, and threaten Leonidas with its penalties, while he himself with the other Ephors watched for the sign from heaven. This ceremony is conducted as follows:—Every ninth year the Ephors choose a clear moonless night, and sit in silence watching the heavens. If a star shoots across the sky, they conclude that the kings must have committed some act of impiety, and they suspend them from their office, until they were absolved by a favourable oracle from Delphi or Olympia. Lysander now declared that he had beheld this sign, and impeached Leonidas, bringing forward witnesses to prove that he had two children born to him by an Asiatic wife, the daughter of one of the lieutenants of Seleukus, and that having quarrelled with his wife and become hated by her he had unexpectedly returned home, and in default of a direct heir, had succeeded to the throne. At the same time Lysander urged Kleombrotus, the son-in-law of Leonidas, who was also of the royal family, to claim the throne for himself. Leonidas, terrified at this, took sanctuary in the temple of Athena of the Brazen House, and was joined there by his daughter, who left her husband Kleombrotus. When the trial came on, Leonidas did not appear in court, he was removed from the throne, and Kleombrotus was appointed in his stead.

XII. At this crisis Lysander was forced to lay down his office, as the year for which he had been elected had expired. The Ephors at once took Leonidas under their protection, restored him to the throne, and impeached Lysander, and Mandrokleidas as the authors of illegal measures in the cancelling of debts and the redistribution of the land. As these men were now in danger of their lives, they prevailed upon the two kings to act together and overrule the decision of the Ephors; for this, they declared, was the ancient rule of the constitution, that if the kings were at variance, the Ephors were entitled to support the one whom they judged to be in the right against the other, but their function was merely to act as arbitrators and judges between the kings when they disagreed, and not to interfere with them when they were of one mind. Both the kings agreed to act upon this advice, and came with their friends into the assembly, turned the Ephors out of their chairs of office, and elected others in their room, one of whom was Agesilaus. They now armed many of the younger citizens, released the prisoners, and terrified their opponents by threatening a general massacre. No one, however, was killed by them; for although Agesilaus desired to kill Leonidas, and when he withdrew from Sparta to Tegea, sent men to waylay and murder him on the road, Agis, hearing of his intention, sent others on whom he could rely, who escorted Leonidas safely as far as Tegea.

XIII. Thus far all had gone well, and no one remained to hinder the accomplishment of the reforms; but now Agesilaus alone upset and ruined the whole of this noble and truly Spartan scheme by his detestable vice of covetousness. He possessed a large quantity of the best land in the country, and also owed a great sum of money, and as he desired neither to pay his debts nor to part with his land, he persuaded Agis that it would be too revolutionary a proceeding to carry both measures at once, and that, if the moneyed class were first propitiated by the cancelling of debts, they would afterwards be inclined to submit quietly to the redistribution of lands. Lysander and the rest were deceived by Agesilaus into consenting to this, and they brought all the written securities for money which had been given by debtors, which are called by them klaria, into the market-place, collected them into one heap, and burned them. As the flames rose up, the rich and those who had lent money went away in great distress, but Agesilaus, as if exulting at their misfortune, declared that he had never seen a brighter blaze or a purer fire. As the people at once demanded the division of the land, and called upon the kings to distribute it among them, Agesilaus put them off with various excuses, and managed to spin out the time till Agis was sent out of the country on military service, as the Achæans, who were allies, had demanded a reinforcement from Sparta, because the Ætolians threatened to invade Peloponnesus through the territory of Megara, and Aratus, the general of the Achæans, who was collecting an army to resist them, sent to Sparta demanding assistance.

XIV. The Spartans at once despatched Agis at the head of an army, whose high spirits and devotion to his person filled him with delight. The men were nearly all young and poor; and as they were now relieved from the pressure of their debts, and expected that on their return the land would be distributed amongst them, they behaved with the most admirable discipline. They marched through Peloponnesus without doing the least damage, without offending any one, almost without noise; so that all the cities were astonished at the spectacle thus afforded them, and men began to wonder what a Lacedæmonian army must have been like when led by Agesilaus or Lysander the Great, or by the ancient hero Leonidas, if such awe and reverence was paid by the soldiers to one who was nearly the youngest of them all. Their youthful leader himself was worthy of admiration, and was looked up to by the men because of his simple hard-working habits, and the pride which he took in wearing the same dress and using the same arms as the common soldiers. The revolution which he had effected, however, was very distasteful to the rich, who feared lest it might be taken as an example by the people in other states and lead to further disturbances.