tempted him to betray the king, with his mother and grandmother. It was even said, that he was much more inclinable, than either of his two companions, to listen to the suggestions of Leonidas; and that no one was so industrious as himself to spirit up the Ephori (of whose number he was one) against Agis. As this prince went sometimes from the temple to the bath, they resolved, to take that opportunity to surprise him; and when he was one day returning from thence, they advanced up to him, and after they had embraced him with an air of affection, they attended him in his way, and entertained him with their usual familiarity of conversation. At the end of one of the streets, through which they passed, was a turning which led to the prison, and as soon as they arrived at that corner, Amphares seized Agis with an air of autho rity, and cried, "Agis, I must conduct you to the Ephori, to "whom you are to be accountable for your behaviour.” At the same instant Demochares, who was tall and strong, threw his mantle round his neck, and dragged him along, while the others pushed him forward, as they had previously agreed; and as no person came to assist him, because there was nobody in the street at that time, they accomplished their design, and threw him into prison.

Leonidas arrived at the same time with a great number of foreign soldiers, and surrounded the prison; the Ephori likewise came thither, and when they had sent for such of the senators as concurred with their opinion, they proceeded to examine Agis, as if he had been arraigned at a competent tribunal, and ordered him to justify himself, with respect to his intended innovations in the republic. One of the Ephori, pretending to have discovered an expedient for disengaging him from this criminal affair, asked him, whether Lysander and Agesilaus had not compelled him to have recourse to those measures; to which Agis replied, That he had not acted in consequence of any compulsion; but that his admiration of Lycurgus, and a sincere desire to imitate his conduct, were his only motives for attempting to restore the city to the same condition in which that legislator had left it. The same of ficer then demanding of him, whether he did not repent of that proceeding? The young prince answered with an air of steadiness, "That he never should repent of so virtuous, so "noble, and glorious an undertaking, though death itself were presented to his view in all its terrors." His pretended judges then condemned him to die, and immediately commanded the public officers to carry him to that part of the prison, where those, on whom the sentence of condemnation had passed, were usually strangled.

When Demochares saw that the officers of justice did not dare to lay their hands on Agis, and that even the foreign

soldiers turned their eyes from such a spectacle of horror, and refused to be accessory to so inhuman an execution, he loaded them with threats and reproaches, and with his own hands dragged Agis to the dungeon. The people, who, by this time, were informed of the manner in which he had been seized, crowded to the gates of the prison, and began to be very tumultuous. The whole street was already illuminated with innumerable tapers; and the mother and grandmother of Agis ran from place to place, filling the air with their cries, and intreating the people that the king of Sparta might at least have an opportunity to defend himself, and be judged by his own citizens. The zeal of the people did but animate the murderers the more to hasten the execution of Agis, lest he should be released by force that very night, if the people should have sufficient time allowed them for assembling together.

66

As the executioners were leading him to the place where they intended to strangle him, he beheld tears flowing from the eyes of one of them who was touched with his misfortune; upon which he turned to him, and said, “Weep not for me, my friend, for, as I am cut off in this manner contrary to all laws and justice, I am much happier, and more to "be envied, than those who have condemned me." When he had said these words, he offered his neck to the fatal cord, without the least reluctance.

་་

As Amphares came from the prison, at the close of this tragic scene, the first object he beheld was the disconsolate mother of Agis, who threw herself at his feet; he raised her from the earth, and assured her, that Agis had nothing to fear; intreating her, at the same time, as a proof of his sincerity, to enter the prison and see her son. She then desired him to permit her aged mother to attend her in that mournful visit. "Your request," said he, "is reasonable ;' and he immediately conducted them into the prison, but ordered the door to be shut the moment they entered it. He then commanded the executioner to seize Archidamia, the grandmother of Agis, who had lived to a venerable old ageamong her citizens, with as much dignity and reputation as any lady of her time. When the executioner had performed his fatal office, the inhuman Amphares ordered the mother of Agis to enter the dungeon. This unhappy princess, the moment she came into that dismal place, beheld her son lying dead on the ground, and, at a little distance from him, her dead mother, with the fatal cord still twisted about her neck. She assisted the executioners in disengaging her parent from that instrument of cruelty, after which she laid the corpse by her son, and decently covered it with linen. When this pious office was completed, she cast herself upon VOL, VI,

the body of Agis, and after she had tenderly kissed his cold lips, "O my son," said she, "the excess of thy humanity "and sweet disposition, and thy too great circumspection "and lenity, have undone thee, and been fatal to us as well as "thee !"

Amphares, who from the door had beheld and heard all that passed, entered that moment, and addressing himself with a savage air to the mother of Agis, "Since you knew," said he," and approved the designs of your son, you shall "share in his punishment." Agesistrata arose at those words, and running to the fatal cord, "May this," cried she, "at "least be useful to Sparta!"

When the report of these executions was dispersed through the city, and the inhabitants beheld the bodies brought out of the prison, the indignation occasioned by this barbarity was universal, and every one declared, that from the time the Dorians had first established themselves in Peloponnesus, so horrible an action had never been committed. It must indeed be acknowledged, that all the blackest crimes in nature were here united, and under circumstances which infinitely aggravated their atrocity; and we may even add too, that the murder of the king included and surpassed them all: so barbarous an execution, in opposition to that respect with which nature inspires the most savage people for the sacred person of their sovereign, is such a blemish on a nation, as all succeeding ages can never obliterate.

a Agis having been destroyed in this manner, Leonidas was not expeditious enough in seizing his brother Archidamus, who saved himself by flight; but he secured Agiatis, the consort of that unhappy king, forcing her to reside in his own house, with the young child she had by him, and then compelled her to espouse his son Cleomenes, who was not marriageable at that time; but Leonidas was determined that the widow of Agis should not be disposed of to any other person, as she inherited a large estate from her father Gylippus, and likewise excelled all the Grecian ladies in beauty, as well as wisdom and virtue. She endeavoured to avoid this marriage by all the means in her power, but to no effect. And when she at last was obliged to consent to her nuptials with Cleomenes, she always retained a mortal aver sion for Leonidas, but behaved with the utmost complacency and kindness to her young spouse, who, from the first day of his marriage, conceived a most sincere and passionate esteem and affection for her; and even sympathised with her in the tenderness she preserved for Agis, and the regard she expressed for his memory, and that too in such a degree, that he would frequently listen to her with the greatest attention

a Plut. in Cleam, p. 805.

while she related to him the great designs he had formed for the regulation of the government.

SECT. IV.

Cleomenes ascends the throne of Sparta. He reforms the government, and re-establishes the ancient discipline.

"Cleomenes had a noble soul, and an ardent passion for glory, joined with the same inclination for temperance and simplicity of manners as Agis had always expressed; but he had not that prince's excessive sweetness of disposition, nor the timidity and precaution which accompanied it. Nature, on the contrary, had infused into him a vigour and vivacity of mind, which ardently prompted him on to whatever appeared great and noble. Nothing seemed to him so worthy of his endeavours, as the government of his citizens agreeably to their own inclinations; but, at the same time, he did not think it inconsistent with the glory of a wise administration, to employ some violence in reducing to compliance, with a measure of public utility, an inconsiderable number of obstinate and unjust persons, who opposed it merely from a view of private interest.

He was far from being satisfied with the state of affairs which then prevailed in Sparta. All the citizens had long been softened by indolence and a voluptuous life; and the king himself, who was fond of tranquillity, had entirely neglected public affairs. No person whatever had testified any regard for the public good, every individual being solely intent upon his particular interest, and the aggrandizement of his family at the public expense. Instead of any care in disciplining the young people, and forming them to temper ance, patience, and the equality of freemen, it was even dangerous to mention any thing of that nature, as Agis himself had perished by attempting to introduce it among them.

It is also said, that Cleomenes, who was still very young, had heard some philosophical lectures at the time when Spherus, who came from the banks of the Boristhenes, settled in Lacedæmon, and applied himself, in a very successful manner, to the instruction of youth. This person was one of the principle disciples of Zeno, the Citian. The Stoic philosophy, which he then professed, was exceedingly proper to infuse courage and noble sentiments into the mind; but at the same time was capable of dangerous effects in a disposition naturally warm and impetuous; and on the other hand, might be rendered very beneficial by being grafted on a mild and moderate character.

After the death of Leonidas, who did not long survive

a Plut. in Cleom. p. 805-811 CA. M. 3762. Ant. J, C. 242

b So called from Citium, a city of Cyprus

the condemnation and murder of Agis, his son Cleomenes succeeded him in the throne; and though he was then very young, it gave him pain to consider that he had only the empty title of king, while the whole authority was engrossed by the Ephori, who shamefully abused their power. He from that time grew solicitous to change the form of government; and as he was sensible that few persons were disposed to concur with him in his views; he imagined the accomplishment of it would be facilitated by a war, and therefore endeavoured to embroil his city with the Achæans, who, very fortunately for his purpose, had given Sparta some occasions of complaint against them.

Aratus, from the first moments of his administration, had been industrious to negotiate a league between all the states of Peloponnesus, through a persuasion, that if he succeeded in that attempt, they would have nothing to fear for the future from a foreign enemy; and this was the only point to which all his measures tended. All the other states, except the Lacedæmonians, the people of Elis, and those of Arcadia, who had espoused the party of the Lacedæmonians, had acceded to this league. Aratus, soon after the death of Leonidas, began to harass the Arcadians, in order to make an experiment of the Spartan courage, at the same time to make it evident, that he despised Cleomenes, as a young man without the last experience.

When the Ephori received intelligence of this act of hostility, they caused their troops to take the field under the command of Cleomenes; they indeed were not numerous, but confidence in the general by whom they were commanded, inspired them with all imaginable ardour for the war. The Achæans marched against him with twenty thousand foot, and a thousand horse, under the command of Aristomachus. Cleomenes came up with them near Pallantium, a city of Arcadia, and offered them battle; but Aratus was so intimidated by this bold measure, that he prevailed upon the general not to hazard an engagement, and then made a retreat; which drew upon him very severe reproaches from his own troops, and sharp raillery from the enemy, whose numbers did not amount to five thousand men in the whole. The courage of Cleomenes was so much raised by this retreat, that he assumed a loftier air amongst his citizens, and reminded them of an expression used by one of their ancient kings, who said, "That the Lacedæmonians never inquired after the "numbers of their enemies, but where they were." He afterwards defeated the Achæans in a second encounter; but Aratus taking the advantage even of his defeat, like an experienced general, turned his arms immediately against Mantiaza, and before the enemy could have any suspicion of his de