Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
thought himself the happiest king in the world, to have
succeeded, like an expert physician, in curing the diseases
of his country without pain. But now, in this necessity,
Lycurgus's example favored his proceedings, who being neither
king nor magistrate, but a private man, and aiming at the
kingdom, came armed into the market-place, so that king
Charillus fled in alarm to the altar. He, being a good man,
and a lover of his country, readily concurred in Lycurgus's
designs, and admitted the revolution in the state. But, by
his own actions, Lycurgus had nevertheless borne witness that
it was difficult to change the government without force and
fear, in the use of which he himself, he said, had been so
moderate as to do no more than put out of the way those who
opposed themselves to Sparta's happiness and safety. For the
rest of the nation, he told them, the whole land was now
their common property; debtors should be cleared of their
debts, and examination made of those who were not citizens,
that the bravest men might thus be made free Spartans, and
give aid in arms to save the city, and "We" he said, "may no
longer see Laconia, for want of men to defend it, wasted by
the Aetolians and Illyrians."
Then he himself first, with his step-father, Megistonus, and
his friends, gave up all their wealth into one public stock,
and all the other citizens followed the example. The land
was divided, and everyone that he had banished, had a share
assigned him; for he promised to restore all, as soon as
things were settled and in quiet. And completing the number
of citizens out of the best and most promising of the
country people, he raised a body of four thousand men; and
instead of a spear, taught them to use a surissu, with both
hands, and to carry their shields by a band, and not by a
handle, as before. After this, he began to consult about
the education of the youth, and the Discipline, as they call
it; most of the particulars of which, Sphaerus, being then at
Sparta, assisted in arranging; and, in a short time, the
schools of exercise and the common tables recovered their
ancient decency and order, a few out of necessity, but the
most voluntarily, returning to that generous and Laconic way
of living. And, that the name of monarch might give them no
jealousy, he made Euclidas, his brother, partner in the
throne; and that was the only time that Sparta had two kings
of the same family.
Then, understanding that the Achaeans and Aratus imagined
that this change had disturbed and shaken his affairs, and
that he would not venture out of Sparta and leave the city
now unsettled in the midst of so great an alteration, he
thought it great and serviceable to his designs, to show his
enemies the zeal and forwardness of his troops. And,
therefore, making an incursion into the territories of
Megalopolis, he wasted the country far and wide, and
collected a considerable booty. And, at last, taking a
company of actors, as they were traveling from Messene, and
building a theater in the enemy's country, and offering a
prize of forty minae in value, he sat spectator a whole day;
not that he either desired or needed such amusement, but
wishing to show his disregard for his enemies, and by a
display of his contempt, to prove the extent of his
superiority to them. For his alone, of all the Greek or
royal armies, had no stage-players, no jugglers, no dancing
or singing women attending it, but was free from all sorts of
looseness, wantonness, and festivity; the young men being for
the most part at their exercises, and the old men giving them
lessons, or, at leisure times, diverting themselves with
their native jests, and quick Laconian answers; the good
results of which we have noticed in the life of Lycurgus.
He himself instructed all by his example; he was a living
pattern of temperance before every man's eyes; and his course
of living was neither more stately, nor more expensive, nor
in any way more pretentious, than that of any of his people.
And this was a considerable advantage to him in his designs
on Greece. For men when they waited upon other kings, did
not so much admire their wealth, costly furniture, and
numerous attendance, as they hated their pride and state,
their difficulty of access, and imperious answers to their
addresses. But when they came to Cleomenes, who was both
really a king, and bore that title, and saw no purple, no
robes of state upon him, no couches and litters about him for
his ease, and that he did not receive requests and return
answers after a long delay and difficulty, through a number
of messengers and doorkeepers, or by memorials, but that he
rose and came forward in any dress he might happen to be
wearing, to meet those that came to wait upon him, stayed,
talked freely and affably with all that had business, they
were extremely taken, and won to his service, and professed
that he alone was the true son of Hercules. His common every
day's meal was in an ordinary room, very sparing, and after
the Laconic manner; and when he entertained ambassadors or
strangers, two more couches were added, and a little better
dinner provided by his servants, but no savoring sauces or
sweetmeats; only the dishes were larger, and the wine more
plentiful. For he reproved one of his friends for
entertaining some strangers with nothing but barley bread and
black broth, such diet as they usually had in their phiditia;
saying, that upon such occasions, and when they entertained
strangers, it was not well to be too exact Laconians. After
the table was removed, a stand was brought in, with a brass
vessel full of wine, two silver bowls which held about a pint
apiece, a few silver cups, of which he that pleased might
drink, but wine was not urged on any of the guests. There
was no music, nor was any required; for he entertained the
company himself, sometimes asking questions, sometimes
telling stories; and his conversation was neither too grave
or disagreeably serious, nor yet in any way rude or
ungraceful in its pleasantry. For he thought those ways of
entrapping men by gifts and presents, which other kings use,
dishonest and inartificial; and it seemed to him to be the
most noble method, and most suitable to a king, to win the
affections of those that came near him, by personal
intercourse and agreeable conversation, since between a
friend and a mercenary the only distinction is, that we gain
the one by one's character and conversation, the other by
one's money.
The Mantineans were the first that requested his aid; and
when he entered their city by night, they aided him to expel
the Achaean garrison, and put themselves under his
protection. He restored them their polity and laws, and the
same day marched to Tegea; and a little while after, fetching
a compass through Arcadia, he made a descent upon Pherae, in
Achaea, intending to force Aratus to a battle, or bring him
into disrepute, for refusing to engage, and suffering him to
waste the country. Hyperbatas at that time was general, but
Aratus had all the power amongst the Achaeans. The Achaeans,
marching forth with their whole strength, and encamping in
Dymae, near the Hecatombaeum, Cleomenes came up, and thinking
it not advisable to pitch between Dymae, a city of the
enemies, and the camp of the Achaeans, he boldly dared the
Achaeans, and forced them to a battle, and routing their
phalanx, slew a great many in the fight, and took many
prisoners, and thence marching to Langon, and driving out the
Achaean garrison, he restored the city to the Eleans.
The affairs of the Achaeans being in this unfortunate
condition, Aratus, who was wont to take office every other
year, refused the command, though they entreated and urged
him to accept it. And this was ill done, when the storm was
high, to put the power out of his own hands, and set another
to the helm. Cleomenes at first proposed fair and easy
conditions by his ambassadors to the Achaeans, but afterward
he sent others, and required the chief command to be settled
upon him; in other matters offering to agree to reasonable
terms, and to restore their captives and their country. The
Achaeans were willing to come to an agreement upon those
terms, and invited Cleomenes to Lerna, where an assembly was
to be held; but it happened that Cleomenes, hastily marching
on, and drinking water at a wrong time, brought up a quantity
of blood, and lost his voice; therefore being unable to
continue his journey, he sent the chiefest of the captives to
the Achaeans, and, putting off the meeting for some time,
retired to Lacedaemon.
This ruined the affairs of Greece, which was just beginning
in some sort to recover from its disasters, and to show some
capability of delivering itself from the insolence and
rapacity of the Macedonians. For Aratus, (whether fearing or
distrusting Cleomenes, or envying his unlooked-for success,
or thinking it a disgrace for him who had commanded
thirty-three years, to have a young man succeed to all his
glory and his power, and be head of that government which he
had been raising and settling so many years,) first
endeavored to keep the Achaeans from closing with Cleomenes;
but when they would not hearken to him, fearing Cleomenes's
daring spirit, and thinking the Lacedaemonians' proposals to
be very reasonable, who designed only to reduce Peloponnesus
to its old model, upon this he took his last refuge in an
action which was unbecoming any of the Greeks, most
dishonorable to him, and most unworthy his former bravery and
exploits. For he called Antigonus into Greece, and filled
Peloponnesus with Macedonians, whom he himself, when a youth,
having beaten their garrison out of the castle of Corinth,
had driven from the same country. And there had been
constant suspicion and variance between him and all the
kings, and of Antigonus, in particular, he has said a
thousand dishonorable things in the commentaries he has left
behind him. And though he declares himself how he suffered
considerable losses, and underwent great dangers, that he
might free Athens from the garrison of the Macedonians, yet,
afterwards, he brought the very same men armed into his own
country, and his own house, even to the women's apartment.
He would not endure that one of the family of Hercules, and
king of Sparta, and one that had reformed the polity of his
country, as it were, from a disordered harmony, and retuned
it to the plain Doric measure and rule of life of Lycurgus,
should be styled head of the Tritaeans and Sicyonians; and
whilst he fled the barley-cake and coarse coat, and which
were his chief accusations against Cleomenes, the extirpation
of wealth and reformation of poverty, he basely subjected
himself, together with Achaea, to the diadem and purple, to
the imperious commands of the Macedonians and their satraps.
That he might not seem to be under Cleomenes, he offered
sacrificers, called Antigonea, in honor of Antigonus, and
sang paeans himself, with a garland on his head, to the
praise of a wasted, consumptive Macedonian. I write this not
out of any design to disgrace Aratus, for in many things he
showed himself a true lover of Greece, and a great man, but
out of pity to the weakness of human nature, which in
characters like this, so worthy and in so many ways disposed
to virtue, cannot maintain its honors unblemished by some
envious fault.
The Achaeans meeting again in assembly at Argos, and
Cleomenes having come from Tegea, there were great hopes that
all differences would be composed. But Aratus, Antigonus and
he having already agreed upon the chief articles of their
league, fearing that Cleomenes would carry all before him,
and either win or force the multitude to comply with his
demands, proposed, that having three hundred hostages put