Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
the sake of an old woman and a little child, stand always in
fear of Ptolemy. This character she maintained in her
misfortunes.
Antigonus, having taken Tegea, and plundered Orchomenus and
Mantinea, Cleomenes was shut up within the narrow bounds of
Laconia; and making such of the helots as could pay five
Attic pounds, free of Sparta, and, by that means, getting
together five hundred talents, and arming two thousand after
the Macedonian fashion, that he might make a body fit to
oppose Antigonus's Leucaspides he undertook a great and
unexpected enterprise. Megalopolis was at that time a city
of itself as great and as powerful as Sparta, and had the
forces of the Achaeans and of Antigonus encamping beside it;
and it was chiefly the Megalopolitans' doing, that Antigonus
had been called in to assist the Achaeans. Cleomenes,
resolving to snatch the city (no other word so well suits so
rapid and so surprising an action), ordered his men to take
five days' provision, and marched to Sellasia, as if he
intended to ravage the country of the Argives; but from
thence making a descent into the territories of Megalopolis,
and refreshing his army about Rhoeteum, he suddenly took the
road by Helicus, and advanced directly upon the city. When
he was not far off the town, he sent Panteus, with two
regiments, to surprise a portion of the wall between two
towers, which he learnt to be the most unguarded quarter of
the Megalopolitans' fortifications, and with the rest of his
forces he followed leisurely. Panteus not only succeeded at
that point, but finding a great part of the wall without
guards, he at once proceeded to pull it down in some places,
and make openings through it in others, and killed all the
defenders that he found. Whilst he was thus busied,
Cleomenes came up to him, and was got with his army within
the city, before the Megalopolitans knew of the surprise.
When, after some time, they learned their misfortune, some
left the town immediately, taking with them what property
they could; others armed, and engaged the enemy; and through
they were not able to beat them out, yet they gave their
citizens time and opportunity safely to retire, so that there
were not above one thousand persons taken in the town, all
the rest flying, with their wives and children, and escaping
to Messene. The greater number, also, of those that armed
and fought the enemy, were saved, and very few taken, amongst
whom were Lysandridas and Thearidas, two men of great power
and reputation amongst the Megalopolitans; and therefore the
soldiers, as soon as they were taken, brought them to
Cleomenes. And Lysandridas, as soon as he saw Cleomenes afar
off, cried out, "Now, king of Sparta, it is in your power, by
doing a most kingly and a nobler action than you have
already performed, to purchase the greatest glory." And
Cleomenes, guessing at his meaning, replied, "What,
Lysandridas, you will not surely advise me to restore your
city to you again?" "It is that which I mean," Lysandridas
replied, "and I advise you not to ruin so brave a city, but
to fill it with faithful and steadfast friends and allies, by
restoring their country to the Megalopolitans, and being the
savior of so considerable a people." Cleomenes paused a
while, and then said, "It is very hard to trust so far in
these matters; but with us let profit always yield to glory."
Having said this, he sent the two men to Messene with a
herald from himself, offering the Megalopolitans their city
again, if they would forsake the Achaean interest, and be on
his side. But though Cleomenes made these generous and
humane proposals, Philopoemen would not suffer them to break
their league with the Achaeans; and accusing Cleomenes to the
people, as if his design was not to restore the city, but to
take the citizens too, he forced Thearidas and Lysandridas to
leave Messene.
This was that Philopoemen who was afterward chief of the
Achaeans and a man of the greatest reputation amongst the
Greeks, as I have refuted in his own life. This news coming
to Cleomenes, though he had before taken strict care that the
city should not be plundered, yet then, being in anger, and
out of all patience, he despoiled the place of all the
valuables, and sent the statues and pictures to Sparta; and
demolishing a great part of the city, he marched away for
fear of Antigonus and the Achaeans; but they never stirred,
for they were at Aegium, at a council of war. There Aratus
mounted the speaker's place, and wept a long while, holding
his mantle before his face; and at last, the company being
amazed, and commanding him to speak, he said, "Megalopolis is
destroyed by Cleomenes." The assembly instantly dissolved,
the Achaeans being astounded at the suddenness and greatness
of the loss; and Antigonus, intending to send speedy succors,
when he found his forces gather very slowly out of their
winter-quarters, sent them orders to continue there still;
and he himself marched to Argos with a small body of men.
And now the second enterprise of Cleomenes, though it had the
look of a desperate and frantic adventure, yet in Polybius's
opinion, was done with mature deliberation and great
foresight. For knowing very well that the Macedonians were
dispersed into their winter-quarters, and that Antigonus with
his friends and a few mercenaries about him wintered in
Argos, upon these considerations he invaded the country of
the Argives, hoping to shame Antigonus to a battle upon
unequal terms, or else, if he did not dare to fight, to bring
him into disrepute with the Achaeans. And this accordingly
happened. For Cleomenes wasting, plundering, and spoiling
the whole country, the Argives, in grief and anger at the
loss, gathered in crowds at the king's gates, crying out that
he should either fight, or surrender his command to better
and braver men. But Antigonus, as became an experienced
captain, accounting it rather dishonorable foolishly to
hazard his army and quit his security, than merely to be
railed at by other people, would not march out against
Cleomenes, but stood firm to his convictions. Cleomenes, in
the meantime, brought his army up to the very walls, and
having without opposition spoiled the country, and insulted
over his enemies, drew off again.
A little while after, being informed that Antigonus designed
a new advance to Tegea, and thence to invade Laconia, he
rapidly took his soldiers, and marching by a side road,
appeared early in the morning before Argos, and wasted the
fields about it. The corn he did not cut down, as is usual,
with reaping hooks and knives, but beat it down with great
wooden staves made like broadswords, as if, in mere contempt
and wanton scorn, while traveling on his way, without any
effort or trouble, he spoiled and destroyed their harvest.
Yet when his soldiers would have set Cyllabaris, the exercise
ground, on fire, he stopped the attempt, as if he felt, that
the mischief he had done at Megalopolis had been the effects
of his passion rather than his wisdom. And when Antigonus,
first of all, came hastily back to Argos, and then occupied
the mountains and passes with his posts, he professed to
disregard and despise it all; and sent heralds to ask for the
keys of the temple of Juno, as though he proposed to offer
sacrifice there and then return. And with this scornful
pleasantry upon Antigonus, having sacrificed to the goddess
under the walls of the temple, which was shut, he went to
Phlius; and from thence driving out those that garrisoned
Oligyrtus, he marched down to Orchomenus. And these
enterprises not only encouraged the citizens, but made him
appear to the very enemies to be a man worthy of high
command, and capable of great things. For with the strength
of one city, not only to fight the power of the Macedonians
and all the Peloponnesians, supported by all the royal
treasures, not only to preserve Laconia from being spoiled,
but to waste the enemy's country, and to take so many and
such considerable cities, was an argument of no common skill
and genius for command.
But he that first said that money was the sinews of affairs,
seems especially in that saying to refer to war. Demades,
when the Athenians had voted that their galleys should be
launched and equipped for action, but could produce no money,
told them, "The baker was wanted first, and the pilot after."
And the old Archidamus, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian
war, when the allies desired that the amount of their
contributions should be determined, is reported to have
answered, that war cannot be fed upon so much a day. For as
wrestlers, who have thoroughly trained and disciplined their
bodies, in time tire down and exhaust the most agile and most
skillful combatant, so Antigonus, coming to the war with
great resources to spend from, wore out Cleomenes, whose
poverty made it difficult for him to provide the merest
sufficiency of pay for the mercenaries, or of provisions for
the citizens. For, in all other respects, time favored
Cleomenes; for Antigonus's affairs at home began to be
disturbed. For the barbarians wasted and overran Macedonia
whilst he was absent, and at that particular time a vast army
of Illyrians had entered the country; to be freed from whose
devastations, the Macedonians sent for Antigonus, and the
letters had almost been brought to him before the battle was
fought; upon the receipt of which he would at once have
marched away home, and left the Achaeans to look to
themselves. But Fortune, that loves to determine the
greatest affairs by a minute, in this conjuncture showed such
an exact niceness of time, that immediately after the battle
in Sellasia was over, and Cleomenes had lost his army and his
city, the messengers came up and called for Antigonus. And
this above everything made Cleomenes's misfortune to be
pitied; for if he had gone on retreating and had forborne
fighting two days longer, there had been no need of hazarding
a battle; since upon the departure of the Macedonians, he
might have had what conditions he pleased from the Achaeans.
But now, as was said before, for want of money, being
necessitated to trust everything to arms, he was forced with
twenty thousand (such is Polybius's account) to engage thirty
thousand. And approving himself an admirable commander in
this difficulty, his citizens showing an extraordinary
courage, and his mercenaries bravery enough, he was overborne
by the different way of fighting, and the weight of the
heavy-armed phalanx. Phylarchus also affirms, that the
treachery of some about him was the chief cause of
Cleomenes's ruin.
For Antigonus gave orders, that the Illyrians and Acarnanians
should march round by a secret way, and encompass the other
wing, which Euclidas, Cleomenes's brother, commanded; and
then drew out the rest of his forces to the battle. And
Cleomenes, from a convenient rising, viewing his order, and
not seeing any of the Illyrians and Acarnanians, began to
suspect that Antigonus had sent them upon some such design,
and calling for Damoteles, who was at the head of those
specially appointed to such ambush duty, he bade him
carefully to look after and discover the enemy's designs upon
his rear. But Damoteles, for some say Antigonus had bribed
him, telling him that he should not be solicitous about that
matter, for all was well enough, but mind and fight those
that met him in the front, he was satisfied, and advanced
against Antigonus; and by the vigorous charge of his
Spartans, made the Macedonian phalanx give ground, and
pressed upon them with great advantage about half a mile; but
then making a stand, and seeing the danger which the
surrounded wing, commanded by his brother Euclidas, was in,
he cried out, "Thou art lost, dear brother, thou art lost,