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In the first days of the spring following, at an earlier period than usual, the Lacedaemonians and their allies invaded Attica, under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. They began by devastating the parts bordering upon the plain, and next proceeded to fortify Decelea, dividing the work among the different cities.
Sparta continued superior to the rest of Greece, both in its government at home and reputation abroad, so long as it retained the institution of Lycurgus: and this it did during the space of five hundred years, and the reign of fourteen successive kings, down to Agis the son of Archidamus.
For this reason, before the Peloponnesians, under Archidamus, invaded Attica, he warned the Athenians that if Archidamus, when he laid waste everything else, spared his own private estate because of the friendly private relations existing between them, or in order to give his personal enemies a ground for impeaching him, that he should give both the land and the farm buildings upon it to the State.
Thus was this brave little community sacrificed to the rancour of Thebes, and the selfish policy of Sparta. The result of six years of desultory fighting had fully justified the forebodings of Archidamus, and the sanguine anticipations of Pericles. In spite of the terrible ravages of the plague, Athens had easily held her own against the whole power of the Peloponnesian league.
In the fourth year of the reign of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, king of Sparta, there happened in the country of Lacedaemon, the greatest earthquake that was known in the memory of man; the earth opened into chasms, and the mountain Taygetus was so shaken, that some of the rocky points of it fell down, and except five houses, all the town of Sparta was shattered to pieces.
Having heard the answer of Archidamus, the Plataean envoys went back, and reported his words to their fellow-townsmen. But the Plataeans replied that, without the consent of the Athenians, they dare not accept his proposal, as their wives and children had been removed to Athens.
And now Cleonymus quickly understood, that Archidamus had been true to him, in using all his interest with his father; and Sphodrias's friends ventured to be forward in his defense.
About the same time in the spring, before the corn was ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under Agis, the son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and laid waste the country.
On the other hand, the month Metagitnion, which in Boeotia is called Panemus, was not very lucky to the Greeks; for on its seventh day they were defeated by Antipater, at the battle in Cranon, and utterly ruined; and before, at Chaeronea, were defeated by Philip; and on the very same day, same month, and same year, those that went with Archidamus into Italy were there cut off by the barbarians.
The Plataeans had got thus far when they were cut short by Archidamus saying: "There is justice, Plataeans, in what you say, if you act up to your words.
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