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Subsequently the Athenians returned with most of their army, leaving behind them a certain number of their own citizens and of the allies to keep guard by land and sea. The force thus left stayed on and besieged the place. About the same time the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius and lost eighty men cut off in an ambush by the Phliasians and Argive exiles.
The preparations of the Lacedaemonians from the first had been known to the Argives, who did not, however, take the field until the enemy was on his road to join the rest at Phlius. Reinforced by the Mantineans with their allies, and by three thousand Elean heavy infantry, they advanced and fell in with the Lacedaemonians at Methydrium in Arcadia.
From whence all who occupied themselves in the contemplation of nature were both considered and called wise men; and that name of theirs continued to the age of Pythagoras, who is reported to have gone to Phlius, as we find it stated by Heraclides Ponticus, a very learned man, and a pupil of Plato, and to have discoursed very learnedly and copiously on certain subjects with Leon, prince of the Phliasii; and when Leon, admiring his ingenuity and eloquence, asked him what art he particularly professed, his answer was, that he was acquainted with no art, but that he was a philosopher.
In front of them, cutting them off from the city of Argos, was the flower of the Spartan army, reinforced by the troops of Tegea and Arcadia; on their right flank the mountain slopes swarmed with the infantry of Corinth and Phlius; and in the rear their retreat was cut off by the thronging masses of Boeotians, who were now pouring along the road from Nemea.
IV. Nor was Pythagoras the inventor only of the name, but he enlarged also the thing itself, and, when he came into Italy after this conversation at Phlius, he adorned that Greece, which is called Great Greece, both privately and publicly, with the most excellent institutions and arts; but of his school and system I shall, perhaps, find another opportunity to speak.
When Argos was captured, and Cleonae and Phlius came over, as they did at once, to Cleomenes, Aratus was at Corinth, searching after some who were reported to favor the Spartan interest. The news, being brought to him, disturbed him very much; for he perceived the city inclining to Cleomenes, and willing to be rid of the Achaeans.
The allies from the rest of Peloponnese and from outside mustered at Phlius; the Boeotians with five thousand heavy infantry and as many light troops, and five hundred horse and the same number of dismounted troopers; the Corinthians with two thousand heavy infantry; the rest more or less as might happen; and the Phliasians with all their forces, the army being in their country.
The two armies confronted each other for a moment at Methydrium, in Arcadia; but Agis succeeded in avoiding an engagement, and breaking up his camp under cover of darkness pushed on to Phlius.
Thereupon the Argives, who were accompanied by their allies from Mantinea and Elis, returned in haste to Argos, and then, marching northwards, took up their position at Nemea, which commanded the ordinary route from Phlius to the Argive territory. But they were again outmanoeuvred by the skilful dispositions of Agis.
What then did he say before his death? and how did he die? for I should be glad to hear; for scarcely any citizen of Phlius ever visits Athens now, nor has any stranger for a long time come from thence, who was able to give us a clear account of the particulars, except that he died from drinking poison; but he was unable to tell us anything more. Phæd.
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