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Updated: May 14, 2025
He was tried and condemned to death by order of Leonidas, and thus died when only twenty-two years of age, after having vainly tried for three years to bring the Spartans back to their former simplicity and virtue. Leonidas, not content with killing Agis, gave the widow Agiatis in marriage to his son, Cle-om´e-nes, who was a mere boy, several years younger than she.
But his wife, then mother of a young child, he forced from her own house, and compelled Agiatis, for that was her name, to marry his son Cleomenes, though at that time too young for a wife, because he was unwilling that anyone else should have her, being heiress to her father Glylippus's great estate; in person the most youthful and beautiful woman in all Greece, and well-conducted in her habits of life.
Agiatis soon won great influence over the young prince, and told him so much about her dead husband, that he tried to follow the example of Agis in everything. When Leonidas died, Cleomenes succeeded him, and, thanks to the teachings of his wife, was both great and virtuous.
The mother said, “May this be for the good of Sparta,” and after laying out the limbs of her son and mother, was also put to death; and the young widow Agiatis, with her babe, was carried to the house of Leonidas. The reform of Agis had lasted only three years, and he was but twenty-two, when his plans were thus cruelly cut short.
His wife Chilonis, with her two little children, threw herself between him and her father, pleading for his life, and promising he should leave the city; and Leonidas listened, trying to make her remain, but she clung to her husband, and went into exile with him. Agiatis, the young wife of Agis, could not join him in the temple, being kept at home by the birth of her first babe.
Leonidas was thus left to reign alone, the first time such a thing had happened in Sparta. As poor Agiatis was a rich heiress, he kept her in his house, and married her to his son Cleomenes, a mere boy, much younger than herself.
His hopes thus defeated, as he was leading back the relics of his forces, messengers from Lacedaemon met him in the evening at Tegea, and brought him, news of as great a misfortune as that which he had lately suffered, and this was the death of his wife, to whom he was so attached, and thought so much of her, that even in his most successful expeditions, when he was most prosperous, he could not refrain, but would ever now and then come home to Sparta, to visit Agiatis.
But all the better sort held by him, and his mother Cratesiclea, and his wife Agiatis, so cleared him, that all trusted him, and he was again sent out with an army, and defeated Aratus. He was sure he could bring back good days to Sparta, if only he were free of the Ephors.
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