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Updated: June 1, 2025
But Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian king, came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a wise and a moderate man, and made the following speech: "I have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the experience of many wars, and I see those among you of the same age as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune of longing for war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its safety.
But he was not right in thinking and saying that nobody was rich who could not maintain an army out of his substance; for war feeds not by a fixed allowance, according to Archidamus; and, consequently, the wealth that is required for war is unlimited; and this opinion of Crassus was very different from the opinion of Marius; for when Marius, after giving to each man fourteen jugera of land, found that they wanted more, he said, "May there never be a Roman who thinks that too little which is enough to maintain him."
But it was surely a mistaken judgment, when he said no man was to be accounted rich that could not maintain an army at his own cost and charges, for war, as Archidamus well observed, is not fed at a fixed allowance, so that there is no saying what wealth suffices for it, and certainly it was one very far removed from that of Marius; for when he had distributed fourteen acres of land a man, and understood that some desired more, "God forbid," said he, "that any Roman should think that too little which is enough to keep him alive and well."
Archidamus, indeed, the king of the Lacedaemonians, sent ambassadors to Athens, was willing to submit all disputed points to arbitration, and endeavoured to moderate the excitement of his allies, so that war probably would not have broken out if the Athenians could have been persuaded to rescind their decree of exclusion against the Megarians, and to come to terms with them.
And on that same day and month and year Archidamus and his troops, who had crossed over into Italy, were cut to pieces by the natives. The twenty-first day of that month is also observed by the Carthaginians as that which has always brought the heaviest misfortunes upon them.
And if errors he did commit, his enemies certainly had less reason to blame him, than had his friends for that gentle and compassionate temper which made him save the life of Leonidas, and believe in other men's professions. Thus fell Agis. His brother Archidamus was too quick for Leonidas, and saved himself by a timely retreat.
In the first days of summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies, with two-thirds of their forces as before, invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, King of Lacedaemon, and sat down and laid waste the country. Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague first began to show itself among the Athenians.
While the Peloponnesians were still mustering at the Isthmus, or on the march before they invaded Attica, Pericles, son of Xanthippus, one of the ten generals of the Athenians, finding that the invasion was to take place, conceived the idea that Archidamus, who happened to be his friend, might possibly pass by his estate without ravaging it.
Their tomb is to this day called Sismatias.* Archidamus, by the present danger made apprehensive of what might follow, and seeing the citizens intent upon removing the most valuable of their goods out of their houses, commanded an alarm to be sounded, as if an enemy were coming upon them, in order that they should collect about him in a body, with arms.
And we need not blame the great statesmen too harshly for not foreseeing the wild excesses of folly and extravagance which we shall have to record in the following pages. In the third year of the war the usual invasion of Attica was omitted, and the Peloponnesian army under Archidamus marched against Plataea.
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