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Barefooted, unattended, through cold and storm, performing ourselves the most menial offices necessary to life, we wander for a certain season daily and nightly through the rugged territories of Laconia. We go as boys we come back as men.
The Achæan and Macedonian armies now met the Spartans at Sel-la´sia, in Laconia, where the latter were badly defeated, and Sparta fell into the enemy's hands. Antigonus was so proud of his victory that he burst a blood vessel upon hearing the news, and died shortly after. Before he closed his eyes, however, he had the satisfaction of driving Cleomenes away from Greece into Egypt.
Multitudes, backward! Way for the Dorian; Way for the Lord of rocky Laconia; Heaven to Hercules opened Way on the earth for his son. Steel and fate, blunted, break on his fortitude; Two evils only never endureth he Death by a wound in retreating, Life with a blot on his name. Rocky his birthplace; rocks are immutable; So are his laws, and so shall his glory be.
And, accordingly, when the Thebans made their invasion into Laconia, and took a great number of the Helots, they could by no means persuade them to sing the verses of Terpander, Alcman, or Spendon, "For," said they, "the masters do not like it." So that it was truly observed by one, that in Sparta he who was free was most so, and he that was a slave there, the greatest slave in the world.
It was a great pity that these two free states in Laconia and Achaia were only wasting their strength against each other, instead of joining against Macedon. Aratus cared more for Achaia than for Greece, and soon was again at war with Sparta, and Cleomenes marched out against him.
Among these one of the most vivid is from the pen of a well-known American journalist, Floyd P. Gibbons, correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. He was saved from the British liner, Laconia, sunk by a German submarine, and thus tells the tale of his sufferings and final rescue: I have serious doubts whether this is a real story.
The Lacedæmonians dared not openly attack these men, but they felt angry with Agesilaus, because during his reign they had lost so fine a country, as large as Laconia itself, and as fertile as any part of Greece, after having enjoyed the possession of it for so many years. For this reason Agesilaus refused to accept the terms of peace offered by the Thebans.
The Athenians consented, and a truce was made on the following conditions: The Spartans were to surrender all their fleet, including any ships of war on the coast of Laconia, to the Athenians, and to refrain from any attack on the fort, until the return of the envoys.
It was in the mountain districts where were preserved the recollections of Scander Beg, and where the manners of ancient Laconia prevailed; the deeds of the brave soldier were sung on the lyre, and the skilful robber quoted as an example to the children by the father of the family. Village feasts were held on the booty taken from strangers; and the favourite dish was always a stolen sheep.
The agrarian in Laconia banished money, this multiplies it; that allowed a matter of twenty or thirty acres to a man, this 2,000 or 3,000; there is no comparison between them. And yet I differ so much from my lord, or his opinion that the agrarian was the ruin of Lacedaemon, that I hold it no less than demonstrable to have been her main support.
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