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When the love of gold and silver had once gained admittance into the Lacedaemonian commonwealth, it was quickly followed by avarice and baseness of spirit in the pursuit of it, and by luxury, effeminacy, and prodigality in the use. Then Sparta fell from almost all her former virtue and repute, and so continued till the days of Agis and Leonidas, who both together were kings of the Lacedaemonians.
He was just such a man as Lykurgus himself would have trained; but if you examined his habits and actions more closely, you would say: "'Tis the same woman still." For while King Agis was away in the wars, Alkibiades seduced his wife Timaea, so that she became pregnant by him, and did not even deny the fact.
Fabricando fit faber, age quod agis.*" * The worker lives by working, do what he will. He was so exasperated he quoted Latin.
Agis, nevertheless, little regarding these rumors, procured Lysander's election as ephor; and then took the first occasion of proposing through him his Rhetra to the council, the chief articles of which were these: That every one should be free from their debts; all the lands to be divided into equal portions, those that lay betwixt the watercourse near Pellene and Mount Taygetus, and as far as the cities of Malea and Sellasia, into four thousand five hundred lots, the remainder into fifteen thousand; these last to be shared out among those of the country people who were fit for service as heavy-armed soldiers, the first among the natural born Spartans; and their number also should be supplied from any among the country people or strangers who had received the proper breeding of freemen, and were of vigorous, body and of age for military service.
King Agis, when some Athenian laughed at their short swords, and said that the jugglers on the stage swallowed them with ease, answered him, "We find them long enough to reach our enemies with;" and as their swords were short and sharp, so, it seems to me, were their sayings. They reach the point and arrest the attention of the hearers better than any.
The latest rumour about Xerxes having been duly chewed, conversation began to lag. “An idle day for you, my Polus,” threw out Clearchus. “Idle indeed! No jury sits to-day in the King Archon’s Porch or the ‘Red Court’; I can’t vote to condemn that Heraclius who’s exported wheat contrary to the law.” “Condemn?” cried Agis; “wasn’t the evidence very weak?”
The Spartans, incited, doubtless, by the example of their king, who was eager to redeem his reputation, rushed impetuously to the assault; and they were already within a stone's-throw of the enemy when a Spartan veteran cried out to Agis: "Heal not ill with ill!" His meaning was that in Argos Agis had been too cold, and now he was too hot.
These dispositions concluded, Agis invaded the plain and began to ravage Saminthus and other places. Discovering this, the Argives came up from Nemea, day having now dawned. On their way they fell in with the troops of the Phliasians and Corinthians, and killed a few of the Phliasians and had perhaps a few more of their own men killed by the Corinthians.
"Pense, aime, agis et souffre en Dieu C'est la grande science." July 18, 1858. To-day I have been deeply moved by the nostalgia of happiness and by the appeals of memory. My old self, the dreams which used to haunt me in Germany, passionate impulses, high aspirations, all revived in me at once with unexpected force.
Agis heard the warning voice, and his own good sense must have shown him how rashly he was acting; accordingly, at the very moment of encounter, he gave the word to retreat, and fell back to the neighbourhood of Tegea. At this place there was a copious head of water, which, when properly regulated, served to irrigate the fields of Tegea and Mantinea.
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