49G 



Renewal of 

 war with 

 Persia and 

 AgetUaus. 



Spartan 

 ]x>wcr. 



Spartan character, and paid equal respect to the ephori, 

 senate, and people ; but an event, which at first extend- 

 ed the power and fame of the Lacedaemonian king and 

 commonwealth, prepared the way for the final downfal 

 of Spartan pre-eminence. 



Agesilaus, commissioned with a powerful army to 

 protect the Greeks of Asia against the designs of the 

 Persian monarch, entered upon a brilliant career of vic- 

 tory equally productive of honour and spoil. He scat- 

 tered, with little difficulty, the Persian forces that were 

 brought against him ; passed from province to province 

 as if on an uninterrupted march ; excited the remoter 

 parts of the empire to throw off the yoke, and made the 

 great monarch tremble for his personal safety in the 

 midst of his dominions. (See AGESILAUS.) 



This extraordinary success, however, urged the Per- 

 sian court to employ a different weapon of defence. By 

 the distribution of gold, the premise of subsidies, and 

 the disposal of the Persian fleet, .a powerful confederacy 

 of the Athenians, Corinthians, Argives, and Thebans, 

 was arrayed against the domineering commonwealth of 

 Sparta. The defeat and destruction of their naval force 

 by that of the Persians and Athenians under the com- 

 mand of Conon, was the first fatal blow to their power ; 

 Decay of the f rom the effects of which they never recovered, and 

 which was followed by a general revolt of their colonies 

 and tributary allies. The subsequent victory gained 

 by Agesilaus at Coroneia over the confederate Greeks, 

 (the most sanguinary, according to Xenophon, that he 

 had ever witnessed, ) and the advantages obtained by 

 Praxitas at Corinth, still upheld the renown of the Spar- 

 tan name ; and the peace procured by the Persian me- 

 diation, through- the able policy of Antaleidas, secured 

 the supremacy, and served the interests of the Lacedae- 

 monians nearly as effectually as the successful termina- 

 tion of the Peloponnesian war had done. But the fatal is- 

 sue of the Theban war which followed, and which their 

 own overbearing interference had excited, together with 

 the loss of half their territory by the restoration of the 

 Messenian state, (which was a consequence of that 

 war,) completely broke their long established influence 

 as leaders in Greece, and left the nation in a state of in- 

 decision and disorder from which it never recovered. 

 (See GREECE and EPAMINONDAS). 



Before the power of Philip of Macedon had made 

 much progress in Greece, the Lacedaemonians had so 

 far recovered their strength as to renew their oppres- 

 sions on the adjoining states, particularly of Argos and 

 Messenia ; but, though aware of the danger to be ap- 

 prehended from the measures of the politic Macedonian, 

 were either too degenerate, or still too feeble, to make 

 any decisive effort in behalf of the falling liberties of 

 Greece. At the assembly of the different states sum- 

 moned by Alexander the Great to concert the expedi- 

 tion against Persia, they were the only people who ven- 

 tured to remonstrate against the measure, (apparently, 

 however, from a spirit of pride rather than from any 

 settled principle of policy on the subject,) and openly 

 asserted, in the strain of their ancient independence, 

 that " they had been accustomed to point out the way 

 to such glorious deeds, and not to be directed by others." 

 But they were obliged to submit to the prevailing sen- 

 tence of the assembly, and to concur in the appoint- 

 ment of the Macedonian prince to the office of gene- 

 ralissimo in the war. Unawed, nevertheless, by the 

 power of Alexander, or by the terrible example of his 

 vengeance inflicted on the city of Thebes, the Lacede- 

 monians, under their intrepid king Agis, the grandson 



LACEDJEMON. 



Feeble rc- 

 s'stance to 

 J!hi!ip. 



Apposition 

 to Alexan- 



of Agesilaus, embraced every opportunity to thwart the 

 measures of the great conqueror, and to vindicate the 

 independence of their country. 



When the news of the victory at Arbelsr, had alarm, 

 ed the other states, by a dread of the growing Mace- 

 donian power, more than it gratified them by the humi- 

 liation of their old but despised enemy, Agis, more da- 

 ring than prudent, and more ambitious of restoring 

 Spartan supremacy than Grecian liberty, took the field 

 with a powerful army, and marched against Megalopo- 

 lis, the only Peloponnesian city which had acknowledg- 

 ed Alexander for its sovereign. But Antipater, who 

 commanded in Macedonia, arriving speedily with a su- 

 perior force, the Spartans and their allies were defeat- 

 ed, and their enterprising leader slain in the battle. Eu- 

 demidas, the son of Agis, a wise and virtuous prince, 

 and a decided advocate of peace, restrained the ardent 

 but ill-judged zeal 'of his countrymen, to prosecute the 

 unequal contest ; and, when one of his subjects was 

 magnifying the victories which their ancestors had 

 gained over the Persians, as an argument in favour of 

 hostilities against Macedon, " Do you think," said the 

 king, " that it is the same thing to make war against a 

 thousand sheep, as against fifty wolves?" Of the sub- 

 sequent reigns, little more is known than the names of 

 the kings, and of a few leading men ; but amidst all 

 the revolutions of Greece, the shadow of independence 

 was still retained at Lacedaemon. It was still govern- 

 ed by its own princes and senate, and had never sub- 

 mitted to the humiliation of receiving within its walls 

 a Macedonian garrison. A striking instance of its an- 

 cient spirit was displayed ;against Pyrrhus, when in 

 his attempt to annex the Peloponnesus to his kingdom, 

 and who had reached the capital of Laconia at a time 

 when the army was absent on an expedition to Crete. 

 The women vied with the men in fortifying the city, 

 and repelling the enemy ; and, after repeated attempts 

 to carry the place by assault, the king of Epire was 

 compelled to retreat. This was nearly the last expir- 

 ing blaze of Spartan valour ; opulence and voluptuous- 

 ness had long prevailed in place of the poverty and dis- 

 cipline inculcated by the laws of Lycurgus. The most 

 remarkable corruption of those laws had been intro- 

 duced during the administration of Lysander and Age- 

 silaus, whose conquests had filled their country with 

 wealth, and opened the sources of luxury and avarice. 

 The most flagrant abuses succeeded in every depart- 

 ment of the state, and threatened its total subversion. 

 The ephori, instead of answering the end of their in- 

 stitution as a check upon the despotism of the kings 

 and the turbulence of the people, had become an arbi- 

 trary and corrupted body, tyrannizing over all -parties. 

 The public meals, the last pledge of Spartan tempe- 

 rance, had been discountenanced ; and the lands had 

 accumulated in the possession of a few families, who 

 lived in the greatest splendour, while the rest of the 

 population was doomed to extreme penury. In -this 

 state of affairs, Agis, the son of Etida, ascended the 

 throne ; and, though his family was the most opulent 

 in the state, and himself brought up in all the ease of 

 luxury, he nobly planned the restoration of the ancient 

 discipline, and the re- establishment of the neglected 

 laws of Lycurgus. (See AGIS.) His failure and 

 death left the whole constitution of Sparta in the ut- 

 most confusion, and the country itself in a state of ra- 

 pid depopulation. His successor Cleomenes, animated 

 with the same spirit of reformation, but less averse 

 from sanguinary measures, determined to pursue a 



Still retains 

 the shew of 

 independ- 

 ence. 



Total de- 

 generacy 

 manners. 



Attempt of 

 reform by 

 Agis and 

 Cleomenes. 



