Plutarch, Agis and Cleomenes, ed. Bernadotte Perrin, Agis.13

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[1] οὕτω δὲ τῆς πράξεως αὐτοῖς ὁδῷ βαδιζούσης καὶ μηδενὸς ἐνισταμένου μηδὲ διακωλύοντος, εἷς ἀνὴρ, Ἀγησίλαος, ἀνέτρεψε πάντα καὶ διελυμήνατο, κάλλιστον διανόημα καὶ Λακωνικώτατον αἰσχίστῳ νοσήματι τῇ φιλοπλουτίᾳ διαφθείρας.

[2] ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ἐκέκτητο μὲν ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα πολλὴν καὶ ἀγαθὴν χώραν, ὤφειλε δὲ πάμπολλα, μήτε διαλῦσαι δυνάμενος τὰ χρέα μήτε τὴν χώραν προέσθαι βουλόμενος ἔπεισε τὸν Ἆγιν ὡς ἀμφοτέρων μὲν ἅμα πραττομένων μέγας ἔσοιτο περὶ τὴν πόλιν ὁ νεωτερισμός, εἰ δὲ τῇ τῶν χρεῶν ἀφέσει θεραπευθεῖεν οἱ κτηματικοὶ πρότερον, εὐκόλως ἂν αὐτῶν καὶ καθʼ ἡσυχίαν¹ ὕστερον ἐνδεξομένων τὸν ἀναδασμόν.

[3] ταῦτα δὲ καὶ τοῖς περὶ Λύσανδρον ἐδόκει, συνεξαπατωμένοις ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀγησιλάου, καὶ τὰ παρὰ τῶν χρεωστῶν γραμματεῖα συνενέγκαντες εἰς ἀγοράν, ἃ κλάρια καλοῦσι, καὶ πάντα συνθέντες εἰς ἓν συνέπρησαν. ἀρθείσης δὲ φλογός οἱ μὲν πλούσιοι καὶ δανειστικοὶ περιπαθοῦντες ἀπῆλθον, ὁ δὲ Ἀγησίλαος ὥσπερ ἐφυβρίζων οὐκ ἔφη λαμπρότερον ἑωρακέναι φῶς οὐδὲ πῦρ ἐκείνου καθαρώτερον.

[4]
ἀξιούντων δὲ τῶν πολλῶν καὶ τὴν γῆν εὐθὺς νέμεσθαι καὶ τῶν βασιλέων οὕτω ποιεῖν κελευόντων, ἀσχολίας τινὰς ἐμβάλλων ὁ Ἀγησίλαος ἀεὶ καὶ προφάσεις λέγων παρῆγε τὸν χρόνον, ἄχρι οὗ στρατεία συνέβη τῷ Ἄγιδι, μεταπεμπομένων τῶν Ἀχαιῶν συμμάχων ὄντων βοήθειαν ἐκ Λακεδαίμονος. Αἰτωλοὶ γὰρ ἦσαν ἐπίδοξοι διὰ τῆς Μεγαρικῆς ἐμβαλοῦντες εἰς Πελοπόννησον καὶ τοῦτο κωλύσων Ἄρατος ὁ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν στρατηγὸς ἤθροιζε δύναμιν καὶ τοῖς ἐφόροις ἔγραφεν.

Agis and Cleomenes. Plutarch. ed. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. 1921.

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Current edition Perseus

Ἄγις καὶ Κλεομένης (Greek) (Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. X. Perrin, Bernadotte, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1921.)

Translations (1)

Agis and Cleomenes Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. X. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1921.) — Agis.13 focus

[1] Thus the enterprise of the kings was making good progress and no one tried to oppose or hinder them, when one man, Agesilaüs, upset and ruined everything. He allowed a most shameful disease of avarice to wreck a most noble and most truly Spartan plan.

[2] For since he was an exceedingly large owner of valuable land, but owed huge sums of money, being unable to pay his debts and unwilling to give up his lands, he persuaded Agis that if both his projects should be carried through at the same time the resulting convulsion in the state would be great; but that if the men of property should first be won over by a remission of their debts, they would afterwards accept the distribution of land contentedly and quietly.

[3] This was also the opinion of Lysander, who was deceived in like manner by Agesilaüs. So they caused the mortgages (the Spartans call them klaria, or allotment pledges) to be brought into the market-place, heaped them altogether, and set fire to them. As the flames rose, the men of wealth and the lenders of money went away with heavy hearts; but Agesilaüs, as if in mockery of them, declared that his eyes had never seen a brighter or purer flame than that.

[4]
And now the multitude demanded also that the land should at once be divided, and the kings gave orders that this should be done; but Agesilaüs would always interpose some obstacle or make some excuse, and so consumed time until it became the duty of Agis to head a military expedition, when the Achaeans, who were their allies, sent for aid from Sparta. For the Aetolians were expected to invade Peloponnesus by way of Megara; and Aratus, the general of the Achaeans, in an effort to prevent this, was assembling a force and wrote a letter to the ephors.

[1] In all these matters Cleomenes was himself a teacher. His own manner of life was simple, plain, and no more pretentious than that of the common man, and it was a pattern of self-restraint for all. This gave him a great advantage in his dealings with the other Greeks. For when men had to do with the other kings, they were not so much awed by their wealth and extravagance as they were filled with loathing for their haughtiness and pomp as they gave offensive and harsh answers to their auditors;

[2] but when men came to Cleomenes, who was a real as well as a titled king, and then saw no profusion of purple robes or shawls about him, and no array of couches and litters; when they saw, too, that he did not make the work of his petitioners grievous and slow by employing a throng of messengers and door-keepers or by requiring written memorials, but came in person, just as he happened to be dressed, to answer the salutations of his visitors, conversing at length with those who needed his services and devoting time cheerfully and kindly to them, they were charmed and completely won over, and declared that he alone was a descendant of Heracles.

[3]
His usual supper was held in a room which had only three couches, and was very circumscribed and Spartan; but if he was entertaining ambassadors or guest-friends, two more couches would be brought in, and the servants would make the table a trifle more brilliant, not with sauces or sweetmeats, but with more generous dishes and a kindlier wine. And indeed he censured one of his friends, when he heard that in entertaining guest-friends he had set before them the black soup and barley-bread of the public mess-tables; for, said he, in these matters and before foreigners we must not be too strictly Spartan.

[4] After the table had been removed, a tripod would be brought in on which were a bronze mixer full of wine, two silver bowels holding a pint apiece, and drinking cups of silver, few all told, from which he who wished might drink; but no one had a cup forced upon him. Music there was none, nor was any such addition desired; for Cleomenes entertained the company himself by his conversation, now asking questions, now telling stories, and his discourse was not unpleasantly serious, but had a sportiveness that charmed and was free from rudeness.

[5] For the hunt which all the other kings made for men, ensnaring them with gifts and bribes and corrupting them, Cleomenes considered unskillful and unjust. In his eyes it was the noblest method, and one most fit for a king, to win over his visitors and attach them to himself by an intercourse and conversation which awakened pleasure and confidence. For he felt that a hireling differed from a friend in nothing except that the one was captured by a man’s character and conversation, the other by a man’s money.

Notes on the current edition

Agis and Cleomenes

1. καὶ καθ’ ἡσυχίαν Coraës and Ziegler: καθ’ ἡσυχίαν.

Plutarch Agis and Cleomenes Agis.13

ed. Bernadotte Perrin

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