Pericles

That he was right in seeking to confine the power of the Athenians within lesser Greece, was amply proved by what came to pass. To begin with, the Euboeans revolted,[*](446. B.C.) and he crossed over to the island with a hostile force. Then straightway word was brought to him that the Megarians had gone over to the enemy, and that an army of the enemy was on the confines of Attica under the leadership of Pleistoanax, the king of the Lacedaemonians.

Accordingly, Pericles brought his forces back with speed from Euboea for the war in Attica. He did not venture to join battle with hoplites who were so many, so brave, and so eager for battle, but seeing that Pleistoanax was a very young man, and that out of all his advisers he set most store by Cleandridas, whom the ephors had sent along with him, by reason of his youth, to be a guardian and an assistant to him, he secretly made trial of this man’s integrity, speedily corrupted him with bribes, and persuaded him to lead the Peloponnesians back out of Attica.

When the army had withdrawn and had been disbanded to their several cities, the Lacedaemonians, in indignation, laid a heavy fine upon their king, the full amount of which he was unable to pay, and so betook himself out of Lacedaemon, while Cleandridas, who had gone into voluntary exile, was condemned to death. He was the father of that Gylippus who overcame the Athenians in Sicily. And nature seems to have imparted covetousness to the son, as it were a congenital disease, owing to which he too, after noble achievements, was caugt in base practices and banished from Sparta in disgrace. This story, however, I have told at length in my life of Lysander.[*](Plut. Lys. 16 f.)