Agis and Cleomenes

Accordingly, when all things were ready, they came to Taenarus by land, while the army escorted them under arms. And as Cratesicleia was about to embark, she drew Cleomenes aside by himself into the temple of Poseidon, and after embracing and kissing him in his anguish and deep trouble, said:

Come, O king of the Lacedaemonians, when we go forth let no one see us weeping or doing anything unworthy of Sparta. For this lies in our power, and this alone; but as for the issues of fortune, we shall have what the Deity may grant. After saying this, she composed her countenance and proceeded to the ship with her little grandson, and bade the captain put to sea with all speed.

And when she was come to Egypt, and learned that Ptolemy was entertaining embassies and proposals from Antigonus, and heard that although the Achaeans invited Cleomenes to make terms with them, he was afraid on her account to end the war without the consent of Ptolemy, she sent word to him that he must do what was fitting and advantageous for Sparta, and not, because of one old woman and a little boy, be ever in fear of Ptolemy. Such, then, as we are told, was the bearing of Cratesicleia in her misfortunes.

After Antigonus had taken Tegea by siege, and had surprised Orchomenus and Mantineia, Cleomenes, now reduced to the narrow confines of Laconia, set free those of the Helots who could pay down five Attic minas (thereby raising a sum of five hundred talents), armed two thousand of them in Macedonian fashion as an offset to the White Shields of Antigonus, and planned an undertaking which was great and entirely unexpected.