Agis and Cleomenes

After Eucleidas and his forces had in this way been cut to pieces, and the enemy, after their victory there, were coming on against the other wing, Cleomenes, seeing that his soldiers were in disorder and no longer had courage to stand their ground, took measures for his own safety. Many of his mercenaries fell, as we are told, and all the Spartans, six thousand in number, except two hundred.

When Cleomenes came to the city, he advised the citizens who met him to receive Antigonus; as for himself, he said he would do whatever promised to be best for Sparta, whether it called for his life or death. Then, seeing the women running up to those who had escaped with him, relieving them of their arms,

and bringing drink to them, he went into his own house. Here his concubine, a free woman of Megalopolis whom he had taken to himself after the death of his wife, came to him, as was her wont upon his return from the field, and wished to minister to him; but he would neither drink, though he was faint with thirst, nor sit down, though he was worn out. Instead, all in armour as he was, he put his arm aslant against one of the pillars of the house, dropped his face upon his forearm, and after resting himself in this way for a short time,

and running over in his thoughts all possible plans, he set out with his friends for Gythium. There he went on board of vessels provided for this very purpose and put to sea.

Antigonus marched up and took the city without resistance. He treated the Lacedaemonians humanely, and did not insult or mock the dignity of Sparta, but restored her laws and constitution,[*](As they were before the reforms of Cleomenes.) sacrificed to the gods, and went away on the third day. For he learned that there was a great war in Macedonia and that the Barbarians were ravaging the country. Moreover, his disease was already ill full possession of him, having developed into a quick consumption and an acute catarrh.

He did not, however, give up, but had strength left for his conflicts at home, so that he won a very great victory, slew a prodigious number of the Barbarians, and died gloriously, having broken a blood-vessel (as it is likely, and as Phylarchus says by the very shout that he raised on the field of battle. And in the schools of philosophy one used to hear the story that after his victory he shouted for joy, O happy day! and then brought up a quantity of blood, fell into a high fever, and so died. So much concerning Antigonus.