Agis and Cleomenes

Thus there were left of the old Spartan families not more than seven hundred, and of these there were perhaps a hundred who possessed land and allotment; while the ordinary throng, without resources and without civic rights, lived in enforced idleness, showing no zeal or energy in warding off foreign wars, but ever watching for some opportunity to subvert and change affairs at home.

Agis, therefore, thinking it a noble achievement, as it was, to equalize and restore to full numbers the body of citizens, began to sound the inclinations of people. The young men, as he found, quickly and beyond his expectations gave ear to him, and stripped themselves for the contest in behalf of virtue, like him casting aside their old ways of living as worn-out garments in order to attain liberty.

But most of the older men, since they were now far gone in corruption, feared and shuddered at the name of Lycurgus as if they had run away from their master and were being led back to him, and they upbraided Agis for bewailing the present state of affairs and yearning after the ancient dignity of Sparta. Lysander, however, the son of Libys, Mandrocleidas the son of Ecphanes, as well as Agesilaüs, approved of the king’s aspirations and supported him in them.