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After this Agis came to Delphi and offered as a sacrifice a tenth of
the spoil. On his return journey he fell ill at Heraea--being by this
time an old man--and was carried back to Lacedaemon. He survived the
journey, but being there arrived, death speedily overtook him. He was
buried with a sepulchre transcending in solemnity the lot of ordinary
mortality.[49]
When the holy days of mourning were accomplished, and it was necessary
to choose another king, there were rival claimants to the throne.
Leotychides claimed it as the son, Agesilaus as the brother, of Agis.
Then Leotychides protested: "Yet consider, Agesilaus, the law bids not
'the king's brother,' but 'the king's son' to be king; only if there
chance to be no son, in that case shall the brother of the king be
king." Agesilaus: "Then must I needs be king." Leotychides: "How so,
seeing that I am not dead?" Agesilaus: "Because he whom you call your
father denied you, saying, 'Leotychides is no son of mine.'"
Leotychides: "Nay, but my mother, who would know far better than he,
said, and still to-day says, I am." Agesilaus: "Nay, but the god
himself, Poteidan, laid his finger on thy falsity when by his
earthquake he drove forth thy father from the bridal chamber into the
light of day; and time, 'that tells no lies,' as the proverb has it,
bare witness to the witness of the god; for just ten months from the
moment at which he fled and was no more seen within that chamber, you
were born."[50] So they reasoned together.
Diopethes,[51] a great authority upon oracles, supported Leotychides.
There was an oracle of Apollo, he urged, which said "Beware of the
lame reign." But Diopethes was met by Lysander, who in behalf of
Agesilaus demurred to this interpretation put upon the language of the
god. If they were to beware of a lame reign, it meant not, beware lest
a man stumble and halt, but rather, beware of him in whose veins flows
not the blood of Heracles; most assuredly the kingdom would halt, and
that would be a lame reign in very deed, whensoever the descendants of
Heracles should cease to lead the state. Such were the arguments on
either side, after hearing which the city chose Agesilaus to be king.
Now Agesilaus had not been seated on the throne one year when, as he
sacrificed one of the appointed sacrifices in behalf of the city,[52]
the soothsayer warned him, saying: "The gods reveal a conspiracy of
the most fearful character"; and when the king sacrificed a second
time, he said: "The aspect of the victims is now even yet more
terrible"; but when he had sacrificed for the third time, the
soothsayer exclaimed: "O Agesilaus, the sign is given to me, even as
though we were in the very midst of the enemy." Thereupon they
sacrificed to the deities who avert evil and work salvation, and so
barely obtained good omens and ceased sacrificing. Nor had five days
elapsed after the sacrifices were ended, ere one came bringing
information to the ephors of a conspiracy, and named Cinadon as the
ringleader; a young man robust of body as of soul, but not one of the
peers.[53] Accordingly the ephors questioned their informant: "How say
you the occurrence is to take place?" and he who gave the information
answered: "Cinadon took me to the limit of the market-place, and bade
me count how many Spartans there were in the market-place; and I
counted--'king, ephors, and elders, and others--maybe forty. But tell
me, Cinadon,' I said to him, 'why have you bidden me count them?' and
he answered me: 'Those men, I would have you know, are your sworn
foes; and all those others, more than four thousand, congregated there
are your natural allies.' Then he took and showed me in the streets,
here one and there two of 'our enemies,' as we chanced to come across
them, and all the rest 'our natural allies'; and so again running
through the list of Spartans to be found in the country districts, he
still kept harping on that string: 'Look you, on each estate one
foeman--the master--and all the rest allies.'" The ephors asked: "How
many do you reckon are in the secret of this matter?" The informant
answered: "On that point also he gave me to understand that there were
by no means many in their secret who were prime movers of the affair,
but those few to be depended on; 'and to make up,' said he, 'we
ourselves are in their secret, all the rest of them--helots,
enfranchised, inferiors, provincials, one and all.[54] Note their
demeanour when Spartans chance to be the topic of their talk. Not one
of them can conceal the delight it would give him if he might eat up
every Spartan raw.'"[55] Then, as the inquiry went on, the question
came: "And where did they propose to find arms?" The answer followed:
"He explained that those of us, of course, who are enrolled in
regiments have arms of our own already, and as for the mass--he led
the way to the war foundry, and showed me scores and scores of knives,
of swords, of spits, hatchets, and axes, and reaping-hooks. 'Anything
or everything,' he told me, 'which men use to delve in earth, cut
timber, or quarry stone, would serve our purpose; nay, the instruments
used for other arts would in nine cases out of ten furnish weapons
enough and to spare, especially when dealing with unarmed
antagonists.'" Once more being asked what time the affair was to come
off, he replied his orders were "not to leave the city."
As the result of their inquiry the ephors were persuaded that the
man's statements were based upon things he had really seen,[56] and
they were so alarmed that they did not even venture to summon the
Little Assembly,[57] as it was named; but holding informal meetings
among themselves--a few senators here and a few there--they determined
to send Cinadon and others of the young men to Aulon, with
instructions to apprehend certain of the inhabitants and helots, whose
names were written on the scytale (or scroll).[58] He had further
instructions to capture another resident in Aulon; this was a woman,
the fashionable beauty of the place--supposed to be the arch-
corruptress of all Lacedaemonians, young and old, who visited Aulon.
It was not the first mission of the sort on which Cinadon had been
employed by the ephors. It was natural, therefore, that the ephors
should entrust him with the scytale on which the names of the suspects
were inscribed; and in answer to his inquiry which of the young men he
was to take with him, they said: "Go and order the eldest of the
Hippagretae[59] (or commanders of horse) to let you have six or seven
who chance to be there." But they had taken care to let the commander
know whom he was to send, and that those sent should also know that
their business was to capture Cinadon. Further, the authorities
instructed Cinadon that they would send three waggons to save bringing
back his captives on foot--concealing as deeply as possible the fact
that he, and he alone, was the object of the mission. Their reason for
not securing him in the city was that they did not really know the
extent of the mischief; and they wished, in the first instance, to
learn from Cinadon who his accomplices were before these latter could
discover they were informed against and effect their escape. His
captors were to secure him first, and having learnt from him the names
of his confederates, to write them down and send them as quickly as
possible to the ephors. The ephors, indeed, were so much concerned
about the whole occurrence that they further sent a company of horse
to assist their agents at Aulon.[60] As soon as the capture was
effected, and one of the horsemen was back with the list of names
taken down on the information of Cinadon, they lost no time in
apprehending the soothsayer Tisamenus and the rest who were the
principals in the conspiracy. When Cinadon[61] himself was brought
back and cross-examined, and had made a full confession of the whole
plot, his plans, and his accomplices, they put to him one final
question: "What was your object in undertaking this business?" He
answered: "I wished to be inferior to no man in Lacedaemon." Let that
be as it might, his fate was to be taken out forthwith in irons, just
as he was, and to be placed with his two hands and his neck in the
collar, and so under scourge and goad to be driven, himself and his
accomplices, round the city. Thus upon the heads of those was visited
the penalty of their offences.
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