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B.C. 389-388.[114] On the expiration of winter, and in fulfilment of his
promise to the Achaeans, Agesilaus called out the ban once more with
early spring to invade the Acarnanians. The latter were apprised of
his intention, and, being persuaded that owing to the midland
situation of their cities they would just as truly be blockaded by an
enemy who chose to destroy their corn as they would be if besieged
with entrenchments in regular form, they sent ambassadors to
Lacedaemon, and made peace with the Achaeans and alliance with the
Lacedaemonians. Thus closes this page of history concerning the
affairs of Arcarnania.
To turn to the next. There was a feeling on the part of the
Lacedaemonians[115] that no expedition against Athens or Boeotia would
be safe so long as a state so important and so close to their own
frontier as Argos remained in open hostility behind them. Accordingly
they called out the ban against Argos. Now when Agesipolis learnt that
the duty of leadership devolved on him, and, moreover, that the
sacrifices before crossing the frontier were favourable, he went to
Olympia and consulted the will of the god. "Would it be lawful to
him," he inquired, "not to accept the holy truce, on the ground that
the Argives made the season for it[116] depend not on a fixed date, but
on the prospect of a Lacedaemonian invasion?" The god indicated to the
inquirer that he might lawfully repudiate any holy truce which was
fraudulently antedated.[117] Not content with this, the young king, on
leaving Olympia, went at once to Delphi, and at that shrine put the
same question to Apollo: "Were his views in accordance with his
Father's as touching the holy truce?"--to which the son of Zeus made
answer: "Yea, altogether in accordance."[118]
Then without further hesitation, picking up his army at Phlius (where,
during his absence to visit the temples, the troops had been
collecting), he advanced by Nemea into the enemy's territory. The
Argives, on their side, perceiving that they would be unable to hinder
his advance, in accordance with their custom sent a couple of heralds,
garlanded, and presented their usual plea of a holy truce. Agesipolis
answered them curtly that the gods were not satisfied with the justice
of their plea, and, refusing to accept the truce, pushed forward,
causing thereby great perplexity and consternation throughout the
rural districts and the capital itself.
But while he was getting his evening meal that first evening in the
Argive territory--just at the moment when the after-dinner libation
had been poured out--the god sent an earthquake; and with one consent
the Lacedaemonians, beginning with the officers of the royal quarters,
sang the sacred hymn of Poseidon. The soldiers, in general, expected
to retreat, arguing that, on the occurrence of an earthquake once
before, Agis had retired from Elis. But Agesipolis held another view:
if the god had sent his earthquake at the moment when he was
meditating invasion, he should have understood that the god forbade
his entrance; but now, when the invasion was a thing effected, he must
needs take it as a signal of his approval.[119] Accordingly next morning
he sacrificed to Poseidon, and advanced a short distance further into
the country.
The late expedition of Agesilaus into Argos[120] was still fresh in
men's minds, and Agesipolis was eager to ascertain from the soldiers
how close his predecessor had advanced to the fortification walls; or
again, how far he had gone in ravaging the open country--not unlike a
competitor in the pentathlon,[121] eager to cap the performance of his
rival in each event. On one occasion it was only the discharge of
missiles from the towers which forced him to recross the trenches
round the walls; on another, profiting by the absence of the majority
of the Argives in Laconian territory, he came so close to the gates
that their officers actually shut out their own Boeotian cavalry on
the point of entering, in terror lest the Lacedaemonians might pour
into the town in company, and these Boeotian troopers were forced to
cling, like bats to a wall, under each coign of vantage beneath the
battlements. Had it not been for the accidental absence of the
Cretans,[122] who had gone off on a raid to Nauplia, without a doubt
numbers of men and horses would have been shot down. At a later date,
while encamping in the neighbourhood of the Enclosures,[123] a thunder-
bolt fell into his camp. One or two men were struck, while others died
from the effect of the concussion on their brains. At a still later
period he was anxious to fortify some sort of garrison outpost in the
pass of Celusa,[124] but upon offering sacrifice the victims proved
lobeless,[125] and he was constrained to lead back and disband his army
--not without serious injury inflicted on the Argives, as the result
of an invasion which had taken them wholly by surprise.
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