Pausanias Analysis

When Archidamus died, he left behind sons, of whom Agis was the elder in age, and succeeded Agesilaus in the kingship. Archidamus also had a daughter named Cynisca, who was exceedingly ambitious in regard to the Olympic games and became the first woman to breed horses and also the first woman to achieve an Olympic victory. After Cynisca other women gained Olympic victories, especially those from Sparta, but none equaled her in fame for their successes.

The Spartans, it seems to me, hold poetry and the praise derived from it in the least esteem of all men. Except for the epigram composed for Cynisca by someone or other, and an earlier one by Simonides inscribed upon the tripod dedicated at Delphi for Pausanias, there is nothing else composed by a poet to commemorate the kings of the Lacedaemonians.

During the reign of Agis, son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, various charges arose against the Eleans, but the Spartans were especially angered at being excluded by them from the Olympic Games and from the sanctuary at Olympia. They therefore dispatched a herald to Elis, bearing orders to release Lepreum into autonomy, as well as any neighboring communities still subject to Elis. When the Eleans replied that as soon as they saw Sparta granting freedom to its own subject cities, they themselves would promptly release theirs, the Lacedaemonians and King Agis proceeded to invade Elis.

At that time, as the god caused an earthquake, the army withdrew back, retreating as far as Olympia and the Alpheios. But in the following year, Agis ravaged the territory and carried off a great part of the spoil. Now a certain Xenias, an Elean, privately a guest-friend to Agis and officially a proxenos to the Spartans, rose up against the popular party along with the wealthy citizens. However, before Agis and his army arrived to their aid, Thrasydaeus, who at that time was leading the people of Elis, defeated Xenias and his companions in battle and expelled them from the city.

When Agis had led his army back again, he left behind Lysistratus, a Spartan, along with a portion of his forces and the Elean exiles, instructing them to ravage the land together with the Lepreans. In the third year of the war, the Lacedaemonians and Agis prepared another invasion into Elis. The Eleans and Thrasydaeus, being utterly exhausted, agreed to surrender their authority over the neighboring towns, to demolish the city's walls, and to permit the Lacedaemonians to sacrifice to the god at Olympia and participate in the games.

Agis was also continually invading Attica with his army and established a fortress against the Athenians at Decelea. When the Athenian fleet had been destroyed at Aegospotami, Lysander, son of Aristocritus, and Agis violated the oaths sworn before the gods by the Lacedaemonians collectively to the Athenians; and acting on their own initiative, without consulting the common Spartan assembly, they put forward to their allies the decision to destroy Athens utterly from its foundations.

Such were the chief distinctions of Agis in warfare. But just as Ariston had shown thoughtless harshness toward Demaratus, Agis treated his own son Leotychides recklessly. Through some unhappy influence, Agis openly declared before the hearing of the ephors that he did not consider Leotychides his child. Later, however, regret overcame even Agis; passing through Heraea as they carried him home sick from Arcadia, he called upon the assembled people as witnesses, proclaiming that he truly regarded Leotychides as his son, and with tears and entreaties he urged them to report these words to the Lacedaemonians.

After the death of Agis, Agesilaus drove Leotychides from the throne, bringing to the remembrance of the Lacedaemonians the words once spoken by Agis himself about Leotychides. The Arcadians from Heraea also arrived and testified on behalf of Leotychides concerning what they had heard from Agis at the time of his death.

The oracle from Delphi produced even greater controversy between Agesilaus and Leotychides. It had been delivered there and ran as follows: "Take heed, Sparta, proud though you be, lest from you arise a lame kingship from sound-footed stock; for long and unexpected hardships shall seize upon you amidst the surging waves of man-destroying war."

At that time, Leotychides directed these words against Agesilaus, for Agesilaus was indeed lame in one of his feet; but Agesilaus turned the charge back against Leotychides, saying that he was not the legitimate son of Agis. Although the decision rested with them, the Lacedaemonians did not refer this dispute to Delphi. The reason, in my opinion, was Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, who earnestly supported Agesilaus in every way, so that the royal power might pass to him.