History of Sparta: Encyclopedia II - History of Sparta - The 3rd century BCE

History of Sparta - The 3rd century BCE

Twenty-two years later the city was attacked by an immense force under Pyrrhus, but Spartan bravery had not died out and the formidable enemy was repulsed, even the women taking part in the defence of the city. About 244 BCE an Aetolian army overran Laconia, working irreparable harm and carrying off, it is said, 50,000 captives.

But the social evils within the state were even harder to combat than foes without. Avarice, luxury, and the glaring inequality in the distribution of wealth threatened to bring about the speedy fall of the state if no cure could be found. Agis IV and Cleomenes III made a heroic and entirely disinterested attempt in the latter part of the 3rd century to improve the conditions by a redistribution of land, a widening of the citizen body, and a restoration of the old severe training and simple life. But the evil was too deep-seated to be remedied by these artificial means; Agis was assassinated, and the reforms of Cleomenes seem to have had no permanent effect.

The reign of Cleomenes was marked also by a determined effort to cope with the rising power of the Achaean League and to recover for Sparta her long-lost supremacy in the Peloponnese, and even throughout Greece. The battle of Sellasia (222 BCE), in which Cleomenes was defeated by the Achaeans and Antigonus III Doson of Macedonia, and the death of the king, which occurred shortly afterwards in Egypt, put an end to these hopes. The same reign saw also an important constitutional change, the substitution of a board of patronomi for the ephors, whose power had become almost despotic, and the curtailment of the functions exercised by the gerousia; these measures were, however, cancelled by Antigonus. It was not long afterwards that the dual kingship ceased and Sparta fell under the sway of a series of cruel and rapacious tyrants—Lycurgus, Machanidas, who was killed by Philopoemen, and Nabis, who, if we may trust the accounts given by Polybius and Livy, was little better than a bandit chieftain, holding Sparta by means of extreme cruelty and oppression, and using mercenary troops to a large extent in his wars.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The 3rd century BCE", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki