the bonds were brought into the market-place and burnt, while Agesilaus
cried out that he had never seen so fine a fire; but having done this, he
was resolved not to part with his wealth, and delayed till the AEtolians
made an attack on the Peloponnesus, and Aratus called on Sparta to assist
the Achaians. Agis was sent at the head of an army to the Isthmus, and
there behaved like an ancient Spartan king, sharing all the toils and
hardships of the soldiers, and wearing nothing to distinguish him from
them; but while he was away everything had gone wrong at Sparta; people
had gone back to their old bad habits, and Agesilaus was using his office
of Ephor so shamefully that he had been obliged to have a guard of
soldiers to protect him from the people. This behaviour had made the
people suspect his nephew of being dishonest in his reforms, and they had
sent to recall Leonidas.

Agesilaus fled, and Agis was obliged to take sanctuary in Athene's
temple, and Cleombrotus in that of Neptune, where Leonidas found him.
His wife Chilonis, with her two little children, threw herself between
him and her father, pleading for his life, and promising he should leave
the city; and Leonidas listened, trying to make her remain, but she clung
to her husband, and went into exile with him.

Agiatis, the young wife of Agis, could not join him in the temple, being
kept at home by the birth of her first babe. He never left the
sanctuary, except to go to the baths, to which he was guarded by armed
friends. At last two of these were bribed to betray him. One said,
"Agis, I must take you to the Ephors," and the other threw a cloak over
his head; while Leonidas came up with a guard of foreign soldiers and
dragged him to prison, where the Ephors came to examine him. One asked
him if he repented. "I can never repent of virtue," he said.

They sentenced him to die; and finding that his mother and grandmother
were trying to stir up the people to demand that he should be heard in
public, they sent the executioners at once to put him to death. One of
them came in tears, but Agis quickly said, "Weep not, friend; I am
happier than those who condemn me;" and he held out his neck for the rope
which strangled him just as his grandmother and mother came in. The
grandmother was strangled the next moment. The mother said, "May this be
for the good of Sparta," and after laying out the limbs of her son and
mother, was also put to death; and the young w