is fellow-king, on the other hand, was such a miser that he heaped up
great treasures. When he died, his wife and mother were said to have
more gold than the city and people together. The miser king was
succeeded by his son, but this young man's sole ambition was to restore
Sparta to its former condition.

His name was A'gis. He lived like the Spartans of old, practiced all the
virtues of his ancestors, and was frugal and brave in the extreme. To
restore Sparta, real Spartans were needed, but, in counting them over,
Agis found that there were only about seven hundred of the old stock
left. The first move was to restore equality. For that purpose, all the
money and land would have to be equally divided, so Agis began by
persuading his own mother and grandmother to give up their wealth.
Leonidas did not like the plan of equality, and soon openly opposed it,
although his son-in-law Cleombrotus sided with Agis, and upheld it.

But the people were eager for the new division which would make them all
equal as of old; and they were so angry with Leonidas for his
resistance, that they rose up against him, and proposed to depose him by
reviving an old law which forbade the ruling of a king who married a
foreign wife.

Leonidas had time to flee to the Temple of Athene; and when the ephors
called him to appear before them, he refused to do so, because he feared
for his life. As such a refusal was a crime, the ephors said he should
not reign any longer, and named Cleombrotus king in his stead.

[Illustration: Cleombrotus and Chilonis.]

Leonidas, who had led a selfish, pleasure-loving life, was now forsaken
by every one except his daughter, Chi-lo'nis, who gave up her husband
and the throne in order to console her unfortunate father. She kept him
company in the temple, cared for him and amused him, and, when her
husband begged her to come back, she answered that her place was rather
with her unhappy father than with her prosperous husband.

When it became known that the Spartans were plotting to kill the unhappy
Leonidas, Agis helped him to escape, and Chilonis followed him into
exile.

The AEtolian League, which just then was very strong, now sent an army
across the isthmus to attack the Spartans. The latter sallied forth
under the leadership of Agis, who proved such a skillful general, that
he not only won a great victory, but also drove the AEtolians out of the
peninsula.

During the absence of Agis, many of the richest