Agis   

them all, whether Lycurgus were not in his opinion a wise man, and
a lover of his country. Agis answering he was, "And when did Lycurgus,"
replied Leonidas, "cancel debts, or admit strangers to citizenship,-
he who thought the commonwealth not secure unless from time to time
the city was cleared of all strangers?" To this Agis replied, "It
is no wonder that Leonidas, who was brought up and married abroad,
and has children by a wife taken out of a Persian court, should know
little of Lycurgus or his laws. Lycurgus took away both debts and
loans, by taking away money; and objected indeed to the presence of
men who were foreign to the manners and customs of the country, not
in any case from an ill-will to their persons, but lest the example
of their lives and conduct should infect the city with the love of
riches, and of delicate and luxurious habits. For it is well known
that he himself gladly kept Terpander, Thales, and Pherecydes though
they were strangers, because he perceived they were in their poems
and in their philosophy of the same mind with him. And you that are
wont to praise Ecprepes, who, being ephor, cut with his hatchet two
of the nine strings from the instrument of Phrynis the musician, and
to commend those who afterwards imitated him, in cutting the strings
of Timotheus's harp, with what face can you blame us for designing
to cut off superfluity and luxury and display from the commonwealth?
Do you think those men were so concerned only about a lute-string,
or intended anything else than to check in music that same excess
and extravagance which rule in our present lives and manners, and
have disturbed and destroyed all the harmony and order of our city?"
From this time forward, as the common people followed Agis, so the
rich men adhered to Leonidas. They besought him not to forsake their
cause; and with persuasions and entreaties so far prevailed with the
council of Elders, whose power consisted in preparing all laws before
they were proposed to the people, that the designed Rhetra was rejected,
though but by only one vote. Whereupon Lysander, who was still ephor,
resolving to be revenged on Leonidas, drew up an information against
him, grounded on two old laws: the one forbids any of the blood of
Hercules to raise up children by a foreign woman, and the other makes
it capital for a Lacedaemonian to leave his country to settle among
foreigners. Whilst he set others on to manage this accusation, he
with his colleagues went to observe the sign, which was a custom they
had, and performed in this manner. Every ninth year, the ephors, choosing
a starlight night, when there is neither cloud nor moon, sit down
together in quiet and silence, and watch the sky. And if they chance
to see the shooting of a star, they presently pronounce their king
guilty of some offence against the gods, and thereupon he is immediately
suspended from all exercise of regal power, till he is relieved by
an oracle from Delphi or Olympia.
Lysander, therefore, assured the people he had seen a star shoot,
and at the same time Leonidas was cited to answer for himself. Witnesses
were produced to testify he had married an Asian woman, bestowed on
him by one of King Seleucus's lieutenants: that he had two children
by her, but she so disliked and hated him, that against his wishes,
flying from her, he was in a manner forced to return to Sparta, where
his predecessor dying without issue, he took upon him the government.
Lysander, not content with this, persuaded also Cleombrotus to lay
claim to the kingdom. He was of the royal family, and son-in-law to
Leonidas; who, fearing now the event of this process, fled as a suppliant
to the temple of Minerva of the Brazen House, together with his daughter,
the wife of Cleombrotus; for she in this occasion resolved to leave
her husband, and to follow her father. Leonidas being again cited,
and not appearing, they pronounced a sentence of deposition against
him, and made Cleombrotus king in his place.
Soon after this revolution, Lysander, his year expiring, went out
of his office, and new ephors were chosen, who gave Leonidas assurance
of safety, and cited Lysander and Mandroclidas to answer for having,
contrary to law, cancelled debts, and designed a new division of lands.
They, seeing themselves in danger, had recourse to the two kings,