Death of Agis

When Agis returned, the rich were too powerful; he fled to a temple. His wife Agiatis was too ill to follow. False friends took bribes and told the ephors Agis left the temple each night to bathe. The ephors surprised him and threw him into prison. He was condemned and executed at twenty-two, after trying for three years to restore Sparta's virtue. Leonidas forced Agiatis to marry his young son Cleomenes. She told Cleomenes so much about her dead husband that he tried to follow Agis's example. When Leonidas died, Cleomenes became king. He drove away the corrupt ephors and divided property equally as Agis had planned. Aratus, fearing Sparta would become powerful again, attacked—but Cleomenes defeated him. Towns wanted to leave the Achaean League for Sparta. Aratus then foolishly asked Antigonus Doson of Macedon for help. Antigonus gladly garrisoned the Isthmus and sent troops into the Peloponnesus.