Early Years and Spartan Success
After fortifying Belbina, Cleomenes advanced into Arcadia with 3,000 infantry and a few cavalry. However, he was called back by the ephors, and this retreat allowed Aratus to seize Caphyae as soon as Cleomenes returned to Laconia. Once this news reached Sparta, the ephors sent Cleomenes out again; he managed to capture the Megalopian city Methydrium before ravaging the territory surrounding Argos.
Around this time, the Achaean League sent an army under a new strategos—Aristomachos of Argos, who had been elected in May 228 BC—to meet Cleomenes in battle. The Achaean army of 20,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry advanced on the 5,000-strong Spartan army at Pallantium. Aratus, who had accompanied Aristomachos, advised him to retreat because even 20,000 Achaeans were no match for 5,000 Spartans. Aristomachos, listening to Aratus' advice, retreated with the Achaean army.
Meanwhile, Ptolemy III of Egypt, who had been an ally of the Achaean League in their wars against Macedon, shifted his financial support to Sparta. Ptolemy made this decision after calculating that a resurgent Sparta would be a more valuable ally against Macedon than a failing Achaean League.
In May 227 BC, Aratus was once again elected strategos and attacked Elis. The Elians appealed to Sparta for aid; as the Achaeans were returning from Elis, Cleomenes attacked and routed their entire army near Mount Lycaeum. Taking advantage of a rumour that he had been killed during the fighting, Aratus attacked and seized Mantinea.
Meanwhile, the Eurypontid King of Sparta Eudamidas III, son of Agis IV, died. Pausanias, the Greek writer, claims that Cleomenes had him poisoned. In order to strengthen his position against the ephors, who were opposed to his expansionist policy, Cleomenes recalled his uncle Archidamus V from his exile in Messene to ascend the Eurypontid throne, but as soon as Archidamus returned to the city, he was assassinated. Cleomenes' involvement in the plot is unclear, since ancient sources contradict each other: Polybius claims that Cleomenes ordered the murder, but Plutarch disagrees.
Read more about this topic: Cleomenean War
Famous quotes containing the words early, years, spartan and/or success:
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“Anyone informed that the universe is expanding and contracting in pulsations of eighty billion years has a right to ask, “What’s in it for me?””
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)
“But there’s another knowledge that my heart destroys
As the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy’s
Because it proves that things both can and cannot be;
That the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep company;
Can pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,
That I am still their servant though all are underground.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Woman’s success in lifting men out of their way of life nearly resembling that of the beasts—who merely hunted and fished for food, who found shelter where they could in jungles, in trees, and caves—was a civilizing triumph.”
—Mary Ritter Beard (1876–1958)