Succession
Agis succeeded his father as king in 245 BC, at around the age of 20, and reigned four years. In 243 BC, after the liberation of Corinth by Aratus, the general of the Achaean League, Agis led an army against him. The interest of his reign, however, is derived his reaction to the domestic crisis of Sparta at the time of his succession. Through the influx of wealth and luxury, with their concomitant vices, the Spartans had greatly degenerated from the ancient simplicity and severity of manners, and arrived at an extreme inequality in the distribution of wealth and property. Fewer than 700 families of the genuine Spartan stock (i.e. full citizenship) remained, and in consequence of the innovation introduced by Epitadeus, who procured a repeal of the law which secured to every Spartan head of a family an equal portion of land, the landed property had passed into the hands of very few individuals, so that fewer than 100 Spartan families held estates, while the poor were greatly burdened with debt.
Read more about this topic: Agis IV
Famous quotes containing the word succession:
“Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“A mother’s life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“What is this world of ours? A complex entity subject to sudden changes which all indicate a tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings which follow one another, assert themselves and disappear; a fleeting symmetry; a momentary order.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)