Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/285

Rh ARCIIIDAMUS. viBited by the tremendous calamity of tlie great earthquake, by which all Laconia was shaken, and Sparta made a heap of ruins. On this occasion his presence of mind is said to have saved his peo- ple. Foreseeing the danger from the Helots, he summoned, by sounding an alarm, the scattered surviving Spartans, and collected them around him, apparently at a distance fron? the ruins, in a body sufficient to deter the assailants. To him, too, rather than to Nicomedes, the guardian of his col- league, Pleistoanax, (Pleistarchus was probably dead,) would be committed the conduct of the contest with the revolted Messenians, which oc- cupies this and the following nine years. In the expeditions to Delphi and to Doris, and the hos- tilities with Athens down to the 30 years' truce, his name is not mentioned ; though in the discus- sion at Sparta before the final dissolution of that truce he comes forward as one who has nad expe- rience of many wars. Of the Peloponnesian war itself we find the first 10 years sometimes styled the Archidamian war ; the share, however, taken in it by Archidamus was no more than the com- mand of the first two expeditions into Attica ; in the .3rd year, of the investment of Plataea ; and again of the third expedition in the 4th year, 428 B. c. In 427 Cleomenes commanded ; in 426 Agis, son and now successor of Archidamus. His death must therefore be placed before the beginning of this, though probably after the beginning of that under Cleomenes ; for had Agis already succeeded, he, most likely, and not Cleomenes, would have commanded ; in the 42nd year, therefore, of his reign, b. c. 427. His views of this momentous struggle, as represented by Thucydides, seem to justify the character that historian gives him of intelligence and temperance. Plis just estimate of the comparative strength of the parties, and his reluctance to enter without preparation on a contest involving so much, deserve our admira- tion ; though in his actual conduct of it he may seem to have somewhat wasted Lacedaemon's moral superiority. The opening of the siege of Plataea displays something of the same deliberate character ; the proposal to take the town and ter- ritory in trust, however we may question the pro- bable result, seems to breathe his just and temperate ppirit. He may at any rate be safely excluded from all responsibility for the cniel treatment of the besieged, on their surrender m the year of his death. We may regard him as the happiest in- stance of an accommodation of the Spartan character to altered circumstances, and his death as a mis- fortune to Sparta, the same in kind though not in degree as that of Pericles was to Athens, with whom he was connected by ties of hospitality and whom in some points he seems to have resembled. He left two sons and one dimghter, Agis by his first wife, Lampito or Lampido, his father's half- sister ; Agesilaus by a second, named Eupolia (ap- parently the woman of small stature whom the Kphors fined hira for marrying), and Cynisca, the only woman, we are told, who carried off an Olympic victory. (Thuc. i, ii. iii.; Diod. xi. 63 ; Paus. iii. 7. §§ 9, 10; Plut. a?«o«, 16, Ages. 1 ; Herod. Ti. 71.) [A.H.C.] ARCHIDA'MUS III., king of Sparta, 20th of the Eurypontids, was son of Agesilaus II. "We first liear of him as interceding with his father in behalf of Sphodrias, to whose son Cleonymus he was attached, and who was thus saved, through ARCHIDAMUS. 2C7 I the weak affection of Agesilaus, from the punish- ' ment which his unwarrantable invasion of Attica had deserved, b. c. 378. (Xen. Hell. v. 4. §§ 25 — 33 ; Diod. xv. 29 ; Plut. A(/es. c. 25 ; comp. Plut. Pel. c. 14.) In B.C. 371, he was sent, in conse- quence of the illness of Agesilaus (Xen. Hell. v. 4. § 58 ; Plut. Jges. c. 27), to succour the defeated Spartans at Leuctra ; but Jason of Pherae had al- ready mediated between them and the Thebans, and Archidamus, meeting his countrymen on their return at Aegosthena in Megara, dismissed the allies, and led the Spartans home. (Xen. Hell. vi. 4. §§ 17 — 26 ; comp. Diod. xv. 54, 55; Wess. ad loc; Thirl wall's Greece, vol. v. p. 78, note.) In 367, with the aid of the auxiliaries furnished by Dionysius I. of Syracuse, he defeated the Arcadians and Argives in what has been called the "Tearless Battle," from the statement in his despatches, that he had won it without losing a man (Xen. Hell. vii. 1. § 28; Plut. Ages. c. 33; Polyaen. i. 45; Diod. XV. 72) ; and to the next year, 366, must be assigned the "Archidamus" of Isocrates, written perhaps to be delivered by the prince in the Spar- tan senate, to encourage his country in her resolu- tion of maintaining her claim to Messenia, when Corinth had made, with Sparta's consent, a separate peace with Thebes. (Xen. Hell. vii. 4. § 9.) In 364, he was again sent against Arcadia, then at war with Elis (Xen. Hell. vii. 4. § 20, &c.; Just, vi. 5) ; and in 362, having been left at home to protect Sparta while Agesilaus went to join the allies at Mantineia, he baffled the attempt of Epa- minondas on the city. (Xen. Hell. vii. 5. § 9, &c.; Diod. XV. 82, 83 ; Plut. Ages, c.34 ; Isocr. Ep. ad A rch. § 5.) He succeeded his father on the throne in 361. In 356, we find him privately furnishing Philomelus, the Phocian, with fifteen talents, to aid him in his resistance to the Amphictyonic decree and his seizure of Delphi, whence arose the sacred war. (Diod. xvi. 24 ; Just. viii. I ; comp. Paus. iv. 4 ; Theopomp. ap. Paus. iii. 10.) In 352, occurred the war of Sparta against Megalopolis with a view- to the dissolution {dioiKKT/xos) of that community ; and Archidamus was appointed to the command, and gained some successes, though the^ enterprise did not ultimately succeed. (Diod. xvi. 39 ; Paus. viii. 27 ; Demosth. pro Mec/al.; comp. Aristot. Po- lit. v. 10, ed. Bekk.) In the last year of the sacred war, 346, we find Archidamus marching into Pho- cis at the head of 1000 men. According to Dio- dorus (xvi. 59), the Phocians had applied for aid to Sparta, but this seems questionable fi:om v/hat Aeschines {de Fals. Leg. p. 45) reports as the ad- vice of the Phocian leaders to Archidamus, "to alann himself about the dangers of Sparta rather than of Phocis," Demosthenes {de Fals. Leg. p. 365 ) hints at a private understanding between Philip and the Spartans, and at some treachery of his to- wards them. Whether however on this account, or as being distrusted by Phalaccus (Aesch. de Fals. Leg. p. 46), or as finding it impossible to effect anything on behalf of the Phocians, Archidamus, on the arrival of Philip, withdrew his forces and returned home. In 338, he went to Italy to aid tlie Tarentines against the Lucanians, and there he fell in battle on the very day, according to Diodorus, of Philip's victory at Chaeroneia. (Diod. xvi. 63, 88; Paus. iii. 10; Strab. vi. p. 280; Theopomp. ap. Allien, xii. p. 536, c. d. ; Plut. Agis, c. 3.) The Spartans erected a statue of hina at Olympia, which is mentioned by Pausanias. (vi. ch. 4, 15.) [£.£.]