Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/267

Rh To the Greeks of the day, however, the death of Alexander seemed to promise them a renewal of freedom. They had never heartily acquiesced in his supremacy. Sparta, indeed, had never yielded to Philip, and had continued to play the part of protector of Greek freedom. In B.C. 338 one of its kings, Archedamus III., had crossed to Italy to assist the Lacedaemonian colony of Tarentum in its struggles with surrounding barbarians, and had fallen on the same day, it is said, as that of the battle of Chaeroneia.

His son and successor, Agis III., made an alliance with the Persian satraps in B.C. 333, and being supplied by them with money and ships, occupied the greater part of Crete, while Alexander was engaged in Thrace and Boeotia. In B.C. 331, when he had crossed to Asia, Agis induced the Eleians, Achaeans and Arcadians to join in an open rebellion, and began the war by besieging Megalopolis, which refused to join him. But this short-lived revolt was sternly suppressed by Antipater, whom Alexander had left in charge of Macedonia. More than 5,000 Lacedaemonians are said to have fallen, and this seems to