Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/473

 AGIS. 4G5 the prison gate, where he found Agesistrata, who, believ- ing him still the same friend as before, threw herself at his feet. He gently raised her up, and assured her, she need not fear any further violence or danger of death for her son, and that if she pleased, she might go in and see him. She begged her mother might also have the favor to be admitted, and he replied, nobody should hinder it. When they were entered, he commanded the gate should again be locked, and Archidamia, the grandmother, to be first introduced ; she was now grown very old, and had lived all her days in the highest repute among her fellows. As soon as Amphares thought she was dispatched, he told Agesistrata she might now go in if she pleased. She en- tered, and beholding her son's body stretched on the ground, and her mother hanging by the neck, the first thing she did was, with her own hands, to assist the offi- cers in taking down the body ; then covering it decently, she laid it out by her son's, whom then embracing, and kissing his cheeks, " my son," said she, " it was thy too great mercy and goodness which brought thee and us to ruin." Amphares, who stood watching behind the door, on hearing this, broke in, and said angrily to her, " Since you approve so well of your son's actions, it is fit you should partake in his reward." She, rising up to offer herself to the noose, said only, " I pray that it may re- dound to the good of Sparta." And now the three bodies being exposed to view, and the fact divulged, no fear was strong enough to hinder the people from expressing their abhorrence of what was done, and their detestation of Leonidas and Amphares, the con- trivers of it. So wicked and barbarous an act had never been committed in Sparta, since first the Dorians inhab- ited Peloponnesus; the very enemies in war, they said, were always cautious of spilling the blood of a Lacedae- monian king, insomuch that in any combat they would VOL. iv. 30