Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/504

 496 CLEOMENES. thoroughly settled into a consumption and continual ca- tarrh. Yet he still kept up, and managed to return and deliver his country, and meet there a more glorious death in a great defeat and vast slaughter of the barbarians. As Phylarchus says, and as is probable in itself, he broke a bloodvessel by shouting in the battle itself. In the schools we used to be told, that after the victory was won, he cried out for joy, " glorious day ! ". and presently bringing up a quantity of blood, fell into a fever, which never left him till his death. And thus much concerning Antigonus. Cleomenes, sailing from Cythera, touched at another island called iEgialia, whence as he was about to depart for Cyrene, one of his friends, Therycion by name, a man of a noble spirit in all enterprises, and bold and lofty in his talk, came privately to him, and said thus : " Sir, death in battle, which is the most glorious, we have let go ; though all heard us say that Antigonus should never tread over the king of Sparta, unless dead. And now that course which is next in honor and virtue, is presented to us. Whither do we madly sail, flying the evil which is near, to seek that which is at a distance ? For if it is not dishon- orable for the race of Hercules to serve the successors of Philip and Alexander, we shall save a long voyage by de- livering ourselves up to Antigonus, who, probably, is as much better than Ptolemy, as the Macedonians are better than the Egyptians; but if we think it mean to submit to those whose arms have conquered us, why should we choose him for our master, by whom we have not yet been beaten ? Is it to acknowledge two superiors instead of one, whilst we run away from Antigonus, and flatter Ptolemy ? Or, is it for your mother's sake that you re- treat to Egypt ? It will indeed be a very fine and very desirable sight for her, to show her son to Ptolemy's wo- men, now changed from a prince into an exile and a slave.