Agesilaos & the Crisis of Sparta

By Paul Cartledge | Published in History Today Volume: 36 Issue: 7

Though hymned by writers as an exemplum of Sparta's virtue, was Agesilaos the author as well as the spectator of her decline and fall?

Polybius, the great Greek historian of the second century BC, lived in a world dominated by a few large territorial monarchies. As often, his methodological prescription for the proper historical treatment of monarchs hit the nail on the head:

We should neither praise kings nor blame them without due regard for the truth (as has so frequently been done), but should always write of them consistently in the light of our previous statements, and in accordance with their conduct and policy.

The conduct and policy of Agesilaos, who reigned from about 400-360 BC have provoked violently contradictory and often distressingly prejudiced judgments from his day to our own.

This article is available to History Today online subscribers only. If you are a subscriber, please log in.

Please choose one of these options to access this article:

Purchase a online subscription and receive unlimited access to our archive for one week, one month or a year

Purchase a print and website subscription, giving you one year's access to all our content and 12 editions of History Today magazine.

If you are already a print subscriber, purchase the online archive upgrade for a year's worth of access at a reduced price

Call our Subscriptions department on +44 (0)20 3219 7813 for more information.

If you are logged in but still cannot access the article, please contact us

Tags: Europe,

If you enjoyed this article, you might like these:

This Month's Magazine

Subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter:

From The Current Issue

History Today App

From The Archive

Lords of the Northern Forest

The Hudson's Bay Company was one of the central forces moulding the development of the vast tracts of land that today are Canada - but as Barry Gough explains here, the circumstances of its launch in 1670 also reveal much about the commercial forces, personalities and rivalries of Restoration England.