Agis IV - Execution and Legacy

Execution and Legacy

Cleombrotus was allowed to go into exile; he escaped death only because of the influence of his wife, Leonidas' daughter Chilonis. In 241 BC, Agis was betrayed by some friends and thrown into prison. Leonidas immediately came with a band of mercenaries and secured the prison, while the ephors entered it and went through the mockery of a trial. When asked if he did not repent of what he had attempted, Agis replied that he should never repent of so great a design, even in the face of death. He was condemned, and quickly executed by strangulation, the ephors fearing a rescue, as a great crowd of people had assembled around the prison gates.

Agis, observing that one of his executioners was moved to tears, said, "Weep not for me: suffering, as I do, unjustly, I am in a happier case than my murderers." His mother Agesistrate and his grandmother were strangled on his body. Agis was the first king of Sparta to have been put to death by the ephors. Pausanias, who, however, is undoubtedly wrong, says that he fell in battle. His widow Agiatis was forcibly married by Leonidas to his son Cleomenes III, but nevertheless the two developed for each other a mutual affection and esteem.

Considered by many writers too weak and good-natured to cope with the problems which confronted him, Agis was characterized by a sincerity of purpose and a blend of youthful modesty with royal dignity, which render him perhaps the most attractive figure in the whole of Spartan history. His life and death caught the romantic imagination of several ancient writers. He is the subject of a lost biography by Phylarchus, which was apparently very heavily relied upon by Plutarch when he wrote his own biography of the king.

He was succeeded by his son Eudamidas III.