Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/478

470 CLEOMENES. Eleans, and as many of the Arcadians as inclined to the Spartan interest, remained unpersuaded. And so as soon as Leonidas was dead, he began to attack the Arcadians, and wasted those especially that bordered on Achaea ; by this means designing to try the inclinations of the Spar- tans, and despising Cleomenes as a youth, and of no ex- perience in affairs of state or war. Upon this, the ephors sent Cleomenes to surprise the Athenaeum, near Belbina, which is a pass commanding an entrance into Laconia and was then the subject of litigation with the Megalopolitans. Cleomenes possessed himself of the place, and fortified it, at which action Aratus showed no public resentment, but marched by night to surprise Tegea and Orchomenus. The design failed, for those that were to betray the cit- ies into his hands, turned afraid ; so Aratus retreated, imagining that his design had been undiscovered. But Cleomenes wrote a sarcastic letter to him, and desired to know, as from a friend, whither he intended to march at night ; and Aratus answering, that having heard of his design to fortify Belbina, he meant to march thither to oppose him, Cleomenes rejoined, that he did not dispute it, but begged to be informed, if he might be .allowed to ask the question, why he carried those torches and lad- ders with him. Aratus laughing at the jest, and asking what manner of youth this was, Damocrates, a Spartan exile, replied, " If you have any designs upon the Lacedaemonians, begin before this young eagle's talons are grown." Presently after this, Cleomenes, encamping in Arcadia with a few horse and three hundred foot, received orders from the ephors, who feared to engage in the war, commanding him home ; but when upon his retreat Aratus took Caphyse, they commissioned him again. In this expedition he took Methydrium, and overran the country of the Argives ; and the Achasans, to oppose him, came out with an army of