Attempts at Land Reform in Sparta

In the late third century, several Lacedaemonian kings attempted to carry out a redistribution of land. Without such a reform an increase in the numbers of the Spartiate class was not possible (see Boxes 15.2 and 16.3). By the reign of Agis IV (244-241), there were only 700 Spartiates left, 100 of whom held most of the land (Plut. Agis, 5). Agis proposed to redistribute the land into 4,500 plots, each for a Spartiate, with an additional 15,000 plots for Perioeci (Plut. Agis, 8). He underestimated the ability of the largest landholders to fight his plan, however, and neglected to eliminate opposition in advance. While Agis was away on campaign, they undermined his position at home and on his return had him put to death (Plut. Agis, 13-20).

Agis IV's son-in-law Cleomenes III made the next attempt. Cleomenes had learned from Agis' failure. Before even proposing any reform, he first made certain of his political position. When his colleague in the kingship, the young boy Eudamidas III, died, Cleomenes saw to it that a political ally, Agis IV's brother Archidamus V, replaced him. Next, in the so-called Cleomenean War Cleomenes III achieved signal victories against the Achaians in 227. This made his position at home unassailable. Then he had four of the five ephors assassinated to remove any official opposition and the next day he sent eighty Spartiates into exile (obviously the largest landowners - cf. the 100 or so of them in Agis IV's day). Now, finally, Cleomenes carried out a redistribution of the land and raised the number of Spartiates to 4,000 (Plut. Cleom. 5-11). Cleomenes' extraordinary success against the Achaian League in the next few years rests on his restoration of the Spartiate levy.

Unfortunately, Cleomenes III succeeded all too well against the Achaians, who in the end made an alliance with Antigonus Doson of Macedonia. After defeating Cleomenes at Sellasia, Antigonus Doson reversed all Cleomenes' reforms and restored Sparta's "ancestral constitution" (Pol. II 70).

Argos behind Cleomenes. When he failed to retake the city, Cleomenes was forced to leave his position at the Isthmus, and Doson marched on Corinth. Here the Achaian garrison handed over Acrocorinth, and Macedonia once again held all three “fetters of Greece.” From Corinth Doson marched on Argos which Cleomenes III was trying to recapture, and Cleomenes fled. Doson followed him through Arcadia and took all his outposts there (Pol. II 52-54).

Towards the end of 223, Doson went to the meeting of the Achaian Council at Aegium. Thither he summoned representatives of his other allies (Thessalians, Boeotians, Phocians, Locrians, Euboeans, and others), and presided over the establishment of a mutual defensive alliance (Pol. II 54; IV 9; XI 5). What is perhaps most striking is the complete absence of city-states - it was all leagues now.

In early 222, Cleomenes III marched towards Argos where Doson had gone into winter quarters and carried out several raids. But a little later Doson collected his army and led it, some 30,000 strong, into Laconia. Cleomenes had only 20,000 to set against this army, so he chose a strong defensive site, Sellasia, at which to await his opponent. All the same, Doson won a complete victory, Sparta was crushed and forced to enter the Macedonian alliance, and Cleomenes III fled to Egypt (Pol. II 64-70). In a few short years Antigonus Doson had brought most of Greece under Macedonian domination again.

One of Doson’s allies at Sellasia was Demetrius, the ruler of Pharos, a fourth-century Parian colony on an Adriatic island off the Illyrian coast (see chap. 17). In addition to Pharos Demetrius held a number of cities on the Illyrian mainland (Pol. II 65). When the Romans suppressed the Illyrian pirates in 229 (see chap. 23), he too had been compelled to desist from such activity. Now, however, he had a powerful ally in the Macedonians with whom he shared a common enemy, the Illyrians, who had invaded Macedonia while Doson was in Sparta. In 221 Doson defeated them as well (Pol. II 70), and Demetrius of Pharos, confident of Macedonian support, began carrying out raids in the Adriatic (Pol.

III  16).

Later on in 221 Antigonus Doson succumbed prematurely to illness. His adoptive son, Philip V, the biological son of Demetrius II, now became king (Pol. II 70). This encouraged some in the Aetolian League to attempt to reverse Doson’s successes. The Aetolians had remained neutral during the last round of wars, but, with the foundation of Doson’s alliance, they now found themselves isolated. Mostly through the raids of two Aetolian commanders, Dorima-chus and Scopas, the Aetolian and Achaian Leagues were steadily maneuvered into conflict with each other (Pol. IV 5-27). Sparta broke with Macedonia and allied itself with the Aetolians (Pol. IV 34-35).

In 219 a series of loosely related campaigns took place in the (second) Social War. The Lacedaemonian king Lycurgus marched into the Thyreatis and captured Prasiae; the Eleans, now allied with the Aetolians, attacked Achaia; and the Aetolians carried out a sea-borne raid on the Achaian town of Aegira (Pol.

IV  36 and 57-59). Philip V, together with the Epirotes, attacked the Aetolians from the west, while the Aetolians on the eastern front invaded Macedonia and plundered the city of Dium (Pol. IV 62-65). Meanwhile, the Dardanians attacked Macedonia again. When Philip V hastened northwards to deal with them, they withdrew. After Philip V had dismissed his troops in the autumn, the Aetolians carried out one last attack on Epirus and laid waste to Dodona (Pol. IV 66-67).

The Romans meanwhile sent a fleet against Demetrius of Pharos whose raids had disturbed the settlement they had imposed in the Adriatic (see chap. 23). The Romans first captured the mainland cities under Demetrius’ control and then Pharos itself (Pol. III 16, 18-19). Demetrius then fled to Philip V (Pol. IV 66) whom the growing Roman presence in Illyria must have worried, but for now he still had the war against the Aetolians on his hands.

The frustrating course of that war hitherto probably explains best Philip V’s next campaigns, geared mostly to doing his enemies damage. Still in 219, in the dead of winter, when no one expected it, he led his troops onto the Pelo-ponnese, attacked Elis, and plundered it thoroughly. Philip V then marched southwards into Triphylia which he wrested from Elean, Aetolian, and Lacedaemonian troops. The rest of the winter he spent in Argos (Pol. IV 67-82).

The next year’s campaign saw Philip V sail with an army from Corinth. After a futile attack on Cephallenia, he sailed to the Acarnanian town of Limnaea where he disembarked. From Limnaea he marched into Aetolia and destroyed the city of Thermum. After returning to Corinth, he marched into Laconia and carried out more plundering raids before returning to Macedonia for the winter of 218 to 217 (Pol. V 1-30). In 217, he campaigned against the Dardanians; then he marched southwards and attacked the Aetolians from the East. He took Phthiotic Thebes by siege (Pol. V 97-100) and then proceeded to Argos where the Nemean Games were taking place. Here he learned that the Romans had just suffered a horrifying defeat at the hands of the Carthaginian general Hannibal near Lake Trasimene in the Po valley (Pol. V 101) - for the Second Punic War (220-201) had broken out between those two western powers.

Negotiations for peace between the Aetolian League and Macedonia were now under way. Philip V’s campaigns on the Peloponnese and in Aetolia had achieved no lasting conquest, but had demonstrated to his enemies the pointlessness of continuing the war, and both sides were now willing to make peace on the basis of the status quo. At the Aetolian assembly in Naupactus, where the Aetolians voted on the proposed peace treaty, one Agelaus of Naupactus allegedly spoke of the war between Carthage and Rome in Italy and advised the Greeks to be reconciled with each other and to maintain unity:

For it is clear to everyone who is even moderately interested in public affairs these days that whether the Carthaginians defeat the Romans or the Romans the Carthaginians, it is highly unlikely that the winners will remain content with ruling over just Italy and Sicily. Instead they are likely to come over here and to extend their power beyond all bounds. . . if once these clouds which now loom in the West should come to rest over Greece, I very much fear that there will be an end of truces and wars and all the games which we play with each other - so that we will pray the gods to grant us the power once again to make war and peace as we wish, to resolve our own differences among ourselves. (Pol. V 104)

The words are too prophetic to be true even if Polybius himself clearly thought that Agelaus had spoken in this vein.