Book 1
13.3
taken from the bold Gauls as a gift to ItonianAthena, when he had destroyed all the hostof Antigonus. 'Tis no great marvel. TheAeacidae are warriors now, even as they wereof old.These shields then are here, but the bucklers of the Macedonians themselves he dedicated to Dodonian Zeus. They too have an inscription:—These once ravaged golden Asia, and broughtslavery upon the Greeks. Now ownerlessthey lie by the pillars of the temple of Zeus,spoils of boastful Macedonia.Pyrrhus came very near to reducing Macedonia entirely, but,
13.4
being usually readier to do what came first to hand, he was prevented by Cleonymus. This Cleonymus, who persuaded Pyrrhus to abandon his Macedonian adventure and to go to the Peloponnesus, was a Lacedaemonian who led an hostile army into the Lacedaemonian territory for a reason which I will relate after giving the descent of Cleonymus. Pausanias, who was in command of the Greeks at Plataea479 B.C., was the father of Pleistoanax, he of Pausanias, and he of Cleombrotus, who was killed at Leuctra fighting against Epaminondas and the Thebans. Cleombrotus was the father of Agesipolis and Cleomenes, and, Agesipolis dying without issue, Cleomenes ascended the throne.
13.5
Cleomenes had two sons, the elder being Acrotatus and the younger Cleonymus. Now Acrotatus died first; and when afterwards Cleomenes died, a claim to the throne was put forward by Areus son of Acrotatus, and Cleonymus took steps to induce Pyrrhus to enter the country. Before the battle of Leuctra371 B.C. the Lacedaemonians had suffered no disaster, so that they even refused to admit that they had yet been worsted in a land battle. For Leonidas, they said, had won the victory480 B.C., but his followers were insufficient for the entire destruction of the Persians; the achievement of Demosthenes and the Athenians on the island of Sphacteria425 B.C. was no victory, but only a trick in war.
