Cleomenes III.

Coin of Cleomenes from the time between 227 and 222 BC Chr .; on the front ( obverse ) the portrait of the king with diadem, on the reverse ( reverse ) a representation of Artemis Ortheia

Cleomenes III. (* 254 BC ; † 219 BC ) was between 235 and 222 BC. King of Sparta . Cleomenes was the son of Leonidas II and the famous Spartan Kratesikleia .

Accession to the throne

Cleomenes belonged to the Agiad family , one of the two royal families of Sparta. After the violent death of the Eurypontid Agis IV , his father illegally married him to his widow Agiatis in order to gain access to her family's property. Allegedly through them, however, Cleomenes got to know the reform ideas of Agis, who had relied on the younger and poorer citizens, but had failed in the context of stasis at the resistance of Leonidas. The stoic Sphairos of Borysthenes became his teacher. When his father 236/235 BC Died, he ascended the throne of Sparta.

Wars

Cleomenes soon took up Agis' ideas, although his father had once forbidden anyone to even talk about such reforms. But first he tried to improve the foreign policy situation of his polis . So Cleomenes seized the cities of Tegea , Mantineia and Orchomenus by ruse . Lydiadas of Megalopolis sensed the danger this posed and wanted to take to the field against Cleomenes, but Aratos of Sikyon , who at that time was a strategos (general) of the Achaean League , advised a passive attitude. On the orders of the ephors , Cleomenes now conquered Belbina , a mountain village on the pass to Messenia . An attempt by Aratos to steal the towns of Tegea and Orchomenos from him failed. When Cleomenes returned to Sparta, Aratos occupied Kaphyai . Cleomenes, in turn, took Methydrion and invaded the Argive land.

When Aristomachus , the tyrant of Argos , 228/7 BC When he became the new strategos of the Achaeans, he declared war on Sparta. With 20,000 foot troops and 1,000 horsemen, he faced 5,000 Spartans at Pallantion , but was held back by Aratos. Aratos then went to war with Elis . Cleomenes came to the aid of the Eleans, surprised the Achaeans on the march back and defeated them. Aratos had to flee, but was able to conquer the city of Mantinea.

226 BC There was a decisive battle at Leuktra . Cleomenes defeated the Achaeans, and Lydiadas, the tyrant of Megalopolis , was killed. The later leader of the Achaeans, Philopoimen , fled with the survivors to Messene .

Reforms

This victory and the fact that Eudamidas III. , the king of the Eurypontid family , had died and his successor Archidamos V fell victim to an assassination attempt, gave Cleomenes the freedom to implement his long-planned reforms and at the same time to establish unrestricted sole rule.

It was alleged that Cleomenes poisoned Eudamidas and slain Archidamos. After he had still conquered Heraia and Asea , he returned to Sparta and had his friends slain 4 of the 5 ephors, except for Agylaios, who had fled injured to a temple. His office, which supposedly contradicted the Lycurgian order anyway because the Great Rhetra did not mention it, he abolished in order to free the kingdom from restrictions. The Ephors had also allegedly shown themselves to be the most important opponents of state and land reform under Agis IV. About ten other citizens were killed in this coup, and another 80 were banished from Sparta.

In the subsequent constitutional reorganization, which significantly increased the power of the kingship, he included a reorganization of the army based on the Macedonian model and a reintroduction of education according to Lycurgian principles ( agoge ). But in truth the king was not interested in a return to the old order. He offered some of the wealthier Helots the opportunity to buy their freedom, and he made his brother Eukleidas the (powerless) second king, so that for the only time in history both kings of Sparta came from the same family. In truth, however, Cleomenes ruled alone.

According to Plutarch , the king, who allegedly gave up most of his property himself, was planning a fundamental redistribution of property. It is remarkable that he allegedly had 80 plots of land reserved for his exiled opponents so that they could one day return. Overall, the position of the citizenry, whose protector the king gave himself, should be strengthened vis-à-vis the elite.

Looking at these measures, it is noticeable that under Cleomenes the tendency observed since Areus I (309 to 265) clearly strengthened, the traditional Spartan kingship, which Aristotle had described as a mere general office for life, into a real Hellenistic monarchy Type (on the model of the Seleucids and Antigonids ) to convert. Cleomenes' father had already lived at the Seleucid court for a long time and then appeared as king accordingly.

This explains, at least in part, the fundamental conflict between Cleomenes and the institutions that the Spartan kings were supposed to control. According to Plutarch, Cleomenes is said to have been demonstratively cautious and to have rejected Hellenistic pomp, but on the other hand, he had coins minted again for the first time in decades. On these he was depicted in the manner of a Hellenistic autocratic ruler and, unlike the earlier kings of Sparta, wore a diadem as a sign of his monarchical position.

Cleomenic War

In view of the king's successes, many dissatisfied people outside of Sparta place their hopes in Cleomenes. In order to avert the resulting danger for the ruling circles of neighboring Greek states and to prevent Sparta's further advance into the Peloponnese , Aratos and his previous Macedonian arch enemy Antigonus III now united . Doson versus Cleomenes.

The war with the Achaeans, which had already broken out in 228, thus escalated into an international conflict, because Ptolemy III now supported . Sparta against his old enemy Antigonus. The Macedonians defeated Cleomenes at Sellasia in 222 . He fled to Egypt to Ptolemy III. His hopes to regain his rule with the help of the king were dashed by the death of the ruler. Because of his numerous followers of Spartan warriors, Cleomenes was felt to be a potential threat to the new King Ptolemy IV , so he was arrested by the powerful courtier Sosibios . Cleomenes was able to escape and now actually wanted to instigate a revolt against Ptolemy and probably raise himself to be King of Egypt. However, he found no followers among the people of Alexandria and therefore committed suicide in the year 219 with his closest followers. Cleomenes' reforms were later continued by Nabis .

swell

Plutarch wrote a detailed biography of Kleomenes based on contemporary sources, above all Phylarchus , which describes the king here in a very positive way. In his Vita des Aratos, which is based on his autobiography, Plutarch describes Cleomenes in a much less friendly manner, and the report by the Achaeans Polybius , whose hometown Megalopolis was pillaged by Cleomenes in 223, is naturally opposed to the Spartan, whom he as a tyrant ( Histories 2,47,3). Only additional notes can be found at Pausanias. Since there is a lack of neutral sources, it is still difficult to find out Kleomenes III. and evaluate his actions.

• Pausanias , travels in Greece , 2, 9, 1 - 4; 3, 6, 9; 3, 10, 7; 4, 29, 7-10; 7, 7, 3-4; 8, 8, 11; 8, 27, 15-16; 8, 28, 6; 8, 49, 4-6.
• Plutarch, Aratos .
• Plutarch, Cleomenes .
• Polybios , Historien , 2, 45-70.

literature

• Hermann Bengtson : Cleomenes III., A Spartan king in exile. In: History of Society. Festschrift for Karl Bosl. Stuttgart 1974. pp. 1-13.
• Paul Cartledge, Antony Spawforth: Hellenistic and Roman Sparta. London / New York 2002, pp. 49-58.
• Jörg-Dieter Gauger: Sparta . In: Hatto H. Schmitt , Ernst Vogt (Ed.): Lexicon of Hellenism . Wiesbaden 2005, pp. 997-1001.
• Norbert Geske: Agis IV. And Cleomenes III. Your social reforms and the people of Sparta . In: Jens-Frederik Eckholt et al. (Ed.): Events and memory. The Hellenistic world and its effects . Berlin 2009, pp. 45-92.
• Alexander Walthall: Becoming Kings. Spartan Basileia in the Hellenistic Period . In: Nino Luraghi (Ed.): The Splendors and Miseries of Ruling Alone . Stuttgart 2013, pp. 129-163.

predecessor	Office	successor
Cleombrotus II	King of Sparta 235–222 BC Chr.	Agesipolis III.