Agesipolis

Family: Lacedaemonians · Role: young king · First appears: Book 4, section 2, part 1/2

As Agesipolis was still a boy, the state called upon Aristodemus, his guardian, to lead an expedition. Later, at Olympia, Agesipolis received divine approval to reject a holy truce he considered fraudulently antedated. He refused the Argives’ plea for a truce and continued his invasion; after an earthquake struck his camp, he sacrificed to Poseidon and advanced, but later turned back and disbanded his army when the sacrificial victims proved lobeless.

In 386 B.C., Agesipolis led the Lacedaemonian expedition against Mantinea, despite his father Pausanias’s cordial relations with Mantinea’s popular leaders. In 385 B.C., after the Mantineans agreed to raze their walls, Pausanias secured immunity for sixty exiles on condition that they leave; the walls were razed and the city divided into four villages. Agesipolis later commanded a force sent against Olynthus, with Amyntas and Derdas among those eager to distinguish themselves in his service. He took Torone by storm, then fell ill with a fever at Aphytis and died outside the temple shrine within a week. His body was conveyed to Sparta, where he received a royal burial.