Agesilaus had not yet been a year on the throne, when, as he was offering one of the sacrifices appointed for the city, the augur told him that the gods indicated some conspiracy of the most dangerous kind. Within five days after the conclusion of this sacrifice, somebody gave information to the ephors of a conspiracy, and said that “Cinadon was leader in the affair.” Cinadon was a man of vigorous frame, and of powerful mind, but not one of the Equals. When the ephors asked the informer what account he could give of the way in which the plot would be carried into effect, he said that “Cinadon, having conducted him to the outside of the forum, desired him to count how many Spartans there were in the forum; and I,” continued he, “having counted the king, the ephors, the senators, and about forty others, asked him, ‘And why, Cinadon, have you told me to count them?’ ‘Consider these,’ he replied, ‘as enemies, and all the rest now in the forum, who are more than four thousand, as allies.’” He said also that Cinadon pointed out to him in the streets sometimes one, and sometimes two, that were enemies, and said that all the other people were auxiliaries, and that whatever Spartans were on their estates in the country, one, namely the master, was an enemy, while on every estate there were numbers of allies. The ephors then inquiring how many Cinadon said were privy to the plot, he replied that he told him, as to that point, that “there were not very many in concert with the principal agents, but that they were trustworthy, and declared that they were in communication with all the helots, the newly-enfranchised, the inferior citizens, and the people in the parts about the city; for whenever any mention of the Spartans was made among them, no one could forbear from showing that he would willingly eat them up alive.” When the ephors further asked “whence they said they would get arms,” he answered, that Cinadon had stated to him, “Those of us who are already united, say we have arms enough;” and for the multitude, he said that Cinadon, conducting him into the iron-market, had pointed out numbers of daggers, swords, spits, axes, hatchets, and scythes, and added that “all the instruments with which men cultivate the ground, or hew wood or stone, would serve as weapons, while the greater part of the artificers had sufficient tools to fight with, especially against unarmed enemies.” The informer being finally interrogated “at what time the scheme was to be carried into execution,” replied that “directions had been given him to be in readiness at home.”