This comparison follows four lives: Agis and Cleomenes of Sparta, and Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus of Rome. All four tried to pull land and citizenship back toward an older balance, and all four were killed for it.

Plutarch sets Agis, who would not shed blood, against Tiberius, who broke a colleague's veto. He sets Cleomenes, who did use force and for a while remade Sparta, against Gaius, whose laws reached further. He loves the aim in all four. He thinks the Spartans paid with more innocence, and the Romans with more of the state.