A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part. The adjective, "counter-revolutionary", pertains to movements that would restore the state of affairs, or the principles, that prevailed during a prerevolutionary era.A counter-revolution can be positive or negative in its consequences; depending, in part, on the beneficent or pernicious character of the revolution that gets reversed. For example, the transitory success of Agis and Cleomenes of ancient Sparta in restoring the constitution of Lycurgus was considered by Plutarch to be counter-revolutionary in a positive sense. During the French Revolution the Jacobins saw the Counter-revolution in the Vendée as distinctly negative.