The Histories by Herodotus — Book VI, Cleomenes and Demaratus

Regarding this accusation, Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides, king of Sparta, crossed over to Aegina intending to arrest the most culpable of its people. ^50.2But when he attempted to make the arrests, the Aeginetans opposed him, especially Crius son of Polycritus, who told him he would not take away any Aeginetan with impunity, for he had no authority from the Spartans for what he was doing; instead he had been bribed by the Athenians; otherwise he would have come to make the arrests with the other king. He said this because of a letter from Demaratus. ^50.3Driven from Aegina, Cleomenes asked Crius his name; and when Crius told him what it was, Cleomenes said to him, “Now is the time to put bronze on your horns, Mr. Ram, for great calamity will confront you.”

⁵¹All this time Demaratus son of Ariston remained at Sparta and spread evil reports of Cleomenes. This Demaratus was also king of Sparta, but of the inferior house; not indeed inferior in any other regard (for they have a common ancestor), but the house of Eurysthenes has in some sort the greater honor by right of primogeniture.

^52.1The Lacedaemonians say (but no poet agrees) that it was Aristodemus son of Aristomachus son of Cleodaeus son of Hyllus, and not his sons, who led them to that land which they now possess. ^52.2After no long time Aristodemus' wife, whose name was Argeia, bore him offspring; they say she was daughter of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersander son of Polynices; she bore him twins; Aristodemus lived to see the children, then died of a sickness. ^52.3The Lacedaemonians of that day planned to follow their custom and make the eldest of the children king. But the children were identical in all respects, so the Lacedaemonians did not know which to choose; when they could not judge between them, or perhaps even before this, they asked the mother. ^52.4She said she knew no better than the Lacedaemonians which was the elder; she knew perfectly well, but she said this because she desired that by some means both might be made kings. The Lacedaemonians were at a loss, so they sent to Delphi to inquire how they should deal with the matter. ^52.5The priestess bade them make both children kings but give greater honor to the elder. When the priestess gave this response, the Lacedaemonians knew no better than before how to discover the elder child, and a man of Messenia, whose name was Panites, gave them advice: ^52.6he advised them to watch the mother and see which of the children she washed and fed before the other; if she was seen to do this always in the same order, they would then have all that they sought and desired to discover; but if she changed her practice haphazardly, then it would be manifest to the Lacedaemonians that she know no more than they did, and they must have recourse to some other means. ^52.7Then the Spartans did as the Messenian advised; as they watched the mother of Aristodemus' children, they found her always preferring the elder when she fed and washed them, since she did not know why she was being watched. So they took the child that was preferred by its mother and brought it up at public expense as the first-born; and they called it Eurysthenes, and the other Procles. ^52.8They say that when these two brothers grew to manhood, they feuded with each other as long as they lived, and their descendants continued to do likewise.

^53.1The Lacedaemonians are the only Greeks who tell this story. But in what I write I follow the Greek report, and hold that the Greeks correctly recount these kings of the Dorians as far back as Perseus son of Danae—they make no mention of the god —and prove these kings to be Greek; for by that time they had come to be classified as Greeks. ^53.2I said as far back as Perseus, and I took the matter no further than that, because no one is named as the mortal father of Perseus, as Amphitryon is named father of Heracles. So I used correct reasoning when I said that the Greek record is correct as far back as Perseus; farther back than that, if the king's ancestors in each generation, from Danae daughter of Acrisius upward, be reckoned, then the leaders of the Dorians will be shown to be true-born Egyptians.

⁵⁴Thus have I traced their lineage according to the Greek story; but the Persian tale is that Perseus himself was an Assyrian, and became a Greek, which his forebears had not been; the Persians say that the ancestors of Acrisius had no bond of kinship with Perseus, and they indeed were, as the Greeks say, Egyptians.

⁵⁵Enough of these matters. Why and for what achievements these men, being Egyptian, won the kingship of the Dorians has been told by others, so I will let it go, and will make mention of matters which others have not touched.

⁵⁶These privileges the Spartans have given to their kings: two priesthoods, of Zeus called Lacedaemon and of Zeus of Heaven; they wage war against whatever land they wish, and no Spartan can hinder them in this on peril of being put under a curse; when the armies go forth the kings go out first and return last; one hundred chosen men guard them in their campaigns; they sacrifice as many sheep and goats as they wish at the start of their expeditions, and take the hides and backs of all sacrificed beasts.

^57.1Such are their rights in war; in peace the powers given them are as follows: at all public sacrifices the kings first sit down to the banquet and are first served, each of them receiving a portion double of what is given to the rest of the company; they make the first libations, and the hides of the sacrificed beasts are theirs. ^57.2At each new moon and each seventh day of the first part of the month, a full-grown victim for Apollo's temple, a bushel of barley-meal, and a Laconian quart of wine are given to each from the public store, and chief seats are set apart for them at the games. ^57.3It is their right to appoint whatever citizens they wish to be protectors of foreigners; and they each choose two Pythians. (The Pythians are the ambassadors to Delphi and eat with the kings at the public expense.) If the kings do not come to the public dinner, two choenixes of barley-meal and half a pint of wine are sent to their houses, but when they come, they receive a double share of everything; and the same honor shall be theirs when they are invited by private citizens to dinner. ^57.4They keep all oracles that are given, though the Pythians also know them. The kings alone judge cases concerning the rightful possessor of an unwedded heiress, if her father has not betrothed her, and cases concerning public roads. ^57.5If a man desires to adopt a son, it is done in the presence of the kings. They sit with the twenty-eight elders in council; if they do not come, the elders most closely related to them hold the king's privilege, giving two votes over and above the third which is their own.

^58.1The kings are granted these rights from the Spartan commonwealth while they live; when they die, their rights are as follows: Horsemen proclaim their death in all parts of Laconia, and in the city women go about beating on cauldrons. When this happens, two free persons from each house, a man and a woman, are required to wear mourning, or incur heavy penalties if they fail to do so. ^58.2The Lacedaemonians have the same custom at the deaths of their kings as the foreigners in Asia; most foreigners use the same custom at their kings' deaths. When a king of the Lacedaemonians dies, a fixed number of their subject neighbors must come to the funeral from all Lacedaemon, besides the Spartans. ^58.3When these and the helots and the Spartans themselves have assembled in one place to the number of many thousands, together with the women, they zealously beat their foreheads and make long and loud lamentation, calling that king that is most recently dead the best of all their kings. Whenever a king dies in war, they make an image of him and carry it out on a well-spread bier. For ten days after the burial there are no assemblies or elections, and they mourn during these days.

⁵⁹The Lacedaemonians also resemble the Persians in this: when one king is dead and another takes his office, this successor releases from debt any Spartan who owes a debt to the king or to the commonwealth. Among the Persians the king at the beginning of his reign forgives all cities their arrears of tribute.

⁶⁰The Lacedaemonians resemble the Egyptians in that their heralds and flute-players and cooks inherit the craft from their fathers, a flute-player's son being a flute-player, and a cook's son a cook, and a herald's son a herald; no others usurp their places, making themselves heralds by loudness of voice; they ply their craft by right of birth. Such is the way of these matters.

^61.1While Cleomenes was in Aegina working for the common good of Hellas, Demaratus slandered him, not out of care for the Aeginetans, but out of jealousy and envy. Once Cleomenes returned home from Aegina, he planned to remove Demaratus from his kingship, using the following affair as a pretext against him: Ariston, king of Sparta, had married twice but had no children. ^61.2He did not admit that he himself was responsible, so he married a third time. This is how it came about: he had among the Spartans a friend to whom he was especially attached. This man's wife was by far the most beautiful woman in Sparta, but she who was now most beautiful had once been the ugliest. ^61.3Her nurse considered her inferior looks and how she was of wealthy people yet unattractive, and, seeing how the parents felt her appearance to be a great misfortune, she contrived to carry the child every day to the sacred precinct of Helen, which is in the place called Therapne, beyond the sacred precinct of Phoebus. Every time the nurse carried the child there, she set her beside the image and beseeched the goddess to release the child from her ugliness. ^61.4Once as she was leaving the sacred precinct, it is said that a woman appeared to her and asked her what she was carrying in her arms. The nurse said she was carrying a child and the woman bade her show it to her, but she refused, saying that the parents had forbidden her to show it to anyone. But the woman strongly bade her show it to her, ^61.5and when the nurse saw how important it was to her, she showed her the child. The woman stroked the child's head and said that she would be the most beautiful woman in all Sparta. From that day her looks changed, and when she reached the time for marriage, Agetus son of Alcidas married her. This man was Ariston's friend.

^62.1So love for this woman pricked Ariston, and he contrived as follows: He promised to give to his comrade any one thing out of all he owned, whatever Agetus might choose, and he bade his comrade make him the same promise. Agetus had no fear about his wife, seeing that Ariston was already married, so he agreed and they took oaths on these terms. ^62.2Ariston gave Agetus whatever it was that he chose out of all his treasures, and then, seeking equal recompense from him, tried to take the wife of his comrade. Agetus said that he had agreed to anything but that, but he was forced by his oath and by the deceitful trick to let his wife be taken.

^63.1In this way Ariston married his third wife, after divorcing the second one. But his new wife gave birth to Demaratus too soon, before ten lunar months had passed. ^63.2When one of his servants announced to him as he sat in council with the ephors that he had a son, Ariston, knowing the time of the marriage, counted up the months on his fingers and swore on oath, “It's not mine.” The ephors heard this but did not make anything of it. When the boy grew up, Ariston regretted having said that, for he firmly believed Demaratus to be his own son. ^63.3He named him Demaratus because before his birth all the Spartan populace had prayed that Ariston, the man most highly esteemed out of all the kings of Sparta, might have a son. Thus he was named Demaratus, which means “answer to the people's prayer.”

⁶⁴Time passed and Ariston died, so Demaratus held the kingship. But it seems that these matters had to become known and cause Demaratus to lose his kingship. He had already fallen out with Cleomenes when he had brought the army back from Eleusis, and now they were even more at odds when Cleomenes crossed over after the Aeginetans who were Medizing.

^65.1Cleomenes wanted revenge, so he made a deal with Leotychides son of Menares son of Agis, of the same family as Demaratus. The deal was that Leotychides would go with Cleomenes against the Aeginetans if he became king. ^65.2Leotychides had already become strongly hostile to Demaratus for the following reason: Leotychides was betrothed to Percalus, daughter of Demarmenus, but Demaratus plotted and robbed him of his marriage, stealing Percalus and marrying her first. ^65.3From this affair Leotychides was hostile toward Demaratus, so at Cleomenes' instigation he took an oath against him, saying that he was not king of the Spartans by right, since he was not Ariston's son. After making this oath, he prosecuted him, recalling that utterance which Ariston had made when the servant told him he had a son, and he counted up the months and swore that it was not his. ^65.4Taking his stand on this remark, Leotychides declared that Demaratus was not Ariston's son and that he was not rightly king of Sparta, bringing as witnesses the ephors who had been sitting beside Ariston and heard him say this.

^66.1Disputes arose over it, so the Spartans resolved to ask the oracle at Delphi if Demaratus was the son of Ariston. ^66.2At Cleomenes' instigation this was revealed to the Pythia. He had won over a man of great influence among the Delphians, Cobon son of Aristophantus, and Cobon persuaded the priestess, Periallus, to say what Cleomenes wanted her to. ^66.3When the ambassadors asked if Demaratus was the son of Ariston, the Pythia gave judgment that he was not. All this came to light later; Cobon was exiled from Delphi, and Periallus was deposed from her position.

^67.1So it was concerning Demaratus' loss of the kingship, and from Sparta he went into exile among the Medes because of the following reproach: after he was deposed from the kingship, he was elected to office. ^67.2When it was the time of the Gymnopaidia, Leotychides, now king in his place, saw him in the audience and, as a joke and an insult, sent a messenger to him to ask what it was like to hold office after being king. ^67.3He was grieved by the question and said that he had experience of both, while Leotychides did not, and that this question would be the beginning for Sparta of either immense evil or immense good fortune. He said this, covered his head, left the theater, and went home, where he immediately made preparations and sacrificed an ox to Zeus. Then he summoned his mother.

^68.1When she came in, he put some of the entrails in her hands and entreated her, saying, “Mother, appealing to Zeus of the household and to all the other gods, I beseech you to tell me the truth. Who is my father? Tell me truly. ^68.2Leotychides said in the disputes that you were already pregnant by your former husband when you came to Ariston. Others say more foolishly that you approached to one of the servants, the ass-keeper, and that I am his son. ^68.3I adjure you by the gods to speak what is true. If you have done anything of what they say, you are not the only one; you are in company with many women. There is much talk at Sparta that Ariston did not have child-bearing seed in him, or his former wives would have given him children.”

^69.1Thus he spoke. His mother answered, “My son, since you adjure me by entreaties to speak the truth, I will speak out to you all that is true. On the third night after Ariston brought me to his house, a phantom resembling him came to me. It came and lay with me and then put on me the garlands which it had. ^69.2It went away, and when Ariston came in later and saw me with the garlands, he asked who gave them to me. I said he did, but he denied it. I swore an oath that just a little while before he had come in and lain with me and given me the garlands, and I said it was not good of him to deny it. ^69.3When he saw me swearing, he perceived that this was some divine affair. For the garlands had clearly come from the hero's precinct which is established at the courtyard doors, which they call the precinct of Astrabacus, and the seers responded that this was the same hero who had come to me. Thus, my son, you have all you want to know. ^69.4Either you are from this hero and Astrabacus the hero is your father, or Ariston is, for I conceived you that night. As for how your enemies chiefly attack you, saying that Ariston himself, when your birth was announced, denied in front of a large audience that you were his because the ten months had not yet been completed, he spoke an idle word, out of ignorance of such things. ^69.5Some women give birth after nine months or seven months; not all complete the ten months. I gave birth to you, my son, after seven months. A little later Ariston himself recognized that he had blurted out that speech because of foolishness. Do not believe other stories about your manner of birth. You have heard the whole truth. May the wife of Leotychides himself, and the wives of the others who say these things, give birth to children fathered by ass-keepers.”

^70.1Thus his mother spoke. After learning what he desired, Demaratus took provisions and travelled to Elis, pretending that he was going to Delphi to inquire of the oracle. But the Lacedaemonians suspected that he planned to escape and went in pursuit. ^70.2Demaratus somehow went across to Zacynthus from Elis before them; the Lacedaemonians crossed over after him and laid hands on him, carrying off his servants. But the Zacynthians refused to give him up, and later he crossed from there to Asia and went to king Darius, who received him in grand style and gave him lands and cities. ^70.3So Demaratus reached Asia through such chances, a man who had gained much renown in Lacedaemon by his many achievements and his wisdom, and by conferring on the state the victory in a chariot-race he had won at Olympia; he was the only king of Sparta who did this.

^71.1Leutychides son of Menares succeeded to the kingship after Demaratus was deposed. A son was born to him, Zeuxidemus, called by some of the Spartans Cyniscus. This Zeuxidemus never became king of Sparta, for he died before Leutychides, leaving his son Archidemus. ^71.2After the loss of Zeuxidemus, Leutychides married a second wife, Eurydame, sister of Menius and daughter of Diactorides; by her he had no male offspring, but a daughter, Lampito, to whom Archidemus son of Zeuxidemus was married by Leutychides.

^72.1But Leutychides also did not come to old age in Sparta; he was punished for his dealings with Demaratus as I will show. He led a Lacedaemonian army to Thessaly, and when he could have subdued all the country he took a great bribe. ^72.2After being caught in the act of hoarding a sleeve full of silver there in the camp, he was brought before a court and banished from Sparta, and his house was destroyed. He went into exile at Tegea and died in that country.

^73.1This happened long afterwards. When Cleomenes' dealings with Demaratus came off successfully, he immediately took Leutychides with him and went to punish the Aeginetans, with whom he was terribly angry because of their insulting behavior. ^73.2When the Aeginetans saw that both kings had come after them, they now deemed it best to offer no further resistance; the kings chose ten men of Aegina who were most honored for wealth and lineage, among them Crius son of Polycritus and Casambus son of Aristocrates, the two most powerful men in Aegina; they carried them to Attica and gave them into the keeping of the Athenians, the bitterest foes of the Aeginetans.