History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0184/01840.txt

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$Unique_ID{how01840}
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$Title{History Of Herodotus, The
Part III}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Herodotus}
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$Subject{cleomenes
demaratus
son
footnote
upon
sparta
ariston
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leotychides
king}
$Date{1909}
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Title:       History Of Herodotus, The
Book:        Sixth Book, Entitled Erato
Author:      Herodotus
Date:        1909
Translation: Rawlinson, George

Part III

     58. Such are the honours which the Spartan people have allowed their
kings during their lifetime; after they are dead other honours await them.
Horsemen carry the news of their death through all Laconia, while in the city
the women go hither and thither drumming upon a kettle.  At this signal, in
every house two free persons, a man and a woman, must put on mourning, or else
be subject to a heavy fine.  The Lacedaemonians have likewise a custom at the
demise of their kings which is common to them with the barbarians of Asia -
indeed with the greater number of the barbarians everywhere - namely, that
when one of their kings dies, not only the Spartans, but a certain number of
the country people from every part of Laconia are forced, whether they will or
no, to attend the funeral.  So these persons and the Helots, and likewise the
Spartans themselves, ^1 flock together to the number of several thousands, men
and women intermingled; and all of them smite their foreheads violently, and
weep and wail without stint, saying always that their last king was the best.
If a king dies in battle, then they make a statue of him, and placing it upon
a couch right bravely decked, so carry it to the grave. After the burial, by
the space of ten days there is no assembly, nor do they elect magistrates, but
continue mourning the whole time.

[Footnote 1: The three classes of which the Lacedaemonian population consisted
are here very clearly distinguished from one another: - 1. The Perioeci, or
free inhabitants of the country districts; 2. The Helots, or serfs who tilled
the soil; and 3. The Spartans, or Dorian conquerors, who were the only
citizens, and who lived almost exclusively in the capital.]

     59. They hold with the Persians also in another custom.  When a king
dies, and another comes to the throne, the newly-made monarch forgives all the
Spartans the debts which they owe either to the king or to the public
treasury.  And in like manner among the Persians each king when he begins to
reign remits the tribute due from the provinces.

     60. In one respect the Lacedaemonians resemble the Egyptians.  Their
heralds and flute-players, and likewise their cooks, take their trades by
succession from their fathers.  A flute-player must be the son of a flute-
player, a cook of a cook, a herald of a herald; and other people cannot take
advantage of the loudness of their voice to come into the profession and shut
out the heralds' sons; but each follows his father's business. Such are the
customs of the Lacedaemonians.

     61. At the time of which we are speaking, while Cleomenes in Egina was
labouring for the general good of Greece, Demaratus at Sparta continued to
bring charges against him, moved not so much by love of the Eginetans as by
jealousy and hatred of his colleague.  Cleomenes therefore was no sooner
returned from Egina than he considered with himself how he might deprive
Demaratus of his kingly office; and here the following circumstance furnished
a ground for him to proceed upon.  Ariston, king of Sparta, had been married
to two wives, but neither of them had borne him any children; as however he
still thought it was possible he might have offspring, he resolved to wed a
third; and this was how the wedding was brought about.  He had a certain
friend, a Spartan, with whom he was more intimate than with any other citizen.
This friend was married to a wife whose beauty far surpassed that of all the
other women in Sparta; and what was still more strange, she had once been as
ugly as she now was beautiful.  For her nurse, seeing how ill-favoured she
was, and how sadly her parents, who were wealthy people, took her bad looks to
heart, bethought herself of a plan, which was to carry the child every day to
the temple of Helen at Therapna, ^1 which stands above the Phoebeum, ^2 and
there to place her before the image, and beseech the goddess to take away the
child's ugliness.  One day, as she left the temple, a woman appeared to her,
and begged to know what it was she held in her arms.  The nurse told her it
was a child, on which she asked to see it; but the nurse refused; the parents,
said, had forbidden her to show the child to any one.  However the woman would
not take a denial; and the nurse, seeing how highly she prized a look, at last
let her see the child.  Then the woman gently stroked its head, and said, "One
day this child shall be the fairest dame in Sparta." And her looks began to
change from that very day. When she was of marriageable age, Agetus, son of
Alcides, the same whom I have mentioned above as the friend of Ariston, made
her his wife.

[Footnote 1: Therapna was a place of some importance on the left bank of the
Eurotas, nearly opposite Sparta, from which it was distant probably about two
miles.]

[Footnote 2: A precinct sacred to Apollo, at a little distance from the town
itself.]

     62. Now it chanced that Ariston fell in love with this person; and his
love so preyed upon his mind that at last he devised as follows.  He went to
his friend, the lady's husband, and proposed to him, that they should exchange
gifts, each taking that which pleased him best out of all the possessions of
the other.  His friend, who felt no alarm about his wife, since Ariston was
also married, consented readily; and so the matter was confirmed between them
by an oath.  Then Ariston gave Agetus the present, whatever it was, of which
he had made choice, and when it came to his turn to name the present which he
was to receive in exchange, required to be allowed to carry home with him
Agetus' wife.  But the other demurred, and said, "except his wife, he might
have anything else: " however, as he could not resist the oath which he had
sworn, or the trickery which had been practised on him, at last he suffered
Ariston to carry her away to his house.

     63. Ariston hereupon put away his second wife and took for his third this
woman; and she, in less than the due time - when she had not yet reached her
full term of ten months, - gave birth to a child, the Demaratus of whom we
have spoken.  Then one of his servants came and told him the news, as he sat
in council with the Ephors; whereat, remembering when it was that the woman
became his wife, he counted the months upon his fingers, and having so done,
cried out with an oath, "The boy cannot be mine." This was said in the hearing
of the Ephors; but they made no account of it at the time.  The boy grew up;
and Ariston repented of what he had said; for he became altogether convinced
that Demaratus was truly his son.  The reason why he named him Demaratus was
the following.  Some time before these events the whole Spartan people,
looking upon Ariston as a man of mark beyond all the kings that had reigned at
Sparta before him, had offered up a prayer that he might have a son.  On this
account, therefore, the name Demaratus ^1 was given.

[Footnote 1: Dem-aratus is the "People-prayed-for" king. Compare the Louis le
Desire of French history.]

     64. In course of time Ariston died; and Demaratus received the kingdom:
but it was fated, as it seems, that these words, when bruited abroad, should
strip him of his sovereignty.  This was brought about by means of Cleomenes,
whom he had twice sorely vexed, once when he led the army home from Eleusis,
^2 and a second time when Cleomenes was gone across to Egina against such as
had espoused the side of the Medes. ^3

[Footnote 2: Supra, v. 75.]

[Footnote 3: Supra, chs. 50 and 51.]

     65. Cleomenes now, being resolved to have his revenge upon Demaratus,
went to Leotychides, the son of Menares, and grandson of Agis, who was of the
same family as Demaratus, and made agreement with him to this tenor following.
Cleomenes was to lend his aid to make Leotychides king in the room of
Demaratus; and then Leotychides was to take part with Cleomenes against the
Eginetans.  Now Leotychides hated Demaratus chiefly on account of Percalus,
the daughter of Chilon, son of Demarmenus: this lady had been betrothed to
Leotychides; but Demaratus laid a plot, and robbed him of his bride,
forestalling him in carrying her off, ^4 and marrying her.  Such was the
origin of the enmity.  At the time of which we speak, Leotychides was
prevailed upon by the earnest desire of Cleomenes to come forward against
Demaratus and make oath "that Demaratus was not rightful king of Sparta, since
he was not the true son of Ariston." After he had thus sworn, Leotychides sued
Demaratus, and brought up against him the phrase which Ariston had let drop
when, on the coming of his servant to announce to him the birth of his son, he
counted the months, and cried out with an oath that the child was not his.  It
was on this speech of Ariston's that Leotychides relied to prove that
Demaratus was not his son, and therefore not rightful king of Sparta; and he
produced as witnesses the Ephors who were sitting with Ariston at the time and
heard what he said.

[Footnote 4: The seizure of the bride was a necessary part of a Spartan
marriage.]

     66. At last, as there came to be much strife concerning this matter, the
Spartans made a decree that the Delphic oracle should be asked to say whether
Demaratus were Ariston's son or no.  Cleomenes set them upon this plan; and no
sooner was the decree passed than he made a friend of Cobon, the son of
Aristophantus, a man of the greatest weight among the Delphians; and this
Cobon prevailed upon Perialla, the prophetess, to give the answer which
Cleomenes wished. ^1 Accordingly, when the sacred messengers came and put
their question, the Pythoness returned for answer, "that Demaratus was not
Ariston's son." Some time afterwards all this became known; and Cobon was
forced to fly from Delphi; while Perialla the prophetess was deprived of her
office.

[Footnote 1: The venality of the Delphic oracle appears both by this instance,
and by the former one of the Alcmaeonidae (v. 63).  Such cases, however,
appear to have been rare.]

     67. Such were the means whereby the deposition of Demaratus was brought
about; but his flying from Sparta to the Medes was by reason of an affront
which was put upon him.  On losing his kingdom he had been made a magistrate;
and in that office soon afterwards, when the feast of the Gymnopaediae ^2 came
round, he took his station among the lookers-on; whereupon Leotychides, who
was now king in his room, sent a servant to him and asked him, by way of
insult and mockery, "how it felt to be a magistrate after one had been a
king?" ^3 Demaratus, who was hurt at the question, made answer - "Tell him I
have tried them both, but he has not. Howbeit this speech will be the cause to
Sparta of infinite blessings or else of infinite woes." Having thus spoken he
wrapped his head in his robe, and, leaving the theatre, went home to his own
house, where he prepared an ox for sacrifice, and offered it to Jupiter, after
which he called for his mother.

[Footnote 2: The feast of the Gymnopaediae, or naked youths, was one of the
most important at Sparta.  [Warlike songs were sung by choruses. - E. H. B.]]

[Footnote 3: Compare i. 129.]

     68. When she appeared, he took of the entrails, and placing them in her
hand, besought her in these words following: -

     "Dear mother, I beseech you, by all the gods, and chiefly by our own
hearth-god Jupiter, tell me the very truth, who was really my father.  For
Leotychides, in the suit which we had together, declared, that when thou
becamest Ariston's wife thou didst already bear in thy womb a child by thy
former husband; and others repeat a yet more disgraceful tale, that our groom
found favour in thine eyes, and that I am his son.  I entreat thee therefore
by the gods to tell me the truth.  For if thou hast gone astray, thou hast
done no more than many a woman; and the Spartans remark it as strange, if I am
Ariston's son, that he had no children by his other wives."

     69. Thus spake Demaratus; and his mother replied as follows: "Dear son,
since thou entreatest so earnestly for the truth, it shall indeed be fully
told to thee.  When Ariston brought me to his house, on the third night after
my coming, there appeared to me one like to Ariston, who, after staying with
me a while, rose, and taking the garlands from his own brows placed them upon
my head, and so went away.  Presently after Ariston entered, and when he saw
the garlands which I still wore, asked me who gave them to me.  I said, 'twas
he; but this he stoutly denied; whereupon I solemnly swore that it was none
other, and told him he did not do well to dissemble when he had so lately
risen from my side and left the garlands with me.  Then Ariston, when he heard
my oath, understood that there was something beyond nature in what had taken
place.  And indeed it appeared that the garlands had come from the hero-temple
which stands by our court gates - the temple of him they call Astrabacus - and
the soothsayers, moreover, declared that the apparition was that very person.
And now, my son, I have told thee all thou wouldest fain know.  Either thou
art the son of that hero - either thou mayest call Astrabacus sire; or else
Ariston was thy father.  As for that matter which they who hate thee urge the
most, the words of Ariston, who, when the messenger told him of thy birth,
declared before many witnesses that 'thou wert not his son, forasmuch as the
ten months were not fully out,' it was a random speech, uttered from mere
ignorance.  The truth is, children are born not only at ten months, but at
nine, and even at seven. ^1 Thou wert thyself, my son, a seven months' child.
Ariston acknowledged, no long time afterwards, that his speech sprang from
thoughtlessness.  Hearken not then to other tales concerning thy birth, my
son: for be assured thou hast the whole truth.  As for grooms, pray Heaven
Leotychides and all who speak as he does may suffer wrong from them!" Such was
the mother's answer.

[Footnote 1: Supra, ch. 63.]

     70. Demaratus, having learnt all that he wished to know, took with him
provision for the journey, and went into Elis, pretending that he purposed to
proceed to Delphi, and there consult the oracle.  The Lacedaemonians, however,
suspecting that he meant to fly his country, sent men in pursuit of him; but
Demaratus hastened, and leaving Elis before they arrived, sailed across to
Zacynthus. ^2 The Lacedaemonians followed, and sought to lay hands upon him,
and to separate him from his retinue; but the Zacynthians would not give him
up to them: so he escaping, made his way afterwards by sea to Asia, ^3 and
presented himself before King Darius, who received him generously, and gave
him both lands and cities. Such was the chance which drove Demaratus to Asia,
a man distinguished among the Lacedaemonians for many noble deeds and wise
counsels, and who alone of all the Spartan kings ^4 brought honour to his
country by winning at Olympia the prize in the four-horse chariot-race.

[Footnote 2: Zacynthus is the modern Zante.]

[Footnote 3: In B.C. 486 (infra, vii. 3).]

[Footnote 4: Wealth was the chief requisite for success in this contest.]

     71. After Demaratus was deposed, Leotychides, the son of Menares,
received the kingdom.  He had a son, Zeuxidamus, called Cyniscus ^5 by many of
the Spartans.  This Zeuxidamus did not reign at Sparta, but died before his
father, leaving a son, Archidamus.  Leotychides, when Zeuxidamus was taken
from him, married a second wife, named Eurydame, the sister of Menius and
daughter of Diactorides.  By her he had no male offspring, but only a daughter
called Lampito, whom he gave in marriage to Archidamus, Zeuxidamus' son.

[Footnote 5: Or "the Whelp."]

     72. Even Leotychides, however, did not spend his old age in Sparta, but
suffered a punishment whereby Demaratus was fully avenged.  He commanded the
Lacedaemonians when they made war against Thessaly, and might have conquered
the whole of it, but was bribed by a large sum of money.  It chanced that he
was caught in the fact, being found sitting in his tent on a gauntlet, quite
full of silver.  Upon this he was brought to trial and banished from Sparta;
his house was razed to the ground; and he himself fled to Tegea, where he
ended his days.  But these events took place long afterwards.

     73. At the time of which we are speaking, Cleomenes, having carried his
proceedings in the matter of Demaratus to a prosperous issue, forthwith took
Leotychides with him, and crossed over to attack the Eginetans; for his anger
was hot against them on account of the affront which they had formerly put
upon him.  Hereupon the Eginetans, seeing that both the kings were come
against them, thought it best to make no further resistance.  So the two kings
picked out from all Egina the ten men who for wealth and birth stood the
highest, among whom were Crius, ^1 son of Polycritus, and Casambus, son of
Aristocrates, who wielded the chief power; and these men they carried with
them to Attica, and there deposited them in the hands of the Athenians, the
great enemies of the Eginetans.

[Footnote 1: Supra, ch. 50.]

     74. Afterwards, when it came to be known what evil arts had been used
against Demaratus, Cleomenes was seized with fear of his own countrymen, and
fled into Thessaly.  From thence he passed into Arcadia, where he began to
stir up troubles, and endeavoured to unite the Arcadians against Sparta.  He
bound them by various oaths to follow him whithersoever he should lead, and
was even desirous of taking their chief leaders with him to the city of
Nonacris, that he might swear them to his cause by the waters of the Styx.
For the waters of Styx, as the Arcadians say, are in that city, and this is
the appearance they present: you see a little water, dripping from a rock into
a basin, which is fenced round by a low wall. ^2 Nonacris, where this fountain
is to be seen, is a city of Arcadia near Pheneus.

[Footnote 2: Superstitious feelings of dread still attach to the water, which
is considered to be of a peculiarly noxious character.]

     75. When the Lacedaemonians heard how Cleomenes was engaged, they were
afraid, and agreed with him that he should come back to Sparta and be king as
before.  So Cleomenes came back; but had no sooner returned than he, who had
never been altogether of sound mind, ^3 was smitten with downright madness.
This he showed by striking every Spartan he met upon the face with his
sceptre.  On his behaving thus, and showing that he was gone quite out of his
mind, his kindred imprisoned him, and even put his feet in the stocks.  While
so bound, finding himself left alone with a single keeper, he asked the man
for a knife.  The keeper at first refused, whereupon Cleomenes began to
threaten him, until at last he was afraid, being only a helot, and gave him
what he required.  Cleomenes had no sooner got the steel than, beginning at
his legs, he horribly disfigured himself, cutting gashes in his flesh, along
his legs, thighs, hips, and loins, until at last he reached his belly, which
he likewise began to gash, whereupon in a little time he died.  The Greeks
generally think that this fate came upon him because he induced the Pythoness
to pronounce against Demaratus; the Athenians differ from all others in saying
that it was because he cut down the sacred grove of the goddesses ^1 when he
made his invasion by Eleusis; while the Argives ascribe it to his having taken
from their refuge and cut to pieces certain Argives who had fled from battle
into a precinct sacred to Argus, where Cleomenes slew them, burning likewise
at the same time, through irreverence, the grove itself.

[Footnote 3: Supra, v. 42.]

[Footnote 1: The great goddesses, Ceres and Proserpine.]

     76. For once, when Cleomenes had sent to Delphi to consult the oracle, it
was prophesied to him that he should take Argos; upon which he went out at the
head of the Spartans, and led them to the river Erasinus. This stream is
reported to flow from the Stymphalian ^2 lake, the waters of which empty
themselves into a pitch-dark chasm, and then (as they say) reappear in Argos,
where the Argives call them the Erasinus.  Cleomenes, having arrived upon the
banks of this river, proceeded to offer sacrifice to it, but, in spite of all
that he could do, the victims were not favourable to his crossing.  So he said
that he admired the god for refusing to betray his countrymen, but still the
Argives should not escape him for all that.  He then withdrew his troops, and
led them down to Thyrea, where he sacrificed a bull to the sea, and conveyed
his men on shipboard to Nauplia ^3 in the Tirynthian territory. ^4

[Footnote 2: The lake Stymphalia, or Stymphalis, was in Northern Arcadia.]

[Footnote 3: Nauplia, called in our maps by its Turkish name Anapli, is still
known by its ancient appellation among the Greeks.]

[Footnote 4: Tiryns was situated at a short distance from Argos.  [For a
description of the ruins of Tiryns, consult Frazer's Pausanias, vol. iii. pp.
217 sqq. - E. H. B.]]

     77. The Argives, when they heard of this, marched down to the sea, to
defend their country; and arriving in the neighbourhood of Tiryns, at the
place which bears the name of Sepeia, they pitched their camp opposite to the
Lacedaemonians, leaving no great space between the hosts.  And now their fear
was not so much lest they should be worsted in open fight as lest some trick
should be practised on them; for such was the danger which the oracle given to
them in common with the Milesians ^1 seemed to intimate.  The oracle ran as
follows: -

     "Time shall be when the female shall conquer the male, and shall
          chase him
     Far away, - gaining so great praise and honour in Argos;
     Then full many an Argive woman her cheeks shall mangle; -
     Hence, in the times to come 'twill be said by the men who are unborn,
     'Tamed by the spear expired the coiled terrible serpent.'" ^2

     At the coincidence of all these things the Argives were greatly cast
down; and so they resolved that they would follow the signals of the enemy's
herald.  Having made this resolve, they proceeded to act as follows: whenever
the herald of the Lacedaemonians gave any order to the soldiers of his own
army, the Argives did the like on their side.

[Footnote 1: Vide supra, ch. 19.]

[Footnote 2: It is hopeless to attempt a rational explanation of this oracle,
the obscurity of which gives it a special claim to be regarded as a genuine
Pythian response.  [Query: is it prophetic of Sparta's victory over Argos? -
E. H. B.]]

     78. Now when Cleomenes heard that the Argives were acting thus, he
commanded his troops that, so soon as the herald gave the word for the
soldiers to go to dinner, they should instantly seize their arms and charge
the host of the enemy.  Which the Lacedaemonians did accordingly, and fell
upon the Argives just as, following the signal, they had begun their repast;
whereby it came to pass that vast numbers of the Argives were slain, while the
rest, who were more than they which died in the fight, were driven to take
refuge in the grove of Argus hard by, where they were surrounded, and watch
kept upon them.

     79. When things were at this pass Cleomenes acted as follows: Having
learnt the names of the Argives who were shut up in the sacred precinct from
certain deserters who had come over to him, he sent a herald to summon them
one by one, on pretence of having received their ransoms.  Now the ransom of
prisoners among the Peloponnesians is fixed at two minae the man.  So
Cleomenes had these persons called forth severally, to the number of fifty, or
thereabouts, and massacred them.  All this while they who remained in the
enclosure knew nothing of what was happening; for the grove was so thick that
the people inside were unable to see what was taking place without.  But at
last one of their number climbed up into a tree and spied the treachery; after
which none of those who were summoned would go forth.

     80. Then Cleomenes ordered all the helots to bring brush-wood, and heap
it around the grove; which was done accordingly; and Cleomenes set the grove
on fire.  As the flames spread he asked a deserter "Who was the god of the
grove?" whereto the other made answer, "Argus." So he, when he heard that,
uttered a loud groan, and said -

     "Greatly hast thou deceived me, Apollo, god of prophecy, in saying that I
should take Argos.  I fear me thy oracle has now got its accomplishment."

     81. Cleomenes now sent home the greater part of his army, while with a
thousand of his best troops he proceeded to the temple of Juno, ^1 to offer
sacrifice.  When however he would have slain the victim on the altar himself,
the priest forbade him, as it was not lawful (he said) for a foreigner to
sacrifice in that temple.  At this Cleomenes ordered his helots to drag the
priest from the altar and scourge him, while he performed the sacrifice
himself, after which he went back to Sparta.

[Footnote 1: This temple, one of the most famous in antiquity, was near Argos.
[Discovered 1831.  See Frazer's Pausanias, vol. iii. pp. 165- 185. - E. H.
B.]]

     82. Thereupon his enemies brought him up before the Ephors, and made it a
charge against him that he had allowed himself to be bribed, and on that
account had not taken Argos when he might have captured it easily. To this he
answered - whether truly or falsely I cannot say with certainty - but at any
rate his answer to the charge was, that "so soon as he discovered the sacred
precinct which he had taken to belong to Argos, he directly imagined that the
oracle had received its accomplishment; he therefore thought it not good to
attempt the town, at the least until he had inquired by sacrifice, and
ascertained if the god meant to grant him the place, or was determined to
oppose his taking it.  So he offered in the temple of Juno, and when the omens
were propitious, immediately there flashed forth a flame of fire from the
breast of the image; whereby he knew of a surety that he was not to take
Argos.  For if the flash had come from the head, he would have gained the
town, citadel and all; but as it shone from the breast, he had done so much as
the god intended." And his words seemed to the Spartans so true and
reasonable, that he came clear off from his adversaries.

     83. Argos however was left so bare of men, that the slaves managed the
state, filled the offices, and administered everything until the sons of those
who were slain by Cleomenes grew up.  Then these latter cast out the slaves,
and got the city back under their own rule; while the slaves who had been
driven out fought a battle and won Tiryns.  After this for a time there was
peace between the two; but a certain man, a soothsayer, named Cleander, who
was by race a Phigalean ^1 from Arcadia, joined himself to the slaves, and
stirred them up to make a fresh attack upon their lords.  Then were they at
war with one another by the space of many years; but at length the Argives
with much trouble gained the upper hand.

[Footnote 1: Phigalea was an Arcadian town.]

     84. The Argives say that Cleomenes lost his senses, and died so
miserably, on account of these doings.  But his own countrymen declare that
his madness proceeded not from any supernatural cause whatever, but only from
the habit of drinking wine unmixed with water, which he learnt of the Scyths.
These nomads, from the time that Darius made his inroad into their country,
had always had a wish for revenge.  They therefore sent ambassadors to Sparta
to conclude a league, proposing to endeavour themselves to enter Media by the
Phasis, while the Spartans should march inland from Ephesus, and then the two
armies should join together in one. When the Scyths came to Sparta on this
errand Cleomenes was with them continually; and growing somewhat too familiar,
learnt of them to drink his wine without water, a practice which is thought by
the Spartans to have caused his madness.  From this distance of time the
Spartans, according to their own account, have been accustomed, when they want
to drink purer wine than common, to give the order to fill "Scythian fashion."
The Spartans then speak thus concerning Cleomenes; but for my own part I think
his death was a judgment on him for wronging Demaratus.

     85. No sooner did the news of Cleomenes' death reach Egina than
straightway the Eginetans sent ambassadors to Sparta to complain of the
conduct of Leotychides in respect of their hostages, who were still kept at
Athens.  So they of Lacedaemon assembled a court of justice and gave sentence
upon Leotychides, that whereas he had grossly affronted the people of Egina,
he should be given up to the ambassadors, to be led away in place of the men
whom the Athenians had in their keeping.  Then the ambassadors were about to
lead him away; but Theasides, the son of Leoprepes, who was a man greatly
esteemed in Sparta, interfered, and said to them -

     "What are ye minded to do, ye men of Egina?  To lead away captive the
king of the Spartans, whom his countrymen have given into your hands? Though
now in their anger they have passed this sentence, yet belike the time will
come when they will punish you, if you act thus, by bringing utter destruction
upon your country."

     The Eginetans, when they heard this, changed their plan, and, instead of
leading Leotychides away captive, agreed with him that he should come with
them to Athens, and give them back their men.