CHAPTER IV.
And Dorieus, as he would not remain at Lacedæmon subject to Cleomenes, was sent to form a colony. And Cleomenes commenced his reign by an inroad into Argolis, gathering together an army of Lacedæmonians and allies. And when the Argives came out to meet him armed for battle, he conquered them, and when they were routed about 5,000 of them fled into a neighbouring grove, which was sacred to Argus the son of Niobe. And Cleomenes, who often had a touch of the mad, ordered the Helots to set this grove on fire, and the grove was entirely consumed, and all these fugitives in it. He also marched his army against Athens, and at first, by freeing the Athenians from the yoke of the sons of Pisistratus, got for himself good fame among the Lacedæmonians and all the Greeks, but afterwards in his favour to an Athenian called Isagoras, tried to get for him the dominion over the Athenians. But failing in this expectation, and the Athenians fighting stoutly for their freedom, he ravaged various parts of their territory, and they say laid waste a place called Orgas, sacred to the gods at Eleusis. He also went to Ægina, and arrested the leading men there for their support to the Medes, as they had persuaded the citizens to supply King Darius the son of Hystaspes with earth and water. And while Cleomenes was staying at Ægina, Demaratus the king of the other family was calumniating him to the multitude at Lacedæmon. And Cleomenes on his return from Ægina contrived to get Demaratus ejected from the kingdom, and bribed the priestess at Delphi to utter as oracular responses to the Lacedæmonians about Demaratus whatever he told her, and also instigated Leotychides, one of the royal house and same family as Demaratus, to be a rival claimant for the kingdom. And Leotychides caught at some words, which Aristo formerly had foolishly thrown out against Demaratus at his birth, saying that he was not his son. And when the Lacedæmonians took this question about Demaratus, as they took all their questions, to the oracle at Delphi, the priestess gave them as replies whatever Cleomenes had told her. Demaratus therefore was deposed from his kingdom by the hatred of Cleomenes and not on just grounds. And Cleomenes after this died in a fit of madness, for he seized his sword, and stabbed himself, and hacked his body about all over. The Argives say he came to this bad end as a judgment for his conduct to the 5,000 fugitives in the grove, the Athenians say it was because he ravaged Orgas, and the Delphians because he bribed the priestess at Delphi to tell falsehoods about Demaratus. Now there are other cases of vengeance coming from heroes and gods as on Cleomenes, for Protesilaus who is honoured at Eleus, a hero not a whit more illustrious than Argus, privately punished the Persian Artayctes, and the Megarians who had dared to till the holy land could never get pardon from the gods of Eleusis. Nor do I know of anyone that ever dared to tamper with the oracle but Cleomenes alone. And as Cleomenes had no male children the kingdom devolved upon Leonidas the son of Anaxandrides, the brother of Dorieus on both sides. It was in his reign that Xerxes led his army into Greece, and Leonidas with his 300 Lacedæmonians met him at Thermopylæ. There have been many wars between the Greeks and barbarians, but those can easily be counted wherein the valour of one man mainly contributed to glorious victory, as the valour of Achilles in the war against Ilium, and that of Miltiades in the action at Marathon. But indeed in my opinion the heroism of Leonidas excelled all the great deeds of former times. For Xerxes, the most sagacious and renowned of all the kings that ruled over the Medes and Persians, would have been prevented, at the narrow pass of Thermopylæ, by the handful of men that Leonidas had with him, from seeing Greece at all, and from afterwards burning Athens, had it not been for a certain Trachinian who led round by a pass on Mount Œta the army of Hydarnes so as to fall on the Greek flank, and, when Leonidas was conquered in this way, the barbarians passed into Greece over his dead body. And Pausanias the son of Cleombrotus was not king after Leonidas, but was Regent for Plistarchus Leonidas’ son during his minority, and he led the Lacedæmonians to Platæa and afterwards passed over to the Hellespont with a fleet. I especially admire the conduct of Pausanias to the Coan lady, who was the daughter of a man of no mean note among the Coans, viz. of Hegetorides the son of Antagoras, and against her will the concubine of Pharandates the son of Teaspis, a Persian: and when Mardonius fell in the battle at Platæa, and the barbarians were annihilated, Pausanias sent this lady home to Cos, with the ornaments and all other apparel that the Persian had given her. Moreover he would not suffer the dead body of Mardonius to be outraged, though the Æginetan Lampon urged it.