But the most remarkable instance of self-devotion furnished by women in the whole history of Greece was, perhaps, that which is related of the Phocian ladies,[[1136]] who, when their countrymen, under the command of Diophantos, were about to engage with the Thessalians in a battle which it was felt must finally determine the destiny of Phocis, strenuously, with the concurrence of their children, exhorted him to persevere in the design he had formed, of causing them to be consumed by fire should the battle be lost. Examples of this terrible expedient for preserving the honour of women occur but too frequently in the history of India, where it is termed performing johur; and the Romans, in their Spanish wars, witnessed a similar act of self-sacrifice at Numantia.
It should, nevertheless, by no means be concealed that the annals of Sparta also contain some brilliant examples of female heroism, of which the most striking, perhaps, is that furnished by the wife of Panteus and her companions after the death of Cleomenes at Alexandria. “When the report of his death,” says Plutarch,[[1137]] “had spread over the city, Cratesiclea, though a woman of superior fortitude, sank under the weight of the calamity; she embraced the children of Cleomenes, and wept over them. The elder of them, disengaging himself from her arms, got unsuspected to the top of the house, and threw himself down headlong. He was not killed, however, though much hurt; and when they took him up he loudly expressed his grief and indignation that they would not suffer him to destroy himself. Ptolemy was no sooner informed of these things than he ordered the body of Cleomenes to be flayed, and nailed to a cross, and his children to be put to death, together with his mother and the women her companions. Among these was the wife of Panteus, a woman of great beauty and most majestic presence. They had been but lately married, and their misfortune overtook them amid the first transports of love. When her husband went with Cleomenes from Sparta, she was desirous of accompanying him, but was prevented by her parents, who kept her in close custody. Soon afterwards, however, she provided herself with a horse and a little money, and making her escape by night, rode at full speed to Tænaros, and there embarked on board a ship bound for Egypt. She reached her husband safely, and readily and cheerfully shared with him in all the inconveniences of a foreign residence. When the soldiers came to take Cratesiclea to the scaffold, she led her by the hand, assisted in bearing her robe,[[1138]] and desired her to exert all her courage, though she was far from being afraid of death, and desired no other favour than that she might die before her children. But when they arrived at the place of execution the children suffered before her eyes; and then Cratesiclea was despatched, uttering in her extreme distress only these words: ‘Oh! my children! whither are you gone?’
“The wife of Panteus, who was tall and strong, girt her robe about her and in a silent and composed manner paid the last offices to each woman that lay dead, winding up the bodies as well as her present circumstances would admit. Last of all she prepared herself for the poniard by letting down her robe about her and adjusting it in such a manner as to need no assistance after death, then, calling the executioner to do his office, and permitting no other person to approach her, she fell like a heroine. In death she retained all the decorum which she had preserved in life, and the decency which had been so sacred with this excellent woman still remained about her. Thus in this bloody tragedy in which the women contended to the last for the prize of courage with the men, Lacedæmon evinced that it is impossible for fortune to conquer virtue.”
Another brief narrative given by the same historian exhibits in the most touching manner, the tenderness and self-devotion of a Spartan woman. Cleombrotos, in conjunction with other conspirators, had dethroned king Leonidas his father-in-law and possessed himself of the crown. Events afterwards restored the old man to his kingdom, upon which burning with resentment he hurried to take vengeance on his son-in-law. "Chelonis, the daughter of Leonidas, had looked upon the injury done to her father as done to herself, and when Cleombrotos robbed him of the crown she left him in order to console her father in his misfortune. As long as he remained in sanctuary she stayed with him, and when he fled, sympathising with his sorrow, and full of resentment against Cleombrotos, she attended him in his flight. But when the fortunes of her father changed she changed too. She joined her husband as a suppliant, and was found sitting by him with great marks of tenderness, and her two children one on each side at her feet. The whole company were much struck at the sight, and could not refrain from tears when they considered her goodness of heart and uncommon strength of affection.
"Chelonis, then, pointing to her mourning habit and her dishevelled hair thus addressed Leonidas. ‘It was not my dear father compassion for Cleombrotos which put me in this habit and gave me this look of misery. My sorrows took their date with your misfortune and your banishment, and have ever since remained my familiar companions. Now you have conquered your enemies and are again king of Sparta should I still retain these ensigns of affliction or assume festival and royal ornaments, while the husband of my youth whom you yourself bestowed upon me falls a victim to your vengeance? If his own submission, if the tears of his wife and children cannot propitiate you he must suffer a severer punishment for his offences than even you require, he must see his beloved wife die before him. For how can I live and support the sight of my own sex, after both my husband and my father have refused to hearken to my supplications, when it appears that both as a wife and a daughter I am born to be miserable with my family. If this poor man had any plausible reasons for what he did I invalidated them all by forsaking him to follow you. But you furnish him with a sufficient apology for his misbehaviour by showing that a crown is so bright and desirable an object that a son-in-law must be slain and a daughter totally disregarded when it is in question.’
“Chelonis, after this supplication, rested her cheek upon her husband’s head, and with an eye dim and languid through sorrow looked round on the spectators; Leonidas consulted his friends upon the point, and then commanded Cleombrotos to rise and go into exile, but he desired Chelonis to stay and not to forsake so affectionate a father who had kindly granted her husband’s life. Chelonis, however, would not be persuaded. When her husband had risen from the ground she put one child into his arms and took the other herself, and after having paid due homage at the altar where they had taken sanctuary went with him into banishment. So that had not Cleombrotos been corrupted by the love of false glory he must have thought exile with such a woman a greater happiness than a kingdom without her.”[[1139]]
[1089]. See Müll. Dor. ii. 296.
Ὧ φιλτάτη Λάκαινα, χαῖρε.