Greek Women

by Mitchell Carroll

Plutarch says: "Immediately after he was dead, Amphares went out of the prison gate, where he found Agesistrata, who, believing him still the same friend as before, threw herself at his feet. He gently raised her up, and assured her she need not fear any further violence or danger of death for her son, and that, if she pleased, she might go in and see him. She begged her mother might also have the favor to be admitted, and he replied that nobody should hinder it. When they were entered, he commanded the gate should again be locked, and Archidamia, the grandmother, to be first introduced; she was now grown to be very old, and had lived all her days in the highest repute among her fellows. As soon as Amphares thought she was despatched, he told Agesistrata she might now go in if she pleased. She entered; and beholding her son's body stretched on the ground, and her mother's hanging by the neck, the first thing she did was, with her own hand, to assist the officers in taking down the body; then, covering it decently, she laid it out by her son's, whom then embracing, and kissing his cheeks, 'O my son,' said she, 'it was thy too great mercy and goodness which brought thee and us to ruin.' Amphares, who stood watching behind the door, on hearing this, broke in, and said angrily to her, 'Since you approve so well of your son's actions, it is fit you should partake in his reward.' She, rising up to offer herself to the noose, said only, 'I pray that it may redound to the good of Sparta.'"

Thus was defeated the first effort for the reformation of Sparta. In the city's long history, Agis was the first king who had been put to death by the order of the ephors. When the bodies of the gentle king and his noble mother and grandmother were exposed, the horror of the people knew no bounds, and the aged Leonidas and Amphares became the objects of public detestation.

The second attempt at the reformation of Sparta is also remarkable for the unselfishness and nobility of the women who took part.

After the execution of King Agis, his wife, Agiatis, was compelled by Leonidas to become the wife of his son Cleomenes, though the latter was as yet too young to marry. As Agiatis was the heiress of the great estate of her father, Gylippus, the old king was unwilling that she should be the wife of anyone but his son. Agiatis was, says Plutarch, "in person the most youthful and beautiful woman in all Greece, and well-conducted in her habits of life." She resisted the union as long as she could; but when forced to marry, she became to the youth a kind and obliging wife. Cleomenes loved her very dearly, and often asked her about the reforms of Agis; and she did not fail to inspire him with the lofty ideals of her former gentle and high-minded husband. Cleomenes himself, in consequence, fell in love with the old ways, and, after Leonidas's death, attempted to carry out the reforms in which Agis had failed. His mother, Cratesiclea, was also very zealous to promote his ambitions; and in order that she might effectually assist him in his plans, she accepted as her husband one of the foremost in wealth and power among the citizens. With her help, the king succeeded in breaking the power of the ephors, and a return to the system of Lycurgus was partially accomplished. But Cleomenes had aroused a formidable enemy in the person of Aratus, head of the Achæan League. He carried into Achæa the war against Aratus, and made himself master of almost all Peloponnesus, but, through the persistence of his enemies, almost as quickly lost that territory. In the midst of his misfortunes, he received news of the death of his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached. "This news afflicted him extremely," says Plutarch, "and he grieved as a young man would do, for the loss of a very beautiful and excellent wife." When all seemed lost, he received promise of assistance from King Ptolemy of Egypt, but only on condition that he send the latter his mother and children as hostages. Plutarch thus continues the story:

"Now Ptolemy, the King of Egypt, promised him assistance, but demanded his mother and children for hostages. This, for a considerable time, he was ashamed to discover to his mother; and though he often went to her on purpose, and was just upon the discourse, yet he still refrained, and kept it to himself; so that she began to suspect, and asked his friend whether Cleomenes had something to say to her which he was afraid to speak. At last, Cleomenes venturing to tell her, she laughed aloud, and said: 'Was this the thing that you had so often a mind to tell me, but were afraid? Make haste and put me on shipboard, and send this carcass where it may be most serviceable to Sparta, before age destroys it unprofitably here,' Therefore, all things being provided for the voyage, they went by land to Tænarum, and the army waited on them. Cratesiclea, when she was ready to go on board, took Cleomenes aside into Poseidon's temple, and, embracing him, who was much dejected and extremely discomposed, she said: 'Go to, King of Sparta; when we come forth at the door, let none see us weep or show any passion that is unworthy of Sparta, for that alone is in our power; as for success or disappointment, those wait on us as the deity decrees,' Having this said, and composed her countenance, she went to the ship with her little grandson, and bade the pilot put out at once to sea. When she came to Egypt, and understood that Ptolemy entertained proposals and overtures of peace from Antigonus, and that Cleomenes, though the Achæans invited and urged him to an agreement, was afraid for her sake to come to any without Ptolemy's consent, she wrote to him, advising him to do that which was most becoming and most profitable for Sparta, and not, for the sake of an old woman and a little child, stand always in fear of Ptolemy. This character she maintained in her misfortunes."

Cleomenes, however, soon realized how little reliance is to be put in the favors of princes. Antigonus of Syria took the part of Aratus against him, and Ptolemy, who had been ever ready to help the valiant Spartan, did not care to invite the hostility of a greater foe. Cleomenes was defeated by Antigonus, and became an exile at the court of Ptolemy, but it proved to be a prison instead of a home. Upon the death of the elder Ptolemy, his son kept Cleomenes and his friends under restraint, and, to please Antigonus, purposed putting them to death. Cleomenes and his companions, knowing that a tragic end awaited them, determined to break through their prison bars and to rouse the populace to a revolt against Ptolemy. They easily made their escape, but the people could not be persuaded to undertake any struggle for liberty; and so the devoted band resolved to die. Then each one killed himself, except Panteus, the youngest and handsomest of them all, who was selected by Cleomenes to wait till the rest were dead, so that he might perform for them the last offices. He carefully arranged all the bodies of his comrades, and then, kissing his beloved king and throwing his arms about him, slew himself. The news of this sad event, having spread through the city, finally reached the aged mother, Cratesiclea, who, though a woman of great spirit, could hardly bear up against the weight of this affliction, especially as she knew that an equally tragic fate awaited her grandchildren.

The Egyptian king ordered that Cleomenes's body should be flayed, and that his children, his mother, and the women that were with her, should be put to death. Among these was the wife of Panteus, still very young and exquisitely beautiful, who had but lately been married. Her parents would not suffer her to embark with Panteus for Egypt so soon after they had been married, though she eagerly desired it, and her father had shut her up and kept her forcibly at home. But she found means of escape. A few days after Panteus's departure, she slipped out by night, mounted a horse and rode to Taenarum, and there embarked on a vessel sailing for Egypt, where she soon found her husband, and with him cheerfully endured all the sufferings and hardships that befell them in a hostile country. She was now the moral support of the whole company of helpless women. She moved about among them, comforting and consoling. She gave her hand to Cratesiclea, as the latter was being led out by the soldiers to execution, held up her robe, and begged her to be courageous, being herself not in the least afraid of death, and desiring nothing else than to be killed before the children were put to death. When they reached the place of execution, the children were first killed before Cratesiclea's eyes; and afterward she herself suffered death, with these pathetic words on her lips: "O children, whither are you gone?" Panteus's wife, as her husband did for the men, performed the last offices for the women. In silence and perfect composure, she looked after every one that was slain, and laid out the bodies as decently as circumstances would permit. And then, after all were killed, adjusting her own robe so that she might fall becomingly, she courageously submitted to the stroke of the executioner.

Thus ended the second great movement for the reformation of Sparta, and henceforth Sparta, as an independent State; disappears from history. The story of the fall of Sparta owes its human interest chiefly to the women involved, and Plutarch recognizes this fact when, in concluding his story of Cleomenes, he, with the Greek dramatic contests before his mind, says: "Thus Lacedaemon, exhibiting a dramatic contest in which the women vied with the men, showed in her last days that virtue cannot be insulted by fortune."

Chilonis, Agesistrata, Agiatis, Cratesiclea, the wife of Panteus,--what a pity that we do not know her name!--constitute the most admirable feminine group that Greek history offers us. What especially charms us is that they unite with the strength and self-abnegation of the ancient Spartan matron a sweetness, a tenderness, a womanliness, which we have not been accustomed to attribute to Spartan women. They are Spartans, but they are, above all, women.