Book 6
57.5
If 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.“Herodotus, though the expression is obscure, probably means not that each king had two votes, but that two votes were given for the two absent kings, and that the vote of the relative who acted as proxy for both was the third.” How and Wells, p. 87.
58.1
The 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 [22.583,37] (department), Peloponnese, Greece, Europe 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.
58.2
The Lacedaemonians have the same custom at the deaths of their kings as the foreigners in Asia (continent)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 Sparta [22.416,37.83] (inhabited place), Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Lacedaemon, besides the Spartans.
