Kitap 6
he advised them to watch the mother and see which of the children she washed and fed before the other; if she was seen to do this always in the same order, they would then have all that they sought and desired to discover; but if she changed her practice haphazardly, then it would be manifest to the Lacedaemonians that she know no more than they did, and they must have recourse to some other means.
Then the Spartans did as the Messenian advised; as they watched the mother of Aristodemus' children, they found her always preferring the elder when she fed and washed them, since she did not know why she was being watched. So they took the child that was preferred by its mother and brought it up at public expense as the first-born; and they called it Eurysthenes, and the other Procles.
They say that when these two brothers grew to manhood, they feuded with each other as long as they lived, and their descendants continued to do likewise.
The Lacedaemonians are the only Greeks who tell this story. But in what I write I follow the Greek report, and hold that the Greeks correctly recount these kings of the Dorians as far back as Perseus son of Danae—they make no mention of the godi.e. Zeus; Perseus being by one legend son of Zeus and Danae. —and prove these kings to be Greek; for by that time they had come to be classified as Greeks.
I said as far back as Perseus, and I took the matter no further than that, because no one is named as the mortal father of Perseus, as Amphitryon is named father of Heracles. So I used correct reasoning when I said that the Greek record is correct as far back as Perseus; farther back than that, if the king's ancestors in each generation, from Danae daughter of Acrisius upward, be reckoned, then the leaders of the Dorians will be shown to be true-born Egyptians.
Thus have I traced their lineage according to the Greek story; but the Persian tale is that Perseus himself was an Assyrian, and became a Greek, which his forebears had not been; the Persians say that the ancestors of Acrisius But in Hdt. 7.150 the Persian story is, that Perseus was son of Danae daughter of Acrisius. Evidently the Perseus legends are manifold and inconsistent. had no bond of kinship with Perseus, and they indeed were, as the Greeks say, Egyptians.
Enough of these matters. Why and for what achievements these men, being Egyptian, won the kingship of the Dorians has been told by others, so I will let it go, and will make mention of matters which others have not touched.
These privileges the Spartans have given to their kings: two priesthoods, of Zeus called Sparta [22.416,37.83] (inhabited place), Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Lacedaemon Here, as often the cult of an “Olympian” deity is identified with an earlier local worship; cp. Zeus Amphiaraus, Zeus Agamemnon. and of Zeus of Heaven; they wage war against whatever land they wish, and no Spartan can hinder them in this on peril of being put under a curse; when the armies go forth the kings go out first and return last; one hundred chosen men guard them in their campaigns; they sacrifice as many sheep and goats as they wish at the start of their expeditions, and take the hides and backs of all sacrificed beasts.
Such are their rights in war; in peace the powers given them are as follows: at all public sacrifices the kings first sit down to the banquet and are first served, each of them receiving a portion double of what is given to the rest of the company; they make the first libations, and the hides of the sacrificed beasts are theirs.
At each new moon and each seventh day of the first part of the month, a full-grown victim for Apollo's temple, a bushel of barley-meal, and a Laconian quartThe content of a “Laconian τετάρτη“ is uncertain; for the date, see How and Wells ad loc. of wine are given to each from the public store, and chief seats are set apart for them at the games.
It is their right to appoint whatever citizens they wish to be protectors of foreigners;Usually, the πρόξενος is a citizen who out of friendship for a particular state undertakes the protection of its nationals in his city; e.g. Miltiades at Athens [23.7333,37.9667] (Perseus)Athens is the πρόξενος of Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta. But here he is apparently an official appointed to watch over the interests of all foreign residents. and they each choose two Pythians. (The Pythians are the ambassadors to Delphi [22.5167,38.4917] (Perseus) Delphi and eat with the kings at the public expense.) If the kings do not come to the public dinner, two choenixes of barley-meal and half a pint of wine are sent to their houses, but when they come, they receive a double share of everything; and the same honor shall be theirs when they are invited by private citizens to dinner.
They keep all oracles that are given, though the Pythians also know them. The kings alone judge cases concerning the rightful possessor of an unwedded heiress, if her father has not betrothed her, and cases concerning public roads.
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.
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.
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.
When these and the helots and the Spartans themselves have assembled in one place to the number of many thousands, together with the women, they zealously beat their foreheads and make long and loud lamentation, calling that king that is most recently dead the best of all their kings. Whenever a king dies in war, they make an image of him and carry it out on a well-spread bier. For ten days after the burial there are no assemblies or elections, and they mourn during these days.
The Lacedaemonians also resemble the Persians in this: when one king is dead and another takes his office, this successor releases from debt any Spartan who owes a debt to the king or to the commonwealth. Among the Persians the king at the beginning of his reign forgives all cities their arrears of tribute.
The Lacedaemonians resemble the Egyptians in that their heralds and flute-players and cooks inherit the craft from their fathers, a flute-player's son being a flute-player, and a cook's son a cook, and a herald's son a herald; no others usurp their places, making themselves heralds by loudness of voice; they ply their craft by right of birth. Such is the way of these matters.
While Cleomenes was in +Aegina [23.433,37.75] (inhabited place), Aegina, Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Aegina working for the common good of Greece [22,39] (nation), EuropeHellas, Demaratus slandered him, not out of care for the Aeginetans, but out of jealousy and envy. Once Cleomenes returned home from +Aegina [23.433,37.75] (inhabited place), Aegina, Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Aegina, he planned to remove Demaratus from his kingship, using the following affair as a pretext against him: Ariston, king of Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta, had married twice but had no children.
He did not admit that he himself was responsible, so he married a third time. This is how it came about: he had among the Spartans a friend to whom he was especially attached. This man's wife was by far the most beautiful woman in Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta, but she who was now most beautiful had once been the ugliest.
Her nurse considered her inferior looks and how she was of wealthy people yet unattractive, and, seeing how the parents felt her appearance to be a great misfortune, she contrived to carry the child every day to the sacred precinct of Helen, which is in the place called Therapne,S.E. of Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta; the legendary burial-place of Menelaus and Helen. The foundations of a temple are still visible. beyond the sacred precinct of Phoebus. Every time the nurse carried the child there, she set her beside the image and beseeched the goddess to release the child from her ugliness.
Once as she was leaving the sacred precinct, it is said that a woman appeared to her and asked her what she was carrying in her arms. The nurse said she was carrying a child and the woman bade her show it to her, but she refused, saying that the parents had forbidden her to show it to anyone. But the woman strongly bade her show it to her,
and when the nurse saw how important it was to her, she showed her the child. The woman stroked the child's head and said that she would be the most beautiful woman in all Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta. From that day her looks changed, and when she reached the time for marriage, Agetus son of Alcidas married her. This man was Ariston's friend.
So love for this woman pricked Ariston, and he contrived as follows: He promised to give to his comrade any one thing out of all he owned, whatever Agetus might choose, and he bade his comrade make him the same promise. Agetus had no fear about his wife, seeing that Ariston was already married, so he agreed and they took oaths on these terms.
Ariston gave Agetus whatever it was that he chose out of all his treasures, and then, seeking equal recompense from him, tried to take the wife of his comrade. Agetus said that he had agreed to anything but that, but he was forced by his oath and by the deceitful trick to let his wife be taken.
In this way Ariston married his third wife, after divorcing the second one. But his new wife gave birth to Demaratus too soon, before ten lunar months had passed.
When one of his servants announced to him as he sat in council with the ephors that he had a son, Ariston, knowing the time of the marriage, counted up the months on his fingers and swore on oath, “It's not mine.” The ephors heard this but did not make anything of it. When the boy grew up, Ariston regretted having said that, for he firmly believed Demaratus to be his own son.
He named him Demaratus because before his birth all the Spartan populace had prayed that Ariston, the man most highly esteemed out of all the kings of Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta, might have a son. Thus he was named Demaratus, which means “answer to the people's prayer.”
Time passed and Ariston died, so Demaratus held the kingship. But it seems that these matters had to become known and cause Demaratus to lose his kingship. He had already fallen out with Cleomenes when he had brought the army back from +Eleusis [23.5583,38.0417] (Perseus) Eleusis, and now they were even more at odds when Cleomenes crossed over after the Aeginetans who were Medizing.
Cleomenes wanted revenge, so he made a deal with Leotychides son of Menares son of Agis, of the same family as Demaratus. The deal was that Leotychides would go with Cleomenes against the Aeginetans if he became king.
Leotychides had already become strongly hostile to Demaratus for the following reason: Leotychides was betrothed to Percalus, daughter of Demarmenus, but Demaratus plotted and robbed him of his marriage, stealing Percalus and marrying her first.
From this affair Leotychides was hostile toward Demaratus, so at Cleomenes' instigation he took an oath against him, saying that he was not king of the Spartans by right, since he was not Ariston's son. After making this oath, he prosecuted him, recalling that utterance which Ariston had made when the servant told him he had a son, and he counted up the months and swore that it was not his.
Taking his stand on this remark, Leotychides declared that Demaratus was not Ariston's son and that he was not rightly king of Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta, bringing as witnesses the ephors who had been sitting beside Ariston and heard him say this.
Disputes arose over it, so the Spartans resolved to ask the oracle at Delphi [22.5167,38.4917] (Perseus) Delphi if Demaratus was the son of Ariston.
At Cleomenes' instigation this was revealed to the Pythia. He had won over a man of great influence among the Delphians, Cobon son of Aristophantus, and Cobon persuaded the priestess, Periallus, to say what Cleomenes wanted her to.
When the ambassadors asked if Demaratus was the son of Ariston, the Pythia gave judgment that he was not. All this came to light later; Cobon was exiled from Delphi [22.5167,38.4917] (Perseus) Delphi, and Periallus was deposed from her position.
So it was concerning Demaratus' loss of the kingship, and from Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta he went into exile among the Medes because of the following reproach: after he was deposed from the kingship, he was elected to office.
When it was the time of the Gymnopaidia,A midsummer festival, celebrated at Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta by bands of naked boys and men. Leotychides, now king in his place, saw him in the audience and, as a joke and an insult, sent a messenger to him to ask what it was like to hold office after being king.
He was grieved by the question and said that he had experience of both, while Leotychides did not, and that this question would be the beginning for Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta of either immense evil or immense good fortune. He said this, covered his head, left the theater, and went home, where he immediately made preparations and sacrificed an ox to Zeus. Then he summoned his mother.
When she came in, he put some of the entrails in her hands and entreated her, saying, “Mother, appealing to Zeus of the household and to all the other gods, I beseech you to tell me the truth. Who is my father? Tell me truly.