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His wife Chilonis, with her two little children, threw herself between him and her father, pleading for his life, and promising he should leave the city; and Leonidas listened, trying to make her remain, but she clung to her husband, and went into exile with him. Agiatis, the young wife of Agis, could not join him in the temple, being kept at home by the birth of her first babe.
Leonidas, touched with compassion, withdrew a while to advise with his friends; then returning, bade Cleombrotus leave the sanctuary and go into banishment; Chilonis, he said, ought to stay with him, it not being just she should forsake a father whose affection had granted to her intercession the life of her husband. But all he could say would not prevail.
She kept him company in the temple, cared for him and amused him, and, when her husband begged her to come back, she answered that her place was rather with her unhappy father than with her prosperous husband. When it became known that the Spartans were plotting to kill the unhappy Leonidas, Agis helped him to escape, and Chilonis followed him into exile.
Here he was soon joined by his wife, Chilonis, who, ever faithful to the most unhappy, came thither to comfort him. Leonidas was so angry that he would probably have treated Cleombrotus with the utmost severity, had not Chilonis fallen at his feet and begged him to spare her husband's life.
On hearing of this, Leonidas took refuge in the temple of Athene, and as he did not appear when he was summoned before the Ephors, they deposed him, and named Cleombrotus in his stead; but when Agis found there was a plan for killing the old king, he took care to send him away in safety to Tegea, with his daughter Chilonis, who clave to him in trouble.
Chilonis, having ended this lamentation, rested her face on her husband's head, and looked round with her weeping and woebegone eyes upon those who stood be fore her.
Chilonis herself had retired to her own house, and had a halter ready about her neck, in order that if the city were taken she might not fall into the hands of Kleonymus.
As he returned through the city to his appointed post, covered with blood and rejoicing in his victory, the Spartan women thought that he had grown taller and more handsome than before, and they envied Chilonis her lover. Some of the old men even followed him, shouting, "Go home, Akrotatus, and enjoy yourself with Chilonis: only beget brave sons for Sparta."
The elderly men and all the women saw this brave action of Acrotatus, and when he returned back into the town to his first post, all covered with blood, and fierce and elate with victory, he seemed to the Spartan women to have become taller and more beautiful than before, and they envied Chilonis so worthy a lover.
As for Chilonis, she retired with a halter about her neck, resolving to die so rather than fall into the hands of Cleonymus, if the city were taken.
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