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Updated: June 14, 2025
Aristagoras went secretly to his house, and tried to bribe him, at least, to help the Ionians in their rising; but while higher and higher offers were being made, Gorgo, the little daughter of Cleomenes, only eight years old, saw by their looks that something was wrong, and cried out, “Go away, father; this stranger will do you harm.” Cleomenes took it as the voice of an oracle, and left the stranger to himself.
The sense of their common danger, and sympathy in their mutual courage, united at once these rival states; even the rash and hitherto unrelenting Cleomenes eagerly sought a reconciliation with his former foe.
But the mighty power of Persia now lowering over Lacedaemon, the Spartan citizens resolved to sacrifice even justice to discretion: it was not a time to distract their forces by new foes, and they invited Cleomenes back to Sparta, with the offer of his former station.
This act may have been called for by the dishonesty and crooked dealing which Cleomenes had been guilty of in collecting taxes; but, though the whole tenor of Ptolemy's life would seem to disprove the charge, we cannot but fear that he was in part led to this deed because he looked upon Cleomenes as the friend of Perdiccas, or because he could not trust him in his plans for making himself king of Egypt.
The confederates with one accord sympathized with the sentiments of Sosicles, and adjured the Spartans to sanction no innovations prejudicial to the liberties of a single city of Greece. XVII. The failure of propositions so openly made is a fresh proof of the rash and unthinking character of Cleomenes eager as usual for all designs, and prepared for none.
Philopoemen perceiving them to be only too glad at the news, and eager to return, checked them with a speech, in which he made them sensible, that what Cleomenes called restoring the city, was, rather, possessing himself of the citizens, and through their means securing also the city for the future.
A few days after, those that watched the hanging body of Cleomenes, saw a large snake winding about his head, and covering his face, so that no bird of prey would fly at it. This made the king superstitiously afraid, and set the women upon several expiations, as if he had been some extraordinary being, and one beloved by the gods, that had been slain.
The Achaians demanded that the guilty should be given up to them for punishment, and a war began, which ended by a savage attack on Sparta, in which Philopœmen forgot all but the old enmity between Achaia and Laconia, put ninety citizens to death, pulled down the walls, besides abolishing the laws of Lycurgus, which, however, nobody had observed since the fall of Cleomenes.
Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy, acted at the theatre-royal, and printed in 4to. 1692, dedicated to the earl of Rochester. There is prefixed to it the Life of Cleomenes, translated from Plutarch by Mr. Creech.
And the Corinthians made such haste to Cleomenes at Argos, that, as Aratus says, striving who should be first there, they spoiled all their horses; he adds that Cleomenes was very angry with the Corinthians for letting him escape; and that Megistonus came from Cleomenes to him, desiring him to deliver up the castle at Corinth, which was then garrisoned by the Achaeans, and offered him a considerable sum of money, and that he answered, that matters were not now in his power, but he in theirs.
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