Cleomenes
(Κλεομένης), the 16th king of Sparta in the Agid line, was born to Anaxandrides by his second wife, previous to the birth by his first of Dorieus, Leonidas, and Cleombrotus. [Anaxandrides.] He accordingly, on his father's death, succeeded, not later it would seem than 519 B. C., and reigned for a period of 29 years. (Clinton, F. H. ii. p. 208.)
In B. C. 519 we are told it was to Cleomenes that the Plataeans applied when Sparta, declining to assist them, recommended alliance with Athens. (Hdt. 6.108.) And not much later, the visit of Maeandrius occurred, who had been left in possession of Samos by the death of Polycrates, but had afterwards been driven out by the Persians with Syloson. Maeandrius twice or thrice in conversation with Cleomenes led the way to his house, where he took care to have displayed certain splendid goblets, and, on Cleomenes expressing his admiration, begged he would accept them. Cleomenes refused; and at last, in fear for his own or his citizens' weakness, went to the ephors and got an order for the stranger's departure. (Hdt. 3.148.)
In 510 Cleomenes commanded the forces by whose assistance Hippias was driven from Athens, and not long after he took part in the struggle between Cleisthenes and the aristocratical party of Isagoras by sending a herald with orders, pointed against Cleisthenes, for the expulsion of all who were stained with the pollution of Cylon. He followed this step by coming and driving out, in person, 700 households, substituting also for the new Council of 500 a body of 300 partisans of Isagoras. But his force was small, and having occupied the acropolis with his friends, he was here besieged, and at last forced to depart on conditions, leaving his allies to their fate. In shame and anger he hurried to collect Spartan and allied forces, and set forth for his revenge. At Eleusis, however, when the Athenians were in sight, the Corinthians refused to proceed; their example was followed by his brother-king Demaratus; and on this the other allies also, and with them Cleomenes, withdrew. When in the acropolis at Athens, he is related to have attempted, as an Achaean, to enter the temple, from which Dorians were excluded, and to have hence brought back with him to Sparta a variety of oracles predictive of his country's future relations with Athens; and their contents, says Herodotus, induced the abortive attempt which the Spartans made soon after to restore the tyranny of Hippias. (Hdt. 5.64, 65, 69_76, 89-91.)
In 500, Sparta was visited by Aristagoras, a petitioner for aid to the revolted Ionians. His brazen map and his accompanying representations appear to have had considerable effect on Cleomenes. He demanded three days to consider; then enquired "how far was Susa from the sea." Aristagoras forgot his diplomacy and said, "three months' journey." His Spartan listener was thoroughly alarmed, and ordered him to depart before sunset. Aristagoras however in suppliant's attire hurried to meet him at home, and made him offers, beginning with ten, and mounting at last to fifty talents. It chanced that Cleomenes had his daughter Gorgo, a child eight or nine years old, standing by; and at this point she broke in, and said "Father, go away, or he will do you harm." And Cleomenes on this recovered his resolution, and left the room. (Hdt. 6.49_51.) This daughter Gorgo, his only child, was afterwards the wife of his halfbrother Leonidas: and she, it is said, first found the key to the message which, by scraping the wax from a wooden writing-tablet, graving the wood, and then covering it with wax again, Demaratus conveyed to Sparta from the Persian court in announcement of the intended invasion. (Hdt. 7.239.)
In 491 the heralds of Dareius came demanding earth and water from the Greeks; and Athens denounced to Sparta the submission of the Aeginetans. Cleomenes went off in consequence to Aegina, and tried to seize certain parties as hostages. Meantime Demaratus, with whom he had probably been on bad terms ever since the retreat from Eleusis, sent private encouragements to the Aeginetans to resist him, and took further advantage of his absence to intrigue against him at home. Cleomenes returned unsuccessful, and now leagued himself with Leotychides, and effected his colleague's deposition. [Demaratus.] (Hdt. 6.49_66.) He then took Leotychides with him back to Aegina, seized his hostages, and placed them in the hands of the Athenians. But on his return to Sparta, he found it detected that he had tampered with the priestess at Delphi to obtain the oracle which deposed Demaratus, and, in apprehension of the consequences, he went out of the way into Thessaly. Shortly after, however, he ventured into Arcadia, and his machinations there to excite the Arcadians against his country were sufficient to frighten the Spartans into offering him leave to return with impunity. He did not however long survive his recall. He was seized with raving madness, and dashed his staff in every one's face whom he met; and at last when confined as a maniac in a sort of stocks, he prevailed on the Helot who watched him to give him a knife, and died by slashing (καταχορδεύων) his whole body over with it. (Hdt. 6.73-75.)
His madness and death, says Herodotus, were ascribed by the Spartans to the habit he acquired from some Scythian visitors at Sparta of excessive drinking. Others found a reason in his acts of sacrilege at Delphi or Eleusis, where he laid waste a piece of sacred land (the Orgas), or again at Argos, the case of which was as follows. Cleomenes invaded Argolis, conveying his forces by sea to the neighbourhood of Tiryns; defeated by a simple stratagem the whole Argive forces, and pursued a large number of fugitives into the wood of the hero Argus. Some of them he drew from their refuge on false pretences, the rest he burnt among the sacred trees. He however made no attempt on the city, but after sacrificing to the Argive Juno, and whipping her priestess for opposing his will, returned home and excused himself, and indeed was acquitted after investigation, on the ground that the oracle predicting that he should capture Argos had been fulfilled by the destruction of the grove of Argus. Such is the strange account given by Herodotus (6.76-84) of the great battle of the Seventh (ἐν τῇ Ἑβδόμῃ), the greatest exploit of Cleomenes, which deprived Argos of 6000 citizens (Hdt. 7.148), and left her in a state of debility from which, notwithstanding the enlargement of her franchise, she did not recover till the middle of the Peloponnesian war. To this however we may add in explanation the story given by later writers of the defence of Argos by its women, headed by the poet-heroine Telesilla. (Paus. 2.20.7; Plut. Mor. p. 245; Polyaen. 8.33; Suidas. s.v. Τελέσιλλα.) [Telesilla.] Herodotus appears ignorant of it, though he gives an oracle seeming to refer to it. It is perfectly probable that Cleomenes thus received some check, and we must remember the Spartan incapacity for sieges. The date again is doubtful. Pausanias, (3.4. §§ 1-5), who follows Herodotus in his account of Cleomenes, says, it was at the beginning of his reign; Clinton, however, whom Thirlwall follows, fixes it, on the ground of Hdt. 7.148_9, towards the end of his reign, about 510 B. C.
The life of Cleomenes, as graphically given by Herodotus is very curious; we may perhaps, without much imputation on the father of history, suspect that his love for personal story has here a little coloured his narrative. Possibly he may have somewhat mistaken his character; certainly the freedom of action allowed to a king whom the Spartans were at first half inclined to put aside for the younger brother Dorieus, and who was always accounted half-mad (ὑπομργότερος), seems at variance with the received views of their kingly office. Yet it is possible that a wild character of this kind might find favour in Spartan eyes. (Comp. Müller, Dor. 1.8.6; Clinton, B. C. 510, and p. 425, note x.) The occupation of the acropolis of Athens is mentioned by Aristophanes. (Lysistr. 272.) [A.H.C]
the 25th king of Sparta of the Agid line, was the son of Cleombrotus I. and the brother of Agesipolis II., whom he succeeded in B. C. 370. He died in B. C. 309, after a reign of sixty years and ten months; but during this long period we have no information about him of any importance. He had two sons, Acrotatus and Cleonymus. Acrotatus died during the life of Cleomenes, upon whose death Areus, the son of Acrotatus, succeeded to the throne. [AREUS I; Cleonymus.] (Diod. 20.29; Plut. Agis 3; Paus. 1.13.3, 3.6.1; Manso, Sparta, 3.1, p. 164, 2. pp. 247, 248: Diod. 15.60, contradicts himself about the time that Cleomenes reigned, and is evidently wrong; see Clinton, Fast. ii. pp. 213, 214.) [P.S]
the 31st king of Sparta of the Agid line, was the son of Leonidas II. After the death of Agis IV., B. C. 240, Leonidas married his widow Agiatis to Cleomenes, who was under age, in order, as it seems, to bring into his family the inheritance of the Proclidae. Agiatis, though at first violently opposed to the match, conceived a great affection for her husband, and she used to explain to him the principles and designs of Agis, about which he was eager for information. Cleomenes was endowed, according to Plutarch, with a noble spirit; in moderation and simplicity of life he was not inferior to Agis, but superior to him in energy, and less scrupulous about the means by which his good designs might be accomplished. His mind was further stirred up to manliness and ambition by the instructions of the Stoic philosopher Sphaerus of Borysthenes, who visited Sparta. To this was added the influence of his mother Cratesicleia. It was not long, therefore, before Cleomenes had formed the design of restoring the ancient Spartan discipline, and the death of his father, whom he succeeded (B. C. 236), put him in a position to attempt his projected reform; but he saw that careful preparations must first be made, and that Sparta was not to be restored by the means which Agis had employed. Instead of repeating the vain attempt of Agis to form a popular party against the Ephors, the impossibility of which was proved by the refusal of Xenares, one of his most intimate friends, to aid his efforts, he perceived that the regeneration of Sparta must be achieved by restoring to her her old renown in war, and by raising her to the supremacy of Greece; and then that, the restored strength of the state being centred in him as its leader, he might safely attempt to crush the power of the Ephors. It was thus manifest that his policy must be war, his enemy the Achaean league. Lydiadas, the former tyrant of Megalopolis, foresaw the danger which the league might apprehend from Cleomenes; but the counsels of Aratus, who was blind to this danger, prevailed; and the proposal of Lydiadas, to make the first attack on Sparta, was rejected.
The first movement of Cleomenes was to seize suddenly and by treachery the Arcadian cities, Tegea, Mantineia, and Orchomenus, which had recently united themselves with the Aetolians, who, instead of resenting the injury, confirmed Cleomenes in the possession of them. The reason of this was, that the Aetolians had already conceived the project of forming an alliance with Macedonia and Sparta against the Achaean league. It is probable that they even connived at the seizure of these towns by Cleomenes, who thus secured an excellent position for his operations against the league before commencing war with it. Aratus, who was now strategos, at last perceived the danger which threatened from Sparta, and, with the other chiefs of the Achaean league, he resolved not to attack the Lacedaemonians, but to resist any aggression they might make. About the beginning of the year 227 B. C., Cleomenes, by the order of the Ephors, seized the little town of Belbina, and fortified the temple of Athena near it. This place commanded the mountain pass on the high road between Sparta and Megalopolis, and was at that period claimed by both cities, though anciently it had belonged to Sparta. Aratus made no complaint at its seizure, but attempted to get possession of Tegea and Orchomenus by treachery. But, when he marched out in the night to take possession of them, the conspirators, who were to deliver up the towns, lost courage. The attempt was made known to Cleomenes, who wrote in ironical terms of friendship to ask Aratus whither he had led his army in the night ? " To prevent your fortifying Belbina," was the reply. " Pray then, if you have no objection," retorted Cleomenes, " tell us why you took with you lights and scaling ladders." By this correspondence Aratus found out with whom he had to do. The Spartans, on the other hand, were satisfied with the important advantage which they had gained in the fortification of Belbina; and Cleomenes, who was in Arcadia with only three hundred foot and a few horse, was recalled by the Ephors. His back was no sooner turned than Aratus seized Caphyae, near Orchomenus. The Ephors immediately sent back Cleomenes, who took Methydrion, and made an incursion into the territories of Argos. About this time Aristomachus succeeded Aratus as strategos of the Achaean league (in May, 227, B. C.), and to this period perhaps should be referred the declaration of war against Cleomenes by the council of the Achaeans, which is mentioned by Polybius. Aristomachus collected an army of 20,000 foot and 1000 horse, with which he met Cleomenes near Palantium; and, though the latter had only 5000 men, they were so eager and brave that Aratus persuaded Aristomachus to decline battle. The fact is, that the Achaeans were never a warlike people, and Aratus was very probably right in thinking that 20,000 Achaeans were no match for 5000 Spartans. But the moral effect of this affair was worth more than a victory to Cleomenes. In May, 226, Aratus again became strategos, and led the Achaean forces against Elis. The Eleans applied to Sparta for aid, and Cleomenes met Aratus on his return, at the foot of Mount Lycaeum, in the territory of Megalopolis, and defeated him with great slaughter. It was at first reported that Aratus was killed; but he had only fled; and, having rallied part of his army, he took Mantineia by a sudden assault, and revolutionized its constitution by making the metoeci citizens. The effect of this change was the formation of an Achaean party in the town.
Cleomenes had not yet taken any open steps against the Ephors, though he could not but be an object of suspicion to them; they were however in a difficult position. The spirit of Agis still lived in the Spartan youth; and Cleomenes, at the head of his victorious army, was too strong to be crushed like Agis. Secret assassination might have been employed--and when was a Spartan ephor heard of who would have scrupled to use it ?--but then they would have lost the only man capable of carrying on the war, and Sparta must have fallen into the position of a subordinate member of the Achaean league. They appear, however, to have taken advantage of the loss of Mantineia to make a truce with the Achaeans. (Paus. 8.27.10.) Cleomenes now took measures to strengthen himself against them. These measures are differently represented by Phylarchus, the panegyrist of Cleomenes, whom Plutarch seems on the whole to have followed, and by Polybius and Pausanias, who followed Aratus and other Achaean writers. At the death of Agis, his infant son, Eurydamidas, was left in the hands of his mother, Agiatis; and Archidamus, the brother of Agis, fled into Messenia, according to the statement of Plutarch, which, from the nature of the case, is far more probable than the account of Polybius (5.37.2, 8.1.3), that Archidamus fled at a later period, through fear of Cleomenes. Eurydamidas was now dead, poisoned, it was said, by the Ephors, and that too, according to Pausanias (2.9.1), at the instigation of Cleomenes. The falsity of this last statement is proved by the silence of Polybius, who never spares Cleomenes, but it may serve to shew how recklessly he was abused by some of the Achaean party. Archidamus had thus become the rightful heir to the throne of the Proclidae, and he was invited by Cleomenes to return; but no sooner had he set foot in Sparta than he was assassinated. This crime also is charged upon Cleomenes by the Achaean party, and among them by Polybius. The truth cannot now be ascertained, but every circumstance of the case seems to fix the guilt upon the Ephors. Cleomenes had everything to hope, and the Ephors everything to fear, from the association of Archidamus in his councils. Cleomenes, it is true, did nothing to avenge the crime : but the reason of this was, that the time for his attack upon the Ephors was not yet come; and thus, instead of an evidence of his guilt, it is a striking proof of his patient resolution, that he submitted to incur such a suspicion rather than to peril the object of his life by a premature movement. On the contrary, he did everything to appease the party of the Ephors. He bribed them largely, by the help of his mother Cratesicleia, who even went so far as to marry one of the chief men of the oligarchical party. Through the influence thus gained, Cleomenes was permitted to continue the war; he took Leuctra, and gained a decisive victory over Aratus beneath its walls, owing to the impetuosity of Lydiadas, who was killed in the battle. The conduct of Aratus, in leaving Lydiadas unsupported, though perhaps it saved his army, disgusted and dispirited the Achaeans to such a degree, that they made no further efforts during this campaign, and Cleomenes was left at leisure to effect his long-cherished revolution during the winter which now came on. (B. C. 226-225.)
Having secured the aid of his father-in-law, Megistonus, and of two or three other persons, he first weakened the oligarchical party by drafting many of its chief supporters into his army, with which he then again took the field, seized the Achaean cities of Heraea and Asea, threw supplies into Orchomenus, beleaguered Mantineia, and so wearied out his soldiers, that they were glad to be left in Arcadia, while Cleomenes himself marched back to Sparta at the head of a force of mercenaries, surprised the Ephors at table, and slew all of them, except Agesilaus, who took sanctuary in the temple of Fear, and had his life granted afterwards by Cleomenes. Having struck this decisive blow, and being supported not only by his mercenaries, but also by the remains of the party of Agis, Cleomenes met with no further resistance. He now propounded his new constitution, which is too closely connected with the whole subject of the Spartan polity to be explained within the limits of this article. All that can be said here is, that he extended the power of the kings, abolished the Ephorate, restored the community of goods, made a new division of the lands, and recruited the body of the citizens, by bringing back the exiles and by raising to the full franchise the most deserving of those who had not before possessed it. He also restored, to a great extent, the ancient Spartan system of social and military discipline. In the completion of this reform he was aided by the philosopher Sphaerus. The line of the Proclidae being extinct, he took his brother Eucleidas for his colleague in the kingdom. In his own conduct he set a fine example of the simple virtue of an old Spartan.
From this period must be dated the contest between the Achaeans and Cleomenes for the supremacy of Greece, which Polybius calls the Cleomenic war, and which lasted three years, from B. C. 225 to the battle of Sellasia in the spring of B. C. 222. For its details, of which a slight sketch is given under ARATUS, the reader is referred to the historians. Amidst a career of brilliant success, Cleomenes committed some errors, but, even if he had avoided them, he could not but have been overpowered by the united force of Macedonia and the Achaean league. The moral character of the war is condensed by Niebuhr into one just and forcible sentence :-- " Old Aratus sacrificed the freedom of his country by an act of high treason, and gave up Corinth rather than establish the freedom of Greece by a union among the Peloponnesians, which would have secured to Cleomenes the influence and power he deserved." (History of Rome, iv. p. 226.)
From the defeat of Sellasia, Cleomenes returned to Sparta, and having advised the citizens to submit to Antigonus, he fled to his ally, Ptolemy Euergetes, at Alexandria, where his mother and children were already residing as hostages. Any hope he might have had of recovering his kingdom by the help of Ptolemy Euergetes was defeated by the death of that king, whose successor, Ptolemy Philopator, treated Cleomenes with the greatest neglect, and his minister, Sosibius, imprisoned him on a charge of conspiracy against the king's life. Cleomenes, with his attendants, escaped from prison, and attempted to raise an insurrection against Ptolemy, but finding no one join him, he put himself to death. (B. C. 221-220.) His reign lasted 16 years. He is rightly reckoned by Pausanias (3.6.5) as the last of the Agidae, for his nominal successor, Agesipolis III., was a mere puppet. He was the last truly great man of Sparta, and, excepting perhaps Philopoemen, of all Greece.
(Plutarch, Cleom., Arat.; Polyb. ii. v., &c.; Droysen, Geschichte der Hellenismus, vol. ii. bk. 2.100.4; Manso, Sparta, vol. iii.) [P.S]
(Κλεομένης), Spartans of the royal family of the Agidae, but not kings.
1. Son of the general Pausanias, brother of king Pleistoanax, and uncle of king Pausanias, led the Peloponnesian army in their fourth invasion of Attica, in the fifth year of the Peloponnesian war. (B. C. 427.) Cleomenes acted in place of his nephew, Pausanias, who was a minor. (Thuc. 3.26, and Schol.)
2. Son of Cleombrotus II., and uncle and guardian of Agesipolis III., B. C. 219. (Plb. 4.35.12; Agesipolis III., Cleombrotus II.) [P.S]
a Greek of Naucratis in Egypt, was appointed by Alexander the Great as nomarch of the Arabian district (νόμος) of Egypt and receiver of the tributes from all the districts of Egypt and the neighbouring part of Africa. (B. C. 331.) Some of the ancient writers say that Alexander made him satrap of Egypt; but this is incorrect, for Arrian expressly states, that the other nomarchs were independent of him, except that they had to pay to him the tributes of their districts. It would, however, appear that he had no difficulty in extending his depredations over all Egypt, and it is not unlikely that he would assume the title of satrap. His rapacity knew no bounds; he exercised his office solely for his own advantage. On the occurrence of a scarcity of corn, which was less severe in Egypt than in the neighbouring countries, he at first forbad its exportation from Egypt; but, when the nomarchs represented to him that this measure prevented them from raising the proper amount of tribute, he permitted the exportation of the corn, but laid on it a heavy export duty. On another occasion, when the price of corn was ten drachmas, Cleomenes bought it up and sold it at 32 drachmas; and in other ways he interfered with the markets for his own gain. At another time he contrived to cheat his soldiers of a month's pay in the year. Alexander had entrusted to him the building of Alexandria. He gave notice to the people of Canopus, then the chief emporium of Egypt, that he must remove them to the new city. To avert such an evil they gave him a large sum of money; but, as the building of Alexandria advanced, he again demanded of the people of Canopus a large sum of money, which they could not pay, and thus he got an excuse for removing them. He also made money out of the superstitions of the people. One of his boys having been killed by a crocodile, he ordered the crocodiles to be destroyed; but, in consideration of all the money which the priests could get together for the sake of saving their sacred animals, he revoked his order. On another occasion he sent for the priests, and informed them that the religious establishment was too expensive, and must be reduced; they handed over to him the treasures of the temples; and he then left them undisturbed. Alexander was informed of these proceedings, but found it convenient to take no notice of them; but after his return to Babylon (B. C. 323) he wrote to Cleomenes, commanding him to erect at Alexandria a splendid monument to Hephaestion, and promised that, if this work were zealously performed, he would overlook his misconduct.
In the distribution of Alexander's empire, after his death, Cleomenes was left in Egypt as hyparch under Ptolemy, who put him to death on the suspicion of his favouring Perdiccas. The effect, if not also a cause, of this act was, that Ptolemy came into possession of the treasures of Cleomenes, which amounted to 8000 talents. (Arrian, Arr. Anab. 3.5, vii 23; Arrian, apud Phot. Cod. 92, p. 69a. 34, ed. Bekker; Dexippus, apud Phot. Cod. 82, p. 64a. 34; Just. 13.4.11; Q. Curt. 4.33.5 ; Pseud_Aristot. Econ. 2.34, 40; Dem. c. Dionysiod. p. 1258; Paus. 1.6.3; Diod. 18.14; Droysen, Geschichte Alex. pp. 216, 580, Nachfolg. pp. 41, 128.) [P.S]
literary.
1. A rhapsodist, who recited the Καθαρμοί of Empedocles at the Olympic games. (Athen. 14.620d.)
2. Of Rhegium, a dithyrambic poet, censured by Chionides (Athen. 14.638e.), and by Aristophanes, according to the Scholiast. (Nubes, 332, 333.) He seems to have been an erotic writer, since Epicrates mentions him in connexion with Sappho, Meletus, and Lamynthius. (Athen. 14.605e.) The allusions of other comedians to him fix his date in the latter part of the fifth century B. C. One of his poems was entitled Meleager. (Athen. 9.402a.)
3. A cynic philosopher, the disciple of Metrocles, wrote a work on education (Παιδαγωγικός), which is quoted by Diogenes Laertius (6.75, 95).
4. A commentator on Homer, and Hesiod. (Clem. Al. Strom. i. p. 129.) Perhaps he was the same as the philosopher. [P.S]
(Κλεομένης), the name of a physician introduced by Plutarch in his Symposiacon (6.8.5, ed. Tauchn.) as giving his opinion on the nature and cause of the disease called bulimia, in the first century after Christ. [W.A.G]
a sculptor mentioned only by Pliny (36.4.10) as the author of a group of the Thespiades, or Muses, which was placed by Asinius Pollio in his buildings at Rome, perhaps the library on the Palatine hill. This artist, who does not appear to have enjoyed great celebrity with the ancients, is particularly interesting to us, because one of the most exquisite statues, the Venus de Medici, bears his name in the following inscription on the pedestal: ΚΛΕΟΜΕΝΗΣ ΑΠΟΛΛΟΔΩΡΟΥ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΣ ΕΠΩΕΣΕΝ.
This inscription, which has been undeservedly considered as a modern imposition, especially by Florentine critics, who would fain have claimed a greater master for their admired statue, indicates both the father and the native town of Cleomenes; and the letter Ω gives likewise an external proof of what we should have guessed from the character of the work itself, that he was subsequent to B. C. 403. But we may arrive still nearer at his age. Mummius brought the above-mentioned group of the Muses from Thespiae to Rome; and Cleomenes must therefore have lived previously to B. C. 146, the date of the destruction of Corinth. The beautiful statue of Venus is evidently an imitation of the Cnidian statue of Praxiteles; and Müller's opinion is very probable, that Cleomenes tried to revive at Athens the style of this great artist. Our artist would, according to this supposition, have lived between B. C. 363 (the age of Praxiteles) and B. C. 146.
Now, there is another Cleomenes, the author of a much admired but rather lifeless statue in the Louvre, which commonly bears the name of Germanicus, though without the slightest foundation. It represents a Roman orator, with the right hand lifted, and, as the attribute of a turtle at the foot shews, in the habit of Mercury. There the artist calls himself ΚΛΕΟΜΕΝΗΣ ΚΛΕΟΜΕΝΟΥΣ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΣΕ ΠΟΙΗΣΕΝ.
He was therefore distinct from the son of Apollodorus, but probably his son; for the name of Cleomenes is so very rare at Athens, that we can hardly suppose another Cleomenes to have been his father; and nothing was more common with ancient artists than that the son followed the father's profession. But it is quite improbable that an Athenian sculptor should have made the statue of a Roman in the form of a god before the wars against Macedonia had brought the Roman armies into Greece. The younger Cleomenes must therefore have exercised his art subsequently to B. C. 200, probably subsequently to the battle of Cynoscephalae. We may therefore place the father about B. C. 220.
Another work is also inscribed with the name of Cleomenes, namely, a basso-relievo at Florence, of very good workmanship, with the story of Alceste, bearing the inscription ΚΛΕΟΜΕΝΗΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ. But we are not able to decide whether it is to be referred to the father, or to the son, or to a third and more recent artist, whose name is published by Raoul-Rochette. (Monumens inédits Orestéale, pl. xxv. p. 130.) The inscriptions of four statues in the collection of Wilton House are of a very doubtful description. Further Information
Visconti, Oeuvres diverses, vol. iii. p. 11; Thiersch, Epochen, p. 288, &c. [L.U]
(Κλεομένης). (1) King of Sparta, ascended the throne B.C. 519. At the beginning of his reign he undertook an expedition against the Argives, defeated them, and destroyed a large number who had taken refuge in a sacred grove. He afterwards drove out the Pisistratidae from Athens. This is the same Cleomenes whom Aristagoras endeavoured, but in vain, to involve in a war with the Persians. He afterwards managed, by undue influence, to procure an oracular response from Delphi, pronouncing his colleague Demaratus illegitimate, and thus obtained his deposition. Becoming alarmed, subsequently, lest the fraud should be discovered, Cleomenes fled secretly to Thessaly, and from thence passing into Arcadia, he began to stir up the people of this latter country against Sparta. The Lacedaemonians, fearing his intrigues, recalled him, but he died soon after his return, in a fit of insanity, by his own hand (Herod.v. 64; v. 49 foll.; v. 65, etc.).
(2) Cleomenes II., succeeded his brother Agesipolis II. on the throne of Sparta, B.C. 371. The power of his country was then on the decline, and he possessed not the requisite talents to restore it to its former state. He reigned sixty years and ten months without having done anything worthy the notice of posterity (Pausan. iii. 6).
(3) Cleomenes III., son of Leonidas II., ascended the Spartan throne B.C. 236. Dissatisfied at the prevailing manners of Sparta, he resolved to bring about a reform, and to restore the institutions of Lycurgus, after the example of Agis , who had lost his life in a similar attempt. Thinking that war would furnish the best opportunity for the execution of his design, he led his forces against the Achaeans, who were commanded by Aratus, and greatly distinguished himself. Returning after this to Sparta, with a portion of his army, he put to death the Ephori, made a new division of the lands, and introduced again the old Spartan system of education. He also took his brother Euclidas as his colleague on the throne, and thus for the first and only time the Spartans had two kings of the same family. After a long, and in many respects successful, series of operations against the Achaeans and Macedonians, the latter of whom had been called in by Aratus as allies, Cleomenes was defeated by Antigonus in the battle of Sellasia (B.C. 222), and immediately after fled to Ptolemy Euergetes in Egypt. This monarch treated him with some degree of generosity, but his successor, Ptolemy Philopator, a weak and suspicious prince, soon began to look upon him with an evil eye, and at last kept him in confinement. The Spartan monarch, in a fit of despair, and taking advantage of the temporary absence of Ptolemy from his capital, broke forth from the place where he had been kept in custody, along with thirteen of his friends, and endeavoured to arouse the inhabitants in the cause of freedom. But, finding their efforts fruitless, they fell by their own hands (B.C. 220).
(4) An Athenian sculptor, who probably flourished in the Augustan Age. The celebrated Venus de' Medici, now at Florence, is perhaps his. He is described on the pedestal as son of Apollodorus. The “Germanicus” of the Louvre was the work of his son, who bore the same name.
(ca. 535-488 B.C.) Sixteenth king of the Agiad line, the senior of the two royal households of Sparta. Cleomenes was famed for the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias from Athens in 510 B.C. and for his impious destruction of the Argive forces at the battle of Sepea in 494 B.C. His later attempts to persuade Athens and Aegina to yield to Spartan demands were frustrated by Demaratus the Europontid king. Cleomenes became so incensed at the opposition of his fellow king that he bribed the Priestess at Delphi to declare Demaratus illegitimate and thereby deposed him. This bribery proved his own undoing, however, and Cleomenes was forced from the throne in 491/490 B.C. In a violent effort to regain his crown, Cleomenes started a league in Arcadia but returned to Sparta when the Ephors promised him the kingship. His return was shortlived though, for he soon met a violent end.
FamilyCleomenes was a member of the Agiad royal household and traced his lineage back some 20 generations to Heracles. His birth was the result of a singular event of Spartan history. Since King Anaxandridas was childless, the Ephors feared that the Agiad line might be extinguished, and asked the aging King to divorce his wife and take another (Hdt. 5. 39). Anaxandridas agreed, but only if he were allowed to remain married to his first wife (his own sister's daughter) whom he loved. So it was that Cleomenes was born to the second wife (daughter of Prinatades the son of Demarmenus the brother of Chilon) of Anaxandridas. Soon after the second wife had given birth, the first wife conceived and gave birth to Dorieus, and then to Leonidas and Cleombrotus (perhaps the latter two as twins). Dorieus found it irksome to be ruled by his half-brother Cleomenes and so attempted to found a city of his own in North Africa and then later in Sicily (Hdt. 5. 42). Both of Dorieus' attempts failed however, and the second proved fatal. Therefore it was Leonidas who succeeded Cleomenes upon his death circa 488 B.C. (Hdt. 6.75). Some have proposed that Leonidas murdered his half-brother to obtain the throne although it may have been the Ephors who arranged the deed. Neither seems an unlikely alternative especially if the dislike of the ruling half-brother was shared by all the sons of Anaxandridas' first wife, or if the unrest stirred in Arcadia and Messenia was as severe as as the ancient sources indicate.
BiographyCleomenes I succeeded his father Anaxandridas circa 519 B.C. and ruled until about 488 B.C. when he died by his own hand (Hdt. 6. 75). The exact date on which he ascended the throne is unknown, and even the dating of the earliest reported event in his life remains speculative. Many feel that Thucydides' report of Cleomenes advising the Plataeans to ally in 519 with Athens (Thuc. 3.68.5) must have been an event very early in Cleomenes' reign and so date the beginning of it to about this period. On the other hand, this alliance may date as late as 509 B.C.; for a discussion of the problem see A.W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides 2.358. In the Thucydidean story we see a very shrewd individual conducting foreign policy by playing the Athenians off against the Thebans, while maintaining Spartan neutrality. The story of Maeandrius the Samian exile in about 517 B.C. (Hdt. 3.148) is the other early event in Cleomenes' life. Herodotus shows us a very different Cleomenes who is amazed to see gold and silver, needs to be told how to accomplish bribery, and finally bows before the authority of the Ephors to get Maeandrius banished.
The next episode occurs about 510 B.C. when Cleomenes, at the command of the Delphic oracle, released Athens from the tyranny of the Peisistratids. This later resulted in the democratic reforms of Cleisthenes (Hdt. 5.63-5). Within two years however, Cleomenes' personal friend Isagoras was losing power in Athens and prevailed on the Spartan King to undertake a second invasion with the pretext of driving out the accursed family of the Alcmeonidae, which included among its members Isagoras' opponent Cleisthenes (Hdt. 5.70-71). After the expedition's initial success in expelling 700 families from the Athens, the people thwarted Cleomenes' efforts to dissolve the senate and install 300 of Isagoras' partisans in power, and forced the smaller Spartan force to withdraw into the Athenian Acropolis. It was on this occasion that Cleomenes made the famous retort "I am an Achaean" to the priestess' warning that it was not lawful for Dorians to enter the Acropolis (Hdt. 5.72). After being forced to withdraw from the Acropolis, Cleomenes mounted a third expedition to put Isagoras in power taking with him a large force of Spartans, Corinthians and other Peloponnesian allies. This attempt too was frustrated when, on the point of joining battle at Eleusis, the Corinthians and Demaratus, the other Spartan king, left the battle (Hdt. 5.75). Thus Athenian democracy and the Cleisthenic reforms were saved. This incident also changed Spartan government so as not to allow both kings to accompany the same army when it went out on campaign.
Disappointed in his aspirations in Attica, Cleomenes withdrew to the Peloponnesus and seemed little interested in external affairs for some time. He refused to help the Ionian Aristagoras against the Persians when he came to Sparta in 500 B.C. believing the war to be too far away to be safe or profitable for the Spartans (Hdt. 5.50-1). Aristagoras did not give up though, and tried to bribe Cleomenes with an offer of 50 talents. Gorgo, Cleomenes young daughter warned her father to beware lest the stranger corrupt him, and the King again refused the requests of the Ionian cities. Cleomenes worked much more successfully in his campaign against the Argives. At Sepea in 494 B.C. via a clever strategem, Cleomenes fooled the Argives into believing that his troops were about to prepare a meal and as the Argives did the same he attacked them unprepared. Many of the Argives escaped into a grove nearby which was sacred to Argus. Some fifty of these were lured out with the promise of safety through ransom and immediately killed. When the rest would not leave, Cleomenes refused to be deprived of his victory, and forced all the Helots to set fire to the grove killing those inside (Hdt. 6.77). This victory allowed the Spartans a much freer hand in the Peloponnese, for their archenemy Argos was enfeebled during the next twenty years until the sons of those slain at Sepea grew up.
Finally, in his last acts as a Spartan King, Cleomenes opposed surrender to the Persian advance and promoted a panhellenic attitude toward resistence. In the winter of 492/1 B.C., at the request of the Athenians, Cleomenes came to Aegina to attempt to reverse their acquiescence to Persian domination. Once there he was opposed by a certain Crius who, on the advice of Demaratus (who was at Sparta) stated that Cleomenes could not arrest any of the Aeginetans without the other Spartan king's presence. Cleomenes responded with a bitter jest (Hdt. 6.50), returned to Sparta, and immediately began plotting the demise of both Crius and Demaratus. Cleomenes first struck a bargain with Leutychides, who was the grandfather of KingArchidamus, and who was next in line for the Eurypontid throne. The terms were that he would depose Demaratus on the condition that Leutychides should support him in Aegina. Then Leutychides swore that Demaratus was not the true son of Ariston and produced witnesses. Soon the matter came to trial, and the question was referred to the Pythia whom Cleomenes promptly bribed to declare Demaratus illegitmate (Hdt. 6.65-6). Once Leutychides had gained the kingship, Cleomenes proceeded to Aegina took Crius and other leading citizens hostage, and handed them over to their bitterest enemies the Athenians. This insured that the Aeginetans would neither medize nor otherwise ally with the Persians (Hdt. 6.73). The corruption of the Pythia was soon discovered however, and Cleomenes fled from Sparta to Thessaly and ended up leading a league of states in Arcadia against Sparta. This generalship was short though, for at the invitation of the Ephors, Cleomenes came home. What happened at this point is mysterious. Herodotus tells us that Cleomenes went raving mad as a result of bribing the Oracle to depose Demaratus, and had to be locked up. While in such a condition Cleomenes persuaded a helot to give him a dagger, and proceeded to slice himself to bits from the calves up (Hdt. 6.74-75). The Spartans themselves said that he drank himself to madness and then death (Hdt. 6.84). Historians are divided as to the insanity of Cleomenes. Some see it as a clear case of schizophrenia, especially since all the Greeks agreed on madness. Others see it as part of a cover story devised by his murderers. Whatever the truth may be, no one can deny that Cleomenes was a powerful, influential and important figure in the shaping of the century to come.
Bradford, 1985: Alfred S. Bradford, A Prosopography of Lacedaemonians From the Earliest Times to the Death of Alexander the Great.2nd edition, Chicago. Cartledge, 1979: Paul Cartledge, Sparta and Laconia, a Regional History 1300 - 362 B.C.London, Boston and Henley. Fontenrose, 1978: Joseph Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle, its Responses and Operations, with a Catalog of Responses.Berkley, Los Angeles, London. Forrest, 1968: W.G. Forrest, A History of Sparta.London. Forrest, 1980: W.G. Forrest, A History of Sparta, 2nd edn.Oxford. Gomme,1956: A.W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides.Oxford. Harvey, 1979: D. Harvey, Leonidas the Regicide? Speculations on the Death of Cleomenes I.Arktouros, Hellenic Studies pp 253-60 1979. How & Wells, 1912: W.W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus.Oxford. Huxley, 1962: G.L. Huxley, Early Sparta.London. Jeffery, 1976: L.H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece: The City States c. 700-500 B.C. p 123-7. London and Tonbridge. Jones, 1967: A. M. H. Jones, Sparta.Oxford. Powell, 1989: A. Powell, Classical Sparta.Norman and London. Geoffrey Revard- I., son of Anaxandrides, king of Sparta: Paus. 2.20.8, Paus. 3.3.9ff.
- his refusal to accept a bribe (from Maeandrius of Samos): Hdt. 3.148
- from Aristagoras: Hdt. 5.48-51
- his madness: Hdt. 5.42, Hdt. 6.75
- invasions of Attica: Paus. 3.4.2, Paus. 3.7.8, Hdt. 5.64, Hdt. 5.70
- oracles carried off by him from Athens: Hdt. 5.90
- quarrel with Aegina: Hdt. 6.50
- arrests influential men of Aegina: Paus. 3.4.2
- ravages sacred land of Eleusis: Paus. 3.4.2
- by bribing Delphic oracle causes Demaratus to be deposed: Paus. 3.4.3
- feud with Demaratas: Hdt. 6.61-66
- invasion of Argos: Hdt. 6.76-82, Hdt. 7.148
- defeats Argives and burns them in grove of Argus: Paus. 2.20.8, Paus. 3.4.1
- advice to the Plataeans: Hdt. 6.108
- kills himself: Hdt. 6.75, Paus. 3.4.5
- Paus. 9.15.1
- son of Cleombrotus, king of Sparta: Paus. 1.13.4ff., Paus. 3.6.2, Paus. 3.24.1(in the last passage Pausanias by mistake calls him a son of Agesipolis)
- son of LeonidasII., last king of Sparta: Paus. 2.9.1, Paus. 3.6.9, Paus. 3.7.1, Paus. 7.7.3
- his valour and daring: Paus. 3.6.9
- breaks power of Spartan senate: Paus. 2.9.1
- defeats Achaeans at Dyme: Paus. 2.9.1, Paus. 7.7.3
- makes peace with Achaeans and Antigonus: Paus. 7.7.3
- captures Megalopolis: Paus. 4.29.7, Paus. 7.7.4, Paus. 8.27.15ff., Paus. 8.28.7, Paus. 8.49.4
- defeated by Achaeans and Antigonus at Sellasia: Paus. 2.9.2, Paus. 3.10.7, Paus. 4.29.9, Paus. 7.7.4, Paus. 8.8.11, Paus. 8.49.5
- his flight to Egypt and death there: Paus. 2.9.3, Paus. 3.6.9
- Paus. 1.6.3