Cleomenes (son of Anaxandrides)

Also known as: Cleomenes · Family: Lacedæmonian · Role: king · First appears: Book 2 · Chapter 20

In Book 2, Chapter 20, Cleomenes led the Lacedæmonians into Argos after disaster had left it stripped of men. When Telesilla armed the women to defend the city, the Lacedæmonians yielded to them. In Book 3, Chapter 3, Anaxandrides’s second wife gave birth to Cleomenes; after Anaxandrides’s death, the Spartans chose him as king over his brother Dorieus, despite judging Dorieus better in council and war, because of primogeniture. Dorieus would not remain subject to him and was sent to form a colony.

In Book 3, Chapter 4, Cleomenes conquered the Argives and ordered a grove where fleeing soldiers had taken refuge to be burned. He supported Isagoras’s bid for control of Athens and ravaged Athenian territory after it failed; he also arrested leading men on Ægina for supporting Darius. After returning from Ægina, he engineered Demaratus’s deposition and promoted Leotychides as a rival claimant. Cleomenes later died during a fit of madness, stabbing and mutilating himself; as he had no male children, the kingdom passed to Leonidas.