Cleomenes

Family: Spartan · Role: king of Sparta · First appears: Book 3 · §142–150

Cleomenes, son of Anaxandrides, succeeded him as king of Sparta by right of birth. His brothers included Dorieos, who, unwilling to be Cleomenes’ subject, left with followers to found a colony; Leonidas and Cleombrotos were also born to their mother. Cleomenes had one child, a daughter named Gorgo. Early in his reign, he persuaded the Spartan Ephors to expel Maiandrios from Peloponnesus.

After leading a Spartan expedition against Athens, Cleomenes joined Athenians seeking freedom in besieging the despots. Later, as a guest-friend of Isagoras, he helped him seize the Acropolis and demanded the expulsion of Cleisthenes, then entered Athens and expelled families named by Isagoras. In a later dispute with fellow king Demaratos, who brought charges against him, Cleomenes arranged with Leotychides to replace Demaratos in return for help against the Eginetans. With Cobon’s support, a Pythian pronouncement declared Demaratos was not Ariston’s son. Cleomenes and the Spartans took prominent Eginetans prisoner and placed them in Athenian custody.

After the plot against Demaratos became known, Cleomenes fled first to Thessaly and then to Arcadia, where he organized against Sparta. He later returned, and a report attributed to him persuading the Pythian prophetess to act against Demaratos. Cleomenes led the Spartans against Argos, where they killed many Argives, including men summoned from a sanctuary, and set fire to a grove. Accused before the Ephors of accepting gifts and failing to conquer Argos, he escaped punishment; later, he died after a disease of madness seized him and he cut his flesh with a knife. He died without a male child.