Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/345

 LEOTYCHIDES CHOSEN KING. 32? that Demaratus was not the son of Aristo. 1 Leotychides thua became king of the Prokleid line, while Demaratus descended into a private station, and was elected at the ensuing solemnity of the Gymnopasdia to an official function. The new king, un- able to repress a burst of triumphant spite, sent an attendant, tc ask him, in the public theatre, how he felt as an officer after having once been a king. Stung with this insult, Demaratus replied that he himself had tried them both, and that Leotychi- des might in time come to try them both also : the question, he added, shall bear its fruit, great evil, or great good, to Sparta. So saying, he covered his face and retired home from the theatre, offered a solemn farewell sacrifice at the altar of Zeus Her- keios, and solemnly adjured his mother to declare to him who his real father was, then at once quitted Sparta for Elis, under pretence of going to consult the Delphian oracle. 2 Demaratus was well known to be a high-spirited and ambitious man, noted, among other things, as the only Lacedaemonian king down to the time of Herodotus who had ever gained a chariot victory at Olympia ; and Kleomenes and Leotychides became alarmed at the mischief which he might do them in exile. By the law of Sparta, no Herakleid was allowed to establish his residence out of the country, on pain of death : this marks the sentiment of the Lacedasmonians, and Demaratus was not the less likely to give trouble because they had pronounced him ille- gitimate. 3 Accordingly they sent in pursuit of him, and seized 1 Horodot. vi, 65, 66. In an analogous case afterwards, where the succes- sion was disputed between Agesilaus the brother, and Leotychides the reputed son of the deceased king Agis, the Lacedaemonians appear to have taken upon themselves to pronounce Leotychides illegitimate ; oz rather to assume tacitly such illegitimacy by choosing Agesilaus in prefer- ence, without the aid of the oracle (Xenophon, Hellen. iii. 3, 1-4; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 3). The previous oracle from Delphi, however, (j>v%dt;aa&ai TTJV xuhriv /JofTtAemv, was cited on the occasion, and the question was, iy what manner it should be interpreted. informing Demaratus that he is the son either of king Aristo, or of tht hero Astrabakus is extremely interesting as an evidence of Grecian man- ners and fcelin<r. IK yvvaiKdf d/UodaTt^f revot'ffi9(u, rbv 6" itHV TTpOC ^TfpOl'f itTTOr&V^aiflV KfAfVW.
 * Herodot. vi, 68, 69. The answer made by the mother to this appeal
 * Plutarch, Agis, c. 11. Kara Sfj rtva v6fj.ov Ttal.aibv, o( OVK ict rov 'Hpaic-