Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/70

 46 mSTORY OF GREECE. along with so many suppliant warriors who had taken sanctuary in it. Without pronouncing between these different suppositions, Herodotus contents himself with expressing his opinion that the miserable death of Kleomenes was an atonement for his conduct to Demaratus. But what surprises us most is, to hear that the Spartans, usually more disposed than other Greeks to refer every striking phenomenon to divine agency, recognized on this occa- sion nothing but a vulgar physical cause : Kleomenes had gone mad, they affirmed, through habits of intoxication, learned from some Scythian envoys who had come to Sparta, i The deatli of Kleomenes, and the discredit thrown on his char- acter, emboldened the jEginetans to prefer a complaint at Sparta respecting their ten hostages whom Kleomenes and Leotychides had taken away from the island, a little before the invasion of Attica by the Persians under Datis, and deposited at Athens as guarantee to the Athenians against aggression from JEgina at that critical moment. Leotychides was the surviving auxiliary of Kleomenes in the requisition of these hostages, and against him the -Si^ginetans complained. Though the proceeding was one unquestionably beneficial to the general cause of Greece,^ yet such was the actual displeasure of the Lacedaemonians against the deceased king and his acts, that the survivor Leotychides was brought to a public trial, and condemned to be delivered up as prisoner in atonement to the -^ginetans. The latter were about to carry away their prisoner, when a dignified Spartan named Theasides, pointed out to them the danger which they were in- curring by such an indignity against the regal person, — the Spar- tans, he observed, had passed sentence under feelings of tem- porary wrath, which would probably be exchanged for sympathy if they saw the sentence realized. Accordingly the uEginetans, instead of executing the sentence, contented themselves with stipulating that Leotychides should accompany them to Athens and redemand their hostages detained there. The Athenians refused to give up the hostages, in spite of the emphatic terms in which the Spartan king set forth the ' Herodot. vi, 84. aya^a Trpoaepya^ofievov, etc.
 * Herodot. vi, 61. K2.eofiEvea, iovra h ry hlyivy, /cat koivu ry «E^^d<