Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/496

 488 CLEOMENES. Now Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, promised him assistance, but demanded his mother and children for hostages. This, for some considerable time, he was ashamed to discover to his mother; and though he often went to her on pur- pose, and was just upon the discourse, yet he still re- frained, and kept it to himself; so that she began to sus- pect, and asked his friends, whether Cleomenes had some- thing to say to her, which he was afraid to speak. At last, Cleomenes venturing to tell, her, she laughed aloud, and said, " Was this the thing that you had so often a mind to tell me, and were afraid? Make haste and put me on shipboard, and send this carcass where it may be most serviceable to Sparta, before age destroys it unprofit- ably here." Therefore, all things being provided for the voyage, they went by land to Tsenarus, and the army waited on them. Cratesiclea, when she was ready to go on board, took Cleomenes aside into Neptune's temple, and embracing him, who was much dejected, and ex- tremely discomposed, she said, " Go to, king of Sparta ; when we come forth at the door, let none see us weep, or show any passion that is unworthy of Sparta, for that alone is in our own power ; as for success or disappoint- ment, those wait on us as the deity decrees." Having thus said, and composed her countenance, she went to the ship with her little grandson, and bade the pilot put at once out to sea. When she came to Egypt, and under- stood that Ptolemy entertained proposals and overtures of peace from Antigonus, and that Cleomenes, though the Achaeans invited and urged him to an agreement, was afraid, for her sake, to come to any, without Ptolemy's consent, she wrote to him, advising him to do that which was most becoming and most profitable for Sparta, and not, for the sake of an old woman and a little child, stand always in fear of Ptolemy. This character she main- tained in her misfortunes.