The Madness of King Cleomenes

After a (short) absence for exams, I am back, and with an old favourite of mine: King Cleomenes I of Sparta. You might not remember him from such films as 300, when he was the king who threw the envoys into the well, with the immortal line:  "You'll find plenty [of earth and water] down there". Sorry Leonidas.


Parentage


First things first: the Spartans had two kings at any one time, descended from different lineages. For more information on that, see this blog. Cleomenes was from the Agiad line, and was the eldest son of Anaxandrides II.  But Anaxandrides had a bit of a problem.

You see, his wife (whose name is not recorded) seemed to be unable to conceive. They were (apparently) happy, but alas, there were no children. The Ephors (who weren't creepy inbred priests, but rather an elected council of officials) were worried about this: there were no heirs to the throne, and at this rate it didn't look like there would be. So what would they do? The only sensible thing, of course. They told Anaxandrides to take another wife. Well, he refused to divorce her (he loved her too much for that), so he just took a second wife. Seems to have worked out rather well for him there.

This new wife quickly got on with bearing a son: Cleomenes. Unfortunately (but somehow typically), the first wife miraculously became pregnant, and had Dorieus, Leonidas, Cleombrotus in quick succession. Spartan law was a bit shaky on these things, and so both Cleomenes and Dorieus had strong claims to the throne.
Despite the Ephors' preparations, succession was going to be a difficult time. In the event, three of the sons held power at one time or another.


Succession

While they were young, Cleomenes seemed to verge on madness, and Dorieus was the darling of everyone. Dorieus was sure he would be made king, as he was so clearly suited for the job. Unfortunately, that's never really counted for much when appointing new kings, and he was passed over in favour of Cleomenes. Deciding he couldn't bear it, Dorieus asked to be given a group of men and set out to found a colony, though quite how he intended to do that with only men in his group he never explained. In the event, he flounced off in a fit of pique and bummed around the Mediterranean for a bit without any real goal in mind (no change there for sons of the aristocracy). Later he upset the Oracle, and probably died in a foreign war. Cleomenes seemed secure.


Wars at Athens

 Cleomenes was later involved in several excursions outside the Peloponnese, most notably to Athens. This may partly explain why he was considered so reckless by the other Spartans: Spartan forces rarely left the Peloponnese in case of a Helot revolt in their absence. Sparta held hegemony over most of the Peloponnese at this point, and it could be easily defended at the Isthmus of Corinth. See the map below.

Cleomenes first went to Athens after receiving an oracle that instructed him to remove the tyrant Hippias from the city. He duly did so. Two Athenian statesmen then fought each other for the right to rule Athens, and Cleomenes attempted to interfere on the part of one of them, but his Corinthian allies mutinied. This second expedition was abandoned, and everyone went home.

However, some time soon after Cleomenes decided he should restore Hippias to Athens. This is a U turn of which even the grubbiest politician could be proud, but it did have some basis: it turned out that the Athenians had bribed the oracle to instruct Cleomenes in the first place. Wheels within wheels. 

However, once again the allies mutinied, this time in the first act of the Peloponnesian League (who become important later in the Peloponnesian War), and the plan was abandoned.


The Ionian Revolt, or What Cleomenes Did Next

 Cleomenes was later asked for help by Aristagoras. He was from Miletus which was on other side of the Aegean (see map), and wanted help for his revolt against the Persians. This revolt is credited by Herodotus as being the start of the Graeco-Persian Wars. His suit was unsuccessful. The king could not take Spartan troops on a three month journey from the city; the danger of revolt was too great. Aristagoras pursued him for several days, offering larger and larger bribes until Cleomenes young daughter Gorgo (yes, that makes Leonidas her half-uncle, yes, she's the attractive lady from 300) overheard them. With all the self assurance of an eight or nine year old, she said: "Father get up and go, or the stranger will certainly corrupt you". Cleomenes was supposedly swayed by this, and went out of the room.

The Athenians would later offer aid to Aristagoras, and (again, according to Herodotus) "These ships were the beginnings of [all] the evils". Supposedly, the Persians would have left main Greece alone, but for this aid.


Dethroning Demaratus

 Demaratus was Cleomenes' co-king for much of his reign. He took the Corinthians' side in many of the mutinies, and was generally unhelpful. After the failure of the Ionian Revolt, many of the smaller cities surrendered to Persian, including Aegina. Cleomenes decided to make an example of them, and demanded the handing over of the collaborators. They refused, Demaratus swanned around undermining his authority, and really, there was only one option open to him now.

So, Cleomenes sent a bribe to the Oracle (after all, it had worked out really well for the Athenians), and had her find for Leotcyhides, a relative of Demaratus. The reason? Demaratus' parentage was in dispute. Seems a bit rich, coming from Cleomenes.

However, the Spartans, pious as ever,  duly got rid of Demaratus and appointed Leotychides. Demaratus was forced to flee to Persia, where he advised King Xerxes about Spartan tactic (you may remember him from The 300 Spartans). Leotychides was later condemned for taking Persian bribes. It's hard to know who got the raw end of the deal here.


Madness and Death

As with all good stories, Cleomenes' plot against Demaratus was discovered, and he was forced to leave Sparta in exile. He travelled for a time, notably learning to drink his wine neat (as the Scythians and other barbarians did), rather than dilute (which all abstemious Greeks did). The Spartans later claimed this was a contributing factor to his madness. Cleomenes then tried to gather armies for a revolt against Sparta from her allies.

The Spartans brought him back to their city, where he was afflicted with a strange madness: which apparently compelled him to strike every Spartan he met upon the face with his sceptre. His surviving half-brothers claimed he was completely insane and placed him in prison. He was supposedly left alone in stocks, with a single Helot guard. He frightened this man into handing over a knife and proceeded to mutilate himself to death. This was the story put about by Leoniadas, who now assumed the throne.

It is not improbable that reports of his madness had been exaggerated, and that Leonidas had him quietly removed- probably by a member of the Krypteia.




Footnotes, Endnotes and Appendices: Cleomenes was king for about 30 years (c. 520- 489). While most of what we hear about him is amusingly bad press, he was probably a very competant general and a seemingly brilliant tactition. Few other Spartan generals have such a record of success (sorry Leonidas).
Oh, and Cleombrotus gained power after Leonidas' death, when he acted as Regent for Leonidas' young son by Gorgo.

Five Things About Sparta You Can't Learn From 300

1. Two Kings. At the same time.

In 300, there's just Leonidas, but most of the time the Spartans actually had two kings in office. There were two separate royal lineages, the Agids, who were marginally more important, and the Eurypontids, and are supposedly derived from the legendary twins Eurysthenes and Procles.

This actually caused fewer problems than you might think, because the Spartan kings were not autonomous. There were several other groups who had control of things like law and government policy. The kings were more like permanent generals. Once, two kings (Cleomenes I and Dematatus) went on campaign together, had a girly spat about Athenian democracy, culminating in Dematatus going home early and taking the ball- or in this case, their helpful allies the Corinthians. Naturally, they couldn't be friends after this, and Cleomenes eventually schemed to have Demaratus overthrown. Demaratus then fled to Persia, where he advised Xerxes about the Spartans at Thermopylae. This incident culminated in legislation preventing them both from going on campaign at once.

Other powers of the kings were mostly army-based. They were head of their barracks, and allowed two of the allotted rations of food, though the implication was that this was to award to someone else, rather than something they got to keep for themselves. It's also not as cushy as it sounds: one visitor, after tasting their famous 'blood soup' remarked that he "now knew why the Spartans were so keen to die". They were also, crucially, allowed a personal body guard of up to 300 men. Which brings us to...


2. Extremely Pious

As Herodotus puts it, the commands of the gods were more important to the Spartans than the commands of mortals. While in 300 the Ephors are crazy, inbred, historically inaccurate monsters, that they forbid the war is actually correct. The Spartans in general were incredibly pious, always making certain to run their decisions by the Oracle at Delphi, and making sure to check the animal guts before they did anything.

One guy, Tisamenos, an Elean, went to the Oracle to ask 'how to get children'. I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that, but I like to think they were having fertility trouble, rather than that he just didn't know what to do. Instead of offering any helpful advice, she told him he would win five great contests. He assumed that he would win the pentathlon, and promptly entered. He only won four of the five events, so clearly this couldn't have been what the Oracle was talking about, which meant he was clearly going to win five battles. The Spartan nobility decided to try and engage him as their divine auger, to check the omens were right before they went into battle. They were so desperate to have him onside that he was able to secure full Spartan citizenship for himself and his brother, the only two foreigners known to have achieved this.

At the time when Leonidas wanted to leave Sparta for Thermopylae, it was the Carneia, one of the most important festivals of the calendar, and so (supposedly) the army wasn't allowed to march to war. Hence, Leonidas and his 300 bodyguards decided to "take a walk".

Just this once, that excuse might have worked, except that this was their excuse for not being at Marathon too. It's generally thought a lot more likely these days that they didn't like to leave the city for too long in case of a slave revolt.


3. Slave Population

They didn't show up at all in 300, but all Spartan warriors had an allotted number of Helots, who were a kind of mixture of serf and slave. Serfs in that they were allowed to keep some of their produce, and slaves in that they were owned and could be disposed of by their masters. Though almost all Greek cities kept actual slave populations, they had only enslaved foreigners, who were obviously naturally inferior, whereas Sparta enslaved fellow Greeks which was clearly not on. These slaves were the people of nearby villages and a neighbouring town, of Messenia.

Myron of Priene said that: "They assign to the Helots every shameful task leading to disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them must wear a dogskin cap and wrap himself in skins and receive a stipulated number of beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves. Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a slave's condition, they made death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment to those controlling them if they failed." and Plutarch adds that they were forced to drink neat wine until drunk, and then "lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs."

The numbers of these slaves and the number of  Spartan warriors varied over time, but at the most extreme there were probably 10,000 Spartans and 250,000 Helots. Obviously, being this outnumbered, they had to take some quite bizarre measures in order to control them.

Myrion of Priene again: "The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished."

As you can imagine, the Spartans weren't too keen to take their army away from the city, when there could be a revolt in their absence. There were several very serious ones during Sparta's hey-day, including one that lasted ten years.

It is another attempt to control the Helots that forms out next section.


4. Roving Death Squads of Teenagers

You've probably heard all about the Spartan school system. If not, here's a handy explanatory video. Reports vary, but either in your last year in the system, known as the Agoge, or just afterwards, and in both cases were really good at being a Spartan, you were drafted into the Krypteia. This was essentially the Spartan secret police, who existed mostly to prevent Helot revot by killing them whenever and wherever they saw fit. They were presumably selected by the Boy Herd, who oversaw the whole Agoge. Being selected was a great honour, and usually earmarked you for one of the higher offices of state. Like many other Spartan practices, the Krypteia was all about becoming a better soldier, and, unexpectedly, this last point was designed to do just that.


5. Dance Champions of the Greek World

The Spartans were all about being the best at things. If that included singing and dancing in unison, well, fine then. According to Cartledge, ''The Spartans were famed for dancing in general, and  for one particular military dance, the Pyrrhic''.

The reason the Spartans were so good at fighting was (as we learned from 300) that they were really, really disciplined at phalanx fighting. Co-ordination in phalanx formation is incredibly important, so all the dancing and singing in groups had two purposes: one, to help everyone keep in step when it really mattered (i.e. when fighting the Persians or the Athenians), and two, to keep the gods onside, because dancing and singing were also forms of cultic worship, and as we saw earlier, the Spartans were pretty damn pious.

You heard it here first guys. Unless you've read your Cartledge.