The Madness of Cleomenes - An Excerpt from "A Heroic King"

At the start of the month I pointed out that Herodotus described King Cleomenes as "unstable" and that modern historians have noted that his recorded behavior appears to fit well with the behavior of a paranoid schizophrenic. Building on this and based on my own familiarity with the disease (which I observed in a close friend), the Cleomenes in my Leonidas trilogy is shown to be growing increasing insane. Here's just one scene.

“Sir. Your wife has sent for you. She says you must come to the Agiad palace at once.”

Leonidas stared at the meleirene for a stunned moment, and then grabbed his baldric off the wall and pulled it over his head as he started down the corridor at a run.  In four years of marriage, Gorgo had never sent for him.  Only an emergency could have induced her to send for him now. His first thought was that something had happened to Pleistarchos. Infants were terribly vulnerable, and Brotus wanted nothing more intensely than to see “something happen” to the boy that threatened his succession to the throne.  But the summons to the palace suggested this had something to do with her Gorgo’s father rather than her son.

On the front porch of the barracks, Leonidas hesitated, unsure whether it would be faster to go to the stables and tack up one of his horses or just run.  It was very late afternoon. The pipes would soon wail out for dinner.  If he took a horse, it would be easier to get to his syssitia from the palace.  But it would delay him, and Gorgo needed him now. The Agiad palace was not far away and by taking the back streets, he could avoid crowds that might slow him down. He started running

When he came out of a side street at a jog, he saw the meleirenes on duty at the palace had left their posts beside the front door and were peering around the side of the palace curiously. When they caught sight of Leonidas, they pointed vigorously and called out. “The kitchen door! Your wife is waiting at the kitchen door!”

One of his own chariots and the pair of matched grey mares that Gorgo liked to drive were blocking the alley. As he ducked under the necks of the horses he could hear shouting and crashes coming from inside the palace. Gorgo was standing with her back to the door. Her himation had fallen off her head, and her hair was exposed. She looked stunned and helpless, then relief flooded her face as she saw Leonidas. “It’s my father!” She exclaimed, running toward him. “He’s trying to kill the cook!”

Leonidas took her arm in a gesture of reassurance. “He’s doing what?”

“My father’s trying to kill the cook. The staff sent for me but when I went in he chased me out again. He’s got his sword and he’s trying to hack his way through the door to the pantry where the cook has taken refuge.”

Leonidas met her eyes, shook his head in momentary disbelief, and then nodded to indicate he was resolved. He turned, opened the door to the delivery entrance and stepped inside with his hand on his hilt. Gorgo followed in his wake, clutching her himation around her shoulders.

They were greeted by crates of fresh vegetables that had been knocked over and cabbage heads which had rolled in every direction across the courtyard.  Amphora lay shattered on the paving tiles, spilling oil across the floor, while chickens fluttered about screeching in panic. Leonidas slipped on the oil and fell, landing hard on his elbow with a jarring that sent numbness up his arm, while Gorgo found herself splattered with blood from a headless chicken that was still twitching on a bench. Toppled chairs, heaps of broken pottery, and an overturned table greeted them next. From the room beyond, they could hear shouting. Cleomenes was hewing at a door with his sword and screaming at the top of his lungs. “Assassin! Assassin!”

The kitchen staff had evidently scattered or taken cover.

Leonidas gestured for Gorgo to stand back and advanced to just a few feet behind his father-in-law before asking in a firm, commanding voice. “What is this about, brother?”

Cleomenes spun about to look at Leonidas, apparently only moderately surprised by his sudden appearance. He then pointed with his left hand at the closed pantry door. “That man is an assassin! He put vile poison in my wine!”

“It’s not true, my lord Leonidas! I swear on my mother’s grave! It’s not true!” The protest came from the far side of the door.

“That’s old Prothous,” Gorgo recognized and identified the voice.

“Assassin!” Cleomenes screamed and swung his sword into the door again. The blade sliced into the surface and stuck for a moment before Cleomenes yanked it free.

“Why in the name of the twins would Prothous try to kill you, brother?” Leonidas asked stepping cautiously closer to Cleomenes.

Cleomenes spun about and pointed his sword directly at Leonidas’ heart. Leonidas was wearing a linen corselet that would not protect him from a direct thrust and Gorgo called out sharply. “Father! Stop it!”

 Cleomenes eyes shifted. “Gorgo!” This time he recognized her. “Get away! Get away! We aren’t safe here anymore! Take Pleistarchos to safety! Go to Arcadia! To the springs!”

“Not without you, father.” Gorgo answered, getting a grip on her own terror and moving steadily forward.  Leonidas glanced at her and back at her father, uncertain if this was safe, but Cleomenes was confused. He looked from Leonidas to Gorgo, then over his shoulder at the door. “Brotus! Brotus is trying to kill me,” he declared.

“Now that I can believe,” Leonidas conceded in such a normal tone of voice that Gorgo almost laughed, and Cleomenes was instantly disarmed. He let the point of his sword sink so that it no longer threatened Leonidas’ chest. “You know about Brotus?” he asked astonished.

“Believe me, I know about Brotus. He has more than one murder on his hands already. He would like to murder both of us ― and I don’t doubt he has his designs of Pleistarchos. But poor old Prothous is not in his pay.” Leonidas added, reaching out and taking Cleomenes’ sword from his limp hand.

“You’re sure?” Cleomenes asked, glancing again at the door.

“I swear, my lord! I swear!” Prothous raised his voice desperately but hopefully too.

“The wine tasted funny,” Cleomenes felt compelled to justify himself.

“It was from Sicily, my lord, maybe it was a bit off, but there was no poison.”

“Let me taste it,” Leonidas ordered generally, and Gorgo blanched.

“I threw it out the window,” Cleomenes admitted with a giggle.

Gorgo reached her father’s side and stroked his arm. “That was very wise, father.  Whether it was poisoned or just off, it deserved to be thrown out the window.”

Cleomenes stroked her cheek and looked at her as if she were his long lost bride. “My child. Have you come home?”

“Only to see that you are safe, father.”

“But you won’t leave me alone tonight?” Already his look was wild again and he looked around the shattered kitchen in alarm, as if expecting assassins to spring up from the corners.

Gorgo glanced at Leonidas, who answered for her, “No, we’ll both stay with you tonight. Come, let Gorgo take you back into the house and we’ll have some good wine together.  I’ll send word to your syssitia that you are ill, and to mine that I am looking after you.”

Cleomenes docilely allowed Gorgo to lead him out of the kitchen. As soon as he was gone, Leonidas crossed to the pantry door and knocked once. “You can come out.”

The door opened at once and a half dozen terrified helots spilled out into the kitchen, while from outside came the wailing of the pipes calling the men to dinner.

“Fetch good wine ― make it neat and put poppy seed in it,” Leonidas ordered.

Prothous, however, was kissing his hand in gratitude. “You saved my life. You saved all our lives. He surely would have butchered us!”

The images of the wood by Argos were too vivid in his mind for Leonidas to dismiss the thought altogether, but he tried to reassure the terrified old cook. “It’s over now. Put together a tray with things my brother likes to eat, especially fruit or nuts, foods hard to poison and serve up a familiar wine laced with poppy seed. Gorgo and I will stay the night with him and see that he stays calm.”

“Thank you, my lord.” They murmured in unison around him.

“Don’t call me ‘my lord.’” Leonidas corrected them. “I’m just an ordinary peer.”

“Yes, my lord ― I mean sir.”

At the door into the courtyard he glanced back at the chaos left behind by his father-in-law and the anxious faces of the kitchen staff and he knew this could not be allowed to go on much longer.

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Making of a Hero III - Leonidas and his Brother

It has become fashionable to denigrate the memory of Leonidas by associating him with suicide bombers (Cartledge) or by accusing him of murdering his brother. Thus Dr. Nic Fields in Thermopylae 480 BC: Last stand of the 300 dismisses Herodotus’ version of King Kleomenes’ death on the grounds that “the Spartans were notoriously abstemious” and concludes instead that: “It seems more likely that Kleomenes’ reign was cut short [sic] by murder, arranged and hushed up, on the orders of the man who succeeded him on the Agiad throne.” (p. 14)

There are a large number of problems with this thesis.  First and foremost, of course, is that there is not a shred of historical evidence for it.  Not one ancient source accuses Leonidas of fratricide.  Herodotus, as Fields notes, has a completely different version of events. So we are talking about nothing more than a modern commentator’s fabrication.

Fields feels justified fabricating this story because, according to him, all Spartans (every last single one of them over hundreds of years) were “abstemious” and since none ever drank in excess, a Spartan king who drank too much is a historical (physical?) impossibility. Frankly, that’s a little much. Even Spartans were human beings, and human beings are fallible.  Furthermore, we are talking here about one of Sparta’s kings. Even if one could argue that peer pressure on an ordinary citizen would have been too great in Sparta’s overweening society to ever allow anyone to deviate too far from the norms, a Spartan king clearly had more leeway. The fact that Herodotos mentions the Spartans blamed his madness on his drinking habits actually underlines the fact that Kleomenes’ behavior was not considered normal in Sparta. Spartans, as a rule, were abstemious, Kleomenes was not. Fields’ argument is untenable.

Of course, Fields is not the first historian to conclude that the hero of Thermopylae was really a murderer on the run. Most accept the fact that Kleomenes might have had a drinking problem, but cannot believe that anyone would try to flay themselves alive.  Because they cannot imagine something so appalling and hence cannot accept Herodotus at face value, they feel justified in accusing Kleomenes’ successor of regicide, fratricide and patricide all at once -- since Kleomenes was not only Leonidas’ king, but also his brother and father-in-law).

Yet, as W. G. Forrest points out in his excellent, concise work A History of Sparta: 950 – 192 BC: “A recent psychological study has pointed out that the details of [Kleomenes’] final self-mutilation are in fact consistent with a paranoid schizophrenic suicide.” In short, as so often, the evidence is with Herodotus – not those, who lack the imagination to believe him. Yet even if we were to dismiss Herodotus’ version of Kleomenes’ death as implausible, would that justify pointing the finger at Leonidas?

W. P. Wallace in his excellent article, “Kleomenes, Marathon, the Helots, and Arkadia” (The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 74 (1954), pp. 32-35), suggests some plausible reasons why the Spartan state might have wanted to rid itself of Kleomenes.  Wallace presents some weak but nonetheless, cogent evidence that an Arkadian league formed at about this time and Herodotus also speaks of Kleomenes stirring up trouble in Arkadia.  Wallace argues that if Kleomenes was being successful in turning some of the Arkadian states against Sparta, then the Spartans may have felt he had to be taken out of circulation once and for all. But even this does not justify putting the blame for any surreptitious regicide on Leonidas.

People, who subscribe to this theory, argue that because Leonidas succeeded to the throne, he had the most to gain from murdering his brother, and so he must have been the man behind it. But Leonidas was Kleomenes’ heir at the latest from the day his elder brother Dorieus died, possibly from the day Dorieus departed Sparta. Why would he have waited almost 40 years until he was over 50 years of age to suddenly become ambitious and covet his brother’s throne? 

Did he, after serving Kleomenes almost his entire life, suddenly turn against him because of “troubles” in Arkadia? Surely Kleomenes had made other, more dramatic blunders, from Athens to Argos, that would have given Leonidas a pretext for murder -- had he been so inclined. But we hear nothing of Leonidas being disloyal after Kleomenes’ earlier debacles.

Another thing I would like to know from those who charge Leonidas with murder is what Gorgo was doing while her husband murdered her father? Gorgo, of all Greek women, is known for being outspoken. Are we to believe that she just stood by and let her husband kill her father without a word of protest? More: that after her husband murdered her father, she continued to be a loyal wife, assisting him and asking for his instructions as he marched out to his death?  Surely, the woman, who as a child had told her father not to take bribes, would have gone on record protesting her father’s murder and then avenging his death or scorning the murderer? (Think of the wrath of the Spartan princess Kleitamestra!)

Or are we to believe she was an accomplice? That she supported her murderous husband like some ancient Lady Macbeth?

If so, someone needs to provide an explanation of why Kleomenes’ only child and heir, evidently greatly favored by him as a child, suddenly wanted him murdered in a barbaric fashion. Trouble in Arkadia hardly seems a sufficient reason for such an appallingly unnatural sentiment. Indeed, explaining why Gorgo allowed her husband to kill her father is psychologically a great deal more difficult than explaining how a man as consistently unstable as Kleomenes came to commit suicide!

Last but not least, what action or statement by the historical Leonidas and/or Gorgo justifies imputing to them the level of moral perversion inherent in fratricide and patricide?  What did Leonidas or Gorgo ever do or say to give historians the right to dismiss them as brutal, self-serving criminals? The arrogance is staggering.

It is sad that modern commentators feel compelled to propagate errant nonsense about a historical figure. To be sure, we know too little about the real Leonidas to know what sort of man he was, but that hardly justifies untenable accusations of sadistic fratricide just because we are uncomfortable with the disturbing but completely plausible explanation provided by Herodotus.  

Leonidas' relationship with his half-brother and father-in-law is portrayed in depth in my novel: "Leonidas of Sparta: A Peerless Peer."

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A Spartan Father - An Excerpt from A Heroic King

The historical record is silent about Leonidas as a father. A novelist, however, is free to imagine. 

In the scene  below, Leonidas, not yet king, is speaking with a Persian cavalry commander who has come with the Persian Ambassador to Sparta to learn more about the Spartan army. He has just witnessed the Spartan army at drill and Leonidas has challenged him to charge a phalanx on horseback together.

Zopyrus smiled graciously and bowed his head to the king's brother. "No, my lord. I know you would win because your horse is familiar with a Spartan phalanx and mine is not. What price do you want for him?"

"For who?"

"Your horse, my lord," Zopryus replied with a smile.

 The king's brother smiled but shook his head. "He is not for sale."

"I'll give you ten gold pieces," Zopyrus offered extravagantly. No horse was worth that much, but he wanted to both show that he could afford it and indicate he was not about to haggle. He wanted the horse.

"He's not for sale," the king's brother repeated more firmly. He was no longer smiling.

"Twenty," Zopyrus retorted. He hated being thwarted in anything, and he wanted to show he would have his way at any price.

"Sir, you could offer me the entire Persian treasury, and the answer would be the same. He is not for sale."

"No horse is priceless," Zopyrus scoffed.

"I did not say he was priceless; I said he is not for sale. I do not sell the things I love at any price."

Zopyrus laughed. "You are a strange man. What did you say your name was?"

"Leonidas."

"The Lion's Son. Do you not resent that your brother, your twin, is a king and you are given no honors? In Persia, the twin brother of the king would be the second greatest nobleman in the realm, with vast powers and riches."

Leonidas smiled but replied earnestly. "In Persia, I do not believe the twin brother of the king would be allowed to live at all."

Zopyrus was caught off guard by this perceptive remark. Although he had given it no thought until now, he realized that no king with absolute power could risk having a living twin. 

Zopyrus' curiosity was aroused. "Do you have many sons, Leonidas?"

"I have one son and one daughter."

"Is that all?" Zopyrus was flabbergasted. Leonidas looked about forty years old, an age at which a Persian nobleman usually ha scores of children.

"I lost two children in a fire," Leonidas conceded, his face closed, and he quickly asked back, "And you?"

"I have seven sons by my wives and another nine by concubines."

"And daughters?"

"I don't keep track of them," Zopyrus replied, dismissing the nuisances. Each female child was a wasted pregnancy and an added expense. 

"You are a poor man." Leonidas turned his horse around and started riding down from the hillock, his big horse on a loose rein.

"Poor?" Zopyrus' temper flared, and he put his heels to his stallion so that with a leap he was beside Leonidas again. "You dare to call me poor when you ride around on a plow horse and have only one son?"
 

Leonidas pulled up and stared at the Persian. "Tell me, what was the first word your eldest son said?"

"How should I know?" Zopyrus dismissed the question irritably. "Nursery talk is for women and eunuchs. What matters is that I have seven legitimate sons who will carry on my line and nine more that carry my blood! They will grow up to be great warriors!"

"I have a thousand boys who call me 'father,'" Leonidas countered, "and each of them is being forged into a splendid soldier, but my son -- and my daughter -- have enriched me beyond measure with their smiles and temper tantrums and the trust in their eyes when I take them in my arms.  You are a poor man, Persian, who has never known the joy of a little girl's laugh or the peace of holding a sleeping infant in your arms."

Zopyrus had no answer for this speech. It was incomprehensible to him. They were both speaking Greek, but they clearly did not understand each other.

  

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Making of a Hero II - Husband and Father

Although Helen, the ultimate femme fatale, was undoubtedly a child of Sparta, few people nowadays think of love when they think of Sparta. Certainly, Spartan art lacks the plethora of explicitly erotic art that is found elsewhere in Greece. Yet the historical record suggests that love – in contrast to lust – was indeed a feature of Spartan society. Herodotus, for example, explicitly states that King Anaxandridas refused to divorce his apparently barren wife out of affection for her, and only reluctantly agreed to take a second wife.  Likewise, Spartan sculpture has a tradition of showing man and wife side-by-side in harmony and near equality (and strongly reminiscent of Egyptian sculpture, by the way).  Last but not least, Spartan law was the least misogynous among the ancient Greek city-states, and so it was the city-state in which women were most likely to be loved rather than despised. 

In such a society, a man's wife was not immaterial to his character. In Leonidas' case this was doubly so because his wife was the most famous of all Spartan women after Helen herself: Gorgo. Furthermore, she was Leonidas' niece.  

 Is there any indication of what their relationship might have been?

A Spartan Couple -- Side by Side

While we know that Leonidas was Gorgo’s uncle, we do not know when either Leonidas or Gorgo was born and so do not know the age difference between them.  Herodotus states that Leonidas was born only “shortly” after his brother Doreius, in which case he would have been roughly 60 years old at Thermopylae.  Likewise, according to Herodotus, Gorgo was only about eight years old in 500, which would have made her 28 when Leonidas died at Thermopylae, or 32 years younger than he.  

Such an age difference would have been unusual in Sparta, and there are several reasons why I believe this is unlikely. First, Leonidas’ performance at Thermopylae in the forefront of the most bitterly fought phalanx battles of history is improbable for a man of sixty.  Hoplite fighting was grueling even if it lasted only a few hours on a single day. Second, it would mean Leonidas had been nearly 50 when he married, again something that violated Spartan law and custom. Finally, it would mean that Cleomenes’ only child had not been born to him until he was over thirty, something which was also unlikely for a ruling king.

It is far more likely that Leonidas was not much more than 45 at Thermopylae, 45 being the age at which Spartan reservists were no longer called-up for front-line service (i.e. the age at which they were considered no longer fit enough for the rigors of hoplite battles.)  Likewise, it is very probable that Herodotus underestimated Gorgo’s age in his depiction of her encounter with Aristagoras, either intentionally (in order to discredit Cleomenes), or unintentionally (because he was unaware that Spartan girls did not marry until their late teens).  (In the rest of Greece, a girl was married as soon as possible after her first period, so any girl still in her father’s home was per definition a “child.”) It is far more likely, however, that Gorgo was a teenager rather than a small child in 500 BC. This would mean that about 15 years separated Leonidas from Gorgo.

While less unusual than a 32 year age difference, the age gap is still enough to mean that Leonidas would already have been in school by the time Gorgo was born, and make it unlikely that they spent much time together as children. The relationship would have been further complicated by the fact that Cleomenes was the son of Anaxandridas’ second wife, while Leonidas the son of his first. Leonidas’ full brother Doreius refused to serve Cleomenes and twice led expeditions abroad to set up colonies. While Leonidas appears to have been singularly loyal to Cleomenes, there is no indication that he was particularly favored or close to Cleomenes – except the marriage itself.

The fact that Leonidas was, after the departure of Doreius, Cleomenes’ heir apparent provides the most logical explanation of Leonidas’ marriage to Gorgo.  Gorgo clearly presented the Spartan state with a problem since the most important duty of Sparta’s kings was to lead her hoplite army – something no woman, not even a Spartan woman, could do.  This does not, however, mean that the throne could not be transferred – like other property – from an heiress to her husband or son.  Sparta’s inheritance laws were notoriously woman-friendly, allowing for heiresses to inherit.  Therefore, the Spartans must have worried that any man who married Gorgo would claim the Agiad throne, if not for himself then for his sons by Gorgo. By marrying Gorgo to his half-brother and closest male relative, Cleomenes avoided any of these potential problems.

In short, the marriage of Gorgo and Leonidas was almost certainly dynastic; the marriage need not have involved any kind of inclination or affection on either side.  But the case is not quite that simple.  

First, as the closest male relative of Cleomenes, Leonidas would have been well-positioned to claim the throne without taking Gorgo to wife, if he had found the marriage objectionable.  Certainly, if he were the kind of man, as some historians claim, who was capable of committing fratricide and regicide to lay claim to the throne in 490, than he need not have gone to the trouble of marrying Cleomenes’ daughter. He would have found ways of disposing of her as well as her father.  

Second, while Spartan law did not give women any official say over their husbands, it hardly seems likely that Gorgo, who went down in history as outspoken even in matters that did not directly concern her, was going to meekly accept a man she did not want. In short, while there is no evidence of strong mutual attraction, there is good reason to believe that both parties to the marriage found it acceptable.

There are two incidents in the historical record, however, that hint at something more than a marriage of convenience. The first of these is the famous scene in which Gorgo deciphers the significance of the apparently blank writing tablets sent by Demaratus.  The way the scene is written, it is clear that Demaratus has sent a message to the Spartan state – not to Leonidas personally. But “no one” could figure out what the blank tablets meant until Gorgo suggested scraping the wax off them.  The importance of this scene is two-fold. First, it is further evidence of Gorgo’s cleverness, but secondly,  it shows that Gorgo was present when affairs of state were being discussed. A message to Sparta would most likely have been sent to the ephors or the Gerusia. If Gorgo was present when either of these bodies were meeting, it could only have been because Leonidas was willing to let her be present – a clear sign of respect.

And Gorgo returned the compliment.  When asked by a foreign woman why Spartan women were the only women in the world who “ruled their men,” Gorgo allegedly said it was because Spartans were the only women who gave birth to men.  Her classically Laconic answer went straight to the heart of the matter, accurately diagnosing the low status of women elsewhere in the Greek world as the product of misogyny.  Only Spartan men, Gorgo implied, were man enough not to be intimidated by strong, out-spoken women. That is not the answer of a woman, who thinks little of her own husband.

This second incident is revealing for another reason as well.  Since most Greek women were confined to the back of their own houses and rarely set foot outside except for weddings, funerals and assisting in the childbirth of relatives, it is hardly likely that Gorgo’s allegedly Attican interrogator was outside of her own four walls, much less outside her city.  The woman who asked Gorgo about the strange power of Spartan woman was in her own environment; Gorgo was the outsider. That means that Leonidas took Gorgo with him when he traveled abroad.  That, in turn, suggests a far closer relationship than a conventional marriage. 

Unfortunately, the only exchange between Leonidas and Gorgo that has been passed down to us it is little more than ideological drivel.  Allegedly, Gorgo asked Leonidas for his “instructions” or “orders” as he marched away to his death and he told Gorgo to do her eugenic duty to “marry a good man and have good children.”  This text-book exchange is so stereotypical that it is very probably spurious, intended to give greater credence to the ideology contained by putting it into the mouths of heroes by Spartan propagandists centuries after both Leonidas and Gorgo were long dead.

In summary, Leonidas was the son of a man who defied the ephors for love of his wife, Leonidas' mother. He married voluntarily a young woman, who had already established a reputation for being outspoken and politically astute. He included her in contexts where affairs of state were being handled. He traveled with her abroad. He had at least one child with her. And he may have explicitly urged her to marry again and found a new family after his own death. A love story? Not necessarily, but it has the makings of one….

Leonidas' relationship and marriage with Gorgo is an important component of the second book in my Leonidas Trilogy: A Peerless Peer. 

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