Agis and Cleomenes

This sign Lysander now declared had been given him, and indicted Leonidas, and produced witnesses showing that he was the father of two children by a woman of Asia who had been given him to wife by one of the lieutenants of Seleucus; and that owing to the woman’s dislike and hatred of him he had come back home against his own wishes, where he had assumed the royal dignity, to which there was then no direct successor. Besides bringing this indictment, Lysander tried to persuade Cleombrotus to lay claim to the royal dignity.

Cleombrotus was a son-in-law of Leonidas, and one of the royal line. Leonidas, accordingly, took fright, and fled as a suppliant to the temple of Athena of the Brazen House. His daughter also forsook Cleombrotus and became a suppliant with her father. When Leonidas was summoned to his trial and did not appear, he was deposed, and Cleombrotus was made king in his place.[*](About 242 B.C.)