(Δημάρατος), the 15th Eurypontid, reigned at Sparta from about B. C. 510 to 491. Pausanias speaks of him as sharing with Cleomenes the honour of expelling Hippias (B. C. 510) (Paus. 3.7 § 7), and Plutarch (de Virtut. Mul. p. 245d.) unites their names in the war against Argos. Under Telesilla, he says " the Argive women beat back Cleomenes (ἀπεκρούδαντο) and thrust out Demaratus" (e)ce/wdan), as if the latter had for a time effected an entrance. "He had gained," says Herodotus (6.70), " very frequent distinction for deeds and for counsels, and had in particular won for his country, alone of all her kings, an Olympian victory in the four-horse chariot-race."
His career, however, was cut short by dissensions with his colleague. In the invasion, by which Cleomeenes proposed to wreak his vengeance on Athens, Demaratus, who was joint commander, on the arrival of the army at Eleusis, followed the example of the Corinthians, and refused to cooperate any further. The other allies began now to move away, and Cleomenes was forced to follow. (Herodot. 5.75.) Henceforward we may easily imagine that his fury at his indignities, and their general incompatibility of teimper, would render the feud between them violent and obstinate. In B. C. 491 Cleomenes while in Aegina found himself thwarted there, and intrigued against at home, by his adversary, who encouraged the Aeginetans to insult him by refusing to acknowledge the unaccredited authority of a single king. Cleomenes returned, and set the whole of his vehement unscrupulous energy to work to rid himself of Demaratus, calling to llis aid Leotychides, next heir to the house of Procles, whom Demaratus had, moreover, made his enemy by robbing him of his affianced bride, Percalus, daughter of Cheilon. (Herodot. vi 61, 65.)
The birth of Demaratus had been as follows :-- King Ariston had twice married without issue. While his secoid wife was still alive, either in anxiety for an heir or out of mere passion, he sought and by a curious artifice obtained as his third the wife of his friend Agetus, a woman of remarkable beauty. He enticed the husband into an agreement, that each should give the other whatever he asked; and when Agetus had chosen his gift, Ariston demanded in return that he should give him his wife. A son was born. Ariston was sitting in judgment with the ephors when the tidings were brought, and counting the months on his fingers, said in their presence, " It cannot be mine." His doubts, however, appeared no further : he owned the child, and gave it, in allusion to the public prayer that had been made by the Spartans for an heir to his house, the name of Demaratus. (Ibid. 6.61-64.)
The father's expression was now brought up against the son. Leotychides declared him on oath to be wrongfully on the throne; and, in the consequent prosecution, he brought forward the ephors, who had then been sitting with Ariston, to bear evidence of his words. The case was referred to the Delphian oracle, and was by it, through the corrupt interference of Cleomenes, decided for the accuser, who was in consequence raised to the throne. (Ibid. 6.64-66.)
Demaratus, some time after, was sitting as magistrate at the Gymnopaedian games. Leotychides sent his attendant to ask the insulting question, how it felt to be magistrate after being king. Demaratus, stung by the taunt, made a hasty and menacing reply; covered up his face, and withdrew home; sacrificed there, and taking the sacred entrails, sought his mother and conjured her to let him know the truth. She replied by an account which assuredly leaves the modern reader as doubtful as before, but gave him perhaps the conviction which she wished, that his father was either Ariston or the hero Astrabacus; and, in any case, he seems to have made up his mind to regain, by whatever means, his original rank. He went to Elis under pretext of a journey to Delphi, and here perhaps would have intrigued for support, had not the Spartans suspected and sent for him. He then retired to Zacynthus, and on being pursued thither, made his way into Asia to king Dareius. (Ibid. 6.67-70.)
At the court of Persia he was favourably received, and is said, by stating the Spartan usage, to have forwarded the claim of Xerxes to the throne to the exclusion of his brothers born before their father's accession: and on the resolution being taken of invading Greece, to have sent, with what intent or feeling Herodotus would not venture to determine, a message, curiously concealed [CLEOMENES], to his countrymen at Sparta, conveying the intelligence. (Ibid. 7.3. 239.)
Henceforward Demaratus performs in the story of Herodotus with high dramatic effect the part of the unheeded counsellor, who, accompanying the invasion and listened to by Xerxes, saw the weakness of those countless myriads, and ventured to combat the extravagant unthinking confidence of their leader. Thus at Doriscus, after the numbering of the army; thus at Thermopylae, when he explained that it was for battle the Spartans
Leaving the imagination of Herodotus and his informants responsible for much of this, we may safely believe that Demaratus, like Hippias before, accompanied the expedition in the hope of vengeance and restoration, and, probably enough, with the mixed feelings ascribed to him. Pausanias (3.7.7) states, that his family continued long in Asia; and Xenophon (Xenoph. Hell. 3.1.6) mentions Eurysthenes and Procles, his descendants, as lords of Pergamus, Teuthrania, and Ilalisarna, the district given to their ancestor by the king as the reward of his service in the expedition. The Cyrean army found Procles at Teutthrania. (Xen. Anab. 7.8. 17.) "To this family also," says Müller (Dor. bk. 1.9.8), " belongs Procles, who married the daughter of Aristotle, when the latter was at Atarneus, and had by her two sons, Procles and Demaratus. (Sext. Empir. ad v. Mathem. p. 518, ed. Col.") (See below.) Plutarch's anecdote (Them. 100.29), that he once excited the king's anger by asking leave to ride through Sardis with the royal tiara, and was restored to favour by Themistocles, can only be said not to be in contradiction to the chronology. (Clinton, F. H. ii. p. 208.)
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