Agis and Cleomenes

So she went in, and when she saw her son lying dead upon the ground, and her mother’s dead body still hanging in the noose, with her own hands she helped the officers to take her down, laid her body out by the side of Agis, and composed and covered it. Then, embracing her son and kissing his face, she said: My son, it was thy too great regard for others, and thy gentleness and humanity, which has brought thee to ruin, and us as well.

Then Amphares, who stood at the door and saw and heard what she did and said, came in and said angrily to her: If, then, thou hast been of the same mind as thy son, thou shalt also suffer the same fate. And Agesistrata, as she rose to present her neck to the noose, said: My only prayer is that this may bring good to Sparta.

When tidings of the sad event had been carried to the city and the three bodies were carried forth for burial, the fear felt by the citizens was not so strong as to prevent them from manifesting sorrow over what had been done, and hatred for Leonidas and Amphares. It was thought that nothing more dreadful or heinous had been done in Sparta since the Dorians had dwelt in Peloponnesus.