Agis and Cleomenes

Such, then, was the end of Cleomenes who had been for sixteen years king of Sparta, and had shown himself the man whom I have described. The report of his death spread over the entire city, and Cratesicleia, although she was a woman of noble spirit, lost her composure in view of the magnitude of her misfortunes, and throwing her arms about the children of Cleomenes, wailed and lamented.

But the elder of the two boys, forestalling all prevention, sprang away and threw himself headlong from the roof; he was badly injured, but did not die, and was taken up crying out resentfully because he was not permitted to end his life. But Ptolemy, when he learned of these things, gave orders that the body of Cleomenes should be flayed and hung up, and that his children, his mother, and the women that were with her, should be killed.

Among these women was the wife of Panteus, most noble and beautiful to look upon. The pair were still but lately married, and their misfortunes came upon them in the hey-day of their love. Her parents, indeed, would not permit her to sail away with Panteus immediately, although she wished to do so, but shut her up and kept her under constraint;