Greek Texts & Translations

Cleomenes had two sons, the elder being Acrotatus and the younger Cleonymus. Now Acrotatus died first; and when afterwards Cleomenes died, a claim to the throne was put forward by Areus son of Acrotatus, and Cleonymus took steps to induce Pyrrhus to enter the country. Before the battle of Leuctra ^note the Lacedaemonians had suffered no disaster, so that they even refused to admit that they had yet been worsted in a land battle. For Leonidas, they said, had won the victory ^note, but his followers were insufficient for the entire destruction of the Persians; the achievement of Demosthenes and the Athenians on the island of Sphacteria ^note was no victory, but only a trick in war.

Their first reverse took place in Boeotia, and they afterwards suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Antipater and the Macedonians ^note. Thirdly the war with Demetrius ^note came as an unexpected misfortune to their land. Invaded by Pyrrhus and seeing a hostile army for the fourth time, they arrayed themselves to meet it along with the Argives and Messenians who had come as their allies. Pyrrhus won the day, and came near to capturing Sparta without further fighting, but desisted for a while after ravaging the land and carrying off plunder. ^note The citizens prepared for a siege, and Sparta even before this in the war with Demetrius had been fortified with deep trenches and strong stakes, and at the most vulnerable points with buildings as well.

Just about this time, while the Laconian war was dragging on, Antigonus, having recovered the Macedonian cities, hastened to the Peloponnesus being well aware that if Pyrrhus were to reduce Lacedaemon and the greater part of the Peloponnesus, he would not return to Epeirus but to Macedonia to make war there again. When Antigonus was about to lead his army from Argos into Laconia, Pyrrhus himself reached Argos. Victorious once more he dashed into the city along with the fugitives, and his formation not unnaturally was broken up.

When the fighting was now taking place by sanctuaries and houses, and in the narrow lanes, between detached bodies in different parts of the town, Pyrrhus left by himself was wounded in the head. It is said that his death ^note was caused by a blow from a tile thrown by a woman. The Argives however declare that it was not a woman who killed him but Demeter in the likeness of a woman. This is what the Argives themselves relate about his end, and Lyceas, the guide for the neighborhood, has written a poem which confirms the story. They have a sanctuary of Demeter, built at the command of the oracle, on the spot where Pyrrhus died, and in it Pyrrhus is buried.

I consider it remarkable that of those styled Aeacidae three met their end by similar heaven-sent means; if, as Homer says, Achilles was killed by Alexander, son of Priam, and by Apollo, if the Delphians were bidden by the Pythia to slay Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, and if the end of the son of Aeacides was such as the Argives say and Lyceas has described in his poem. The account, how ever, given by Hieronymus the Cardian is different, for a man who associates with royalty cannot help being a partial historian. If Philistus was justified in suppressing the most wicked deeds of Dionysius, because he expected his return to Syracuse, surely Hieronymus may be fully forgiven for writing to please Antigonus.

The Greeks who dispute most the Athenian claim to antiquity and the gifts they say they have received from the gods are the Argives, just as among those who are not Greeks the Egyptians compete with the Phrygians. It is said, then, that when Demeter came to Argos she was received by Pelasgus into his home, and that Chrysanthis, knowing about the rape of the Maid, related the story to her. Afterwards Trochilus, the priest of the mysteries, fled, they say, from Argos because of the enmity of Agenor, came to Attica and married a woman of Eleusis, by whom he had two children, Eubuleus and Triptolemus. That is the account given by the Argives. But the Athenians and those who with them. . . know that Triptolemus, son of Celeus, was the first to sow seed for cultivation.