3.3.5
The incidents of the war which the Messenians waged after the revolt from the Lacedaemonians it is not pertinent that I should set forth in the present part of my narrative. Anaxander had a son Eurycrates, and this second Eurycrates a son Leon. While these two kings were on the throne the Lacedaemonians were generally unsuccessful in the war with Tegea. But in the reign of Anaxandrides, son of Leon, the Lacedaemonians won the war with Tegea in the following manner. A Lacedaemonian, by name Lichas, came to Tegea when there chanced to be a truce between the cities. note
3.3.6
When Lichas arrived the Spartans were seeking the bones of Orestes in accordance with an oracle. Now Lichas inferred that they were buried in a smithy, the reason for this inference being this. Everything that he saw in the smithy he compared with the oracle from Delphi, likening to the winds the bellows, for that they too sent forth a violent blast, the hammer to the “stroke,” the anvil to the “counterstroke” to it, while the iron is naturally a “woe to man,” because already men were using iron in warfare. In the time of those called heroes the god would have called bronze a woe to man.
3.3.7
Similar to the oracle about the bones of Orestes was the one afterwards given to the Athenians, that they were to bring back Theseus from Scyros to Athens otherwise they could not take Scyros. Now the bones of Theseus were discovered by Cimon the son of Miltiades, who displayed similar sharpness of wit, and shortly afterwards took Scyros.
3.3.8
I have evidence that in the heroic age weapons were universally of bronze in the verses of Homer note about the axe of Peisander and the arrow of Meriones. My statement is likewise confirmed by the spear of Achilles dedicated in the sanctuary of Athena at Phaselis, and by the sword of Memnon in the Nicomedian temple of Asclepius. The point and butt-spike of the spear and the whole of the sword are made of bronze. The truth of these statements I can vouch for.
3.3.9
Anaxandrides the son of Leon was the only Lacedaemonian to possess at one and the same time two wives and two households. For his first consort, though an excellent wife, had the misfortune to he barren. When the ephors bade him pot her away he firmly refused to do so, but made this concession to them, that he would take another wife in addition to her. The fruit of this union was a son, Cleomenes; and the former wife, who up to this time had not conceived, after the birth of Cieomenes bore Dorieus, then Leonidas, and finally Cleombrotus.
3.3.10
And when Anaxandrides died, the Lacedaemonians, believing Dorieus to be both of a sounder judgment than Cleomenes and a better soldier, much against their will rejected him as their king, and obeyed the laws by giving the throne to the elder claimant Cleomenes.
ch. 4
3.4.1
Now Dorieus could not bear to stay at Lacedaemon and be subject to his brother, and so he went on a colonizing expedition. As soon as he became king, Cleomenes gathered together an army, both of the Lacedaemonians themselves and of their allies, and invaded Argolis. The Argives came out under arms to meet them, but Cleomenes won the day. Near the battlefield was a grove sacred to Argus, son of Niobe, and on being routed some five thousand of the Argives took refuge therein. Cleomenes was subject to fits of mad excitement, and on this occasion he ordered the Helots to set the grove on fire, and the flames spread all over the grove, which, as it burned, burned up the suppliants with it.
3.4.2
He also conducted campaigns against Athens, by the first of which he delivered the Athenians from the sons of Peisistratus and won a good report among the Greeks both for himself personally and for the Lacedaemonians; note while the second campaign was to please an Athenian, Isagoras, by helping him to establish a tyranny over Athens. note When he was disappointed, and the Athenians fought strenuously for their freedom, Cleomenes devastated the country, including, they say, the district called Orgas, which was sacred to the deities in Eleusis. He advanced as far as Aegina, and proceeded to arrest such influential Aeginetans as had shown Persian sympathies, and had persuaded the citizens to give earth and water to king Dareius, son of Hystaspes.
3.4.3
While Cleomenes was occupied in Aegina, Demaratus, the king of the other house, was slandering him to the Lacedaemonian populace. On his return from Aegina, Cleomenes began to intrigue for the deposition of king Demaratus. He bribed the Pythian prophetess to frame responses about Demaratus according to his instructions, and instigated Leotychides, a man of royal birth and of the same family as Demaratus, to put in a claim to the throne.
