37 Facts About Cleomenes I

Cleomenes I was Agiad King of Sparta from c 524 to c 490 BC.

One of the most important Spartan kings, Cleomenes was instrumental in organising the Greek resistance against the Persian Empire of Darius, as well as shaping the geopolitical balance of Classical Greece.

Cleomenes I is one the most important characters of books 5 and 6, covering the decades before the Persian Wars.

Herodotus for instance states that Cleomenes I' reign was short; however he ruled for about 30 years.

Paul Cartledge writes that Cleomenes I suffered from a damnatio memoriae from the Spartans, notably for having corrupted the Oracle of Delphi in 491.

Cleomenes I was the son of Anaxandridas II, who belonged to the Agiad dynasty, one of the two royal families of Sparta.

In turn, when his father died, Cleomenes I' succession was contested by Dorieus, because of his superior "manly virtue".

Dorieus could have contested Cleomenes I' legitimacy on the ground that he was a son of the king's first wife, who was additionally of royal descent.

In 519, Herodotus states that Cleomenes I happened to be in the vicinity of Plataia, when the Plataians requested an alliance with Sparta, which he rejected.

Herodotus does not explain why Cleomenes I was near Plataia at that time.

However, with the support of the ephors, Cleomenes I refused and they expelled Maeandrius from the Peloponnese.

In 510, Sparta sent a bigger force commanded by Cleomenes I, who went to Attica by land.

Cleomenes I obtained the exile of Cleisthenes through diplomacy, but Isagoras still felt unsafe, and requested intervention by his Spartan friend.

Cleomenes I personally came to Athens with a small bodyguard, possibly thinking that his prestige would be enough to change the political course of the city.

Cleomenes I expelled 700 families linked to Cleisthenes, and wanted to establish a narrow oligarchy or a tyranny, by suppressing Athens' council and creating instead a new council of 300 men filled with Isagoras' supporters.

Cleomenes I likely wanted to show his strength by making a sacrifice in a forbidden place, which was a typical behaviour for conquerors and notably Spartan commanders.

Cleomenes I famously replied: "Woman, I am not Dorian but Achaean".

Demaratus, the Eurypontid king, similarly disagreed with Cleomenes I and took the rest of the allies with him back to the Peloponnese, thus effectively calling off the invasion.

Lawrence Tritle has suggested instead that after Cleomenes I retreated from the Acropolis, he captured Eleusis and left Isagoras in charge there until his return with the full army.

Aristagoras nearly persuaded Cleomenes I to help, promising an easy conquest of Persia and its riches, but Cleomenes I sent him away when he learned about the long distance to the heart of Persia.

Cleomenes I declined, so Aristagoras began offering him more and more.

Cleomenes I returned south to the Thyreatis, within Spartan territory, in order to board his troops into ships lent by Sikyon and Aegina, two members of the Peloponnesian League.

The survivors fled to a sacred ground nearby, but Cleomenes I put the grove on fire and killed the Argives.

Cleomenes I then dismissed most of his army but a thousand soldiers and moved to Mycenae, in the northeast of Argos.

In both cases, Cleomenes I had ordered his accompanying helots to commit the sacrileges, probably to shield the Spartiates from the religious consequences.

Cleomenes I remained in the vicinity of Argos in the aftermath of the battle in order to create two independent city-states out of Tiryns and Mycenae, thus cutting Argos' access to its best harbour at Nauplia.

On his return to Sparta, Cleomenes I was accused of bribery before the ephors for having spared Argos after the battle.

Cleomenes I overthrew Demaratus, after first bribing the oracle at Delphi to announce that this was the divine will, and replaced him with Leotychidas.

Around 490 Cleomenes I was forced to flee Sparta when his plot against his co-king Demaratus was discovered.

Sellasia was still too close to Sparta, and Cleomenes I moved to Arcadia.

Cleomenes I might have promised them that if they helped him to regain his place in Sparta, he would recognise Arcadia as a single political unit.

However, more recent studies have shown that this coinage was probably not political, but connected to the festival of Zeus Lykaios, and that Cleomenes I never completed his plans in Arcadia.

Cleomenes I could have promised the helots an improvement of their condition in exchange for help, as did his nephew the regent Pausanias a few years later.

However, according to Herodotus Cleomenes I was by this time considered to be insane.

Cleomenes I apparently convinced the helot guarding him into giving him a knife, with which he slashed his shins, thighs and belly in an especially brutal suicide.

Cleomenes I was succeeded by the elder of his surviving half-brothers Leonidas I, who then married Cleomenes' daughter Gorgo.

The suicide of Cleomenes I has appeared suspect to modern scholars, who instead consider the possibility that he was murdered by his half-brother Leonidas, who was next in line.