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ἐς Ἐλευσῖνα: cf. v. 74.

τῶν θεῶν: the goddesses Demeter and Persephone.

For sacrilege at Eleusis and its consequences cf. ix. 65.

καταγινέων. Probably ‘bringing home’, as Cleomenes gave out that he would take a ransom (79. 1); Stein, however, prefers ‘bringing down’, as the grove of Argos lay on a hill. Macan follows Panofsky in holding that these variant accounts do not represent genuine local traditions, but are conjectures due to the historian. Clearly, however, there was a general belief that Cleomenes came to a bad end, while each people would naturally select the impiety which injured itself as the ground of heaven's vengeance. Again, H. distinguishes his own opinion (ch. 84) from these more widely accepted views. Some critics, quite needlessly, see in the story of Cleomenes' awful death a Spartan fiction devised to hide the fact that he was put out of the way as a danger to the state.

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