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61.
While Cleomenes was in Aegina working for the common good of Hellas, Demaratus slandered him, not out of care for the Aeginetans, but out of jealousy and envy. Once Cleomenes returned home from Aegina, he planned to remove Demaratus from his kingship, using the following affair as a pretext against him: Ariston, king of Sparta, had married twice but had no children.
[2]
He did not admit that he himself was responsible, so he married a third time. This is how it came about: he had among the Spartans a friend to whom he was especially attached. This man's wife was by far the most beautiful woman in Sparta, but she who was now most beautiful had once been the ugliest.
[3]
Her nurse considered her inferior looks and how she was of wealthy people yet unattractive, and, seeing how the parents felt her appearance to be a great misfortune, she contrived to carry the child every day to the sacred precinct of Helen, which is in the place called Therapne,1 beyond the sacred precinct of Phoebus. Every time the nurse carried the child there, she set her beside the image and beseeched the goddess to release the child from her ugliness.
[4]
Once as she was leaving the sacred precinct, it is said that a woman appeared to her and asked her what she was carrying in her arms. The nurse said she was carrying a child and the woman bade her show it to her, but she refused, saying that the parents had forbidden her to show it to anyone. But the woman strongly bade her show it to her,
[5]
and when the nurse saw how important it was to her, she showed her the child. The woman stroked the child's head and said that she would be the most beautiful woman in all Sparta. From that day her looks changed, and when she reached the time for marriage, Agetus son of Alcidas married her. This man was Ariston's friend.
1 S.E. of Sparta; the legendary burial-place of Menelaus and Helen. The foundations of a temple are still visible.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (33 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Ajax, 68
- Cross-references to this page
(10):
- The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, THERAPNAI or Therapne Greece.
- Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors, Their Careers and Extant Works, The Hellenistic Period
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.2.4
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), DIVO´RTIUM
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), MATRIMO´NIUM
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), MENELAEIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), SPARTA
- Basil L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek, The Article
- Smith's Bio, Ariston
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(22):
- LSJ, ἄγη
- LSJ, ἀγκάλη
- LSJ, ἀπαλλάσσω
- LSJ, ἀπεῖπον
- LSJ, δυσ-ειδής
- LSJ, δυσ-μορφία
- LSJ, ἐπί-βα^σις
- LSJ, ἐπιδείκ-νυ_μι ῾-νύω
- LSJ, ἐπιφράζω
- LSJ, φλαῦρος
- LSJ, φοίβ-ειος
- LSJ, κα^λέω
- LSJ, καλλιστ-εύω
- LSJ, καταψάω
- LSJ, μεταπίπτω
- LSJ, ὁ
- LSJ, ποιέω
- LSJ, πρόσκειμαι
- LSJ, προσεργάζομαι
- LSJ, θερα?́π-νη
- LSJ, τροφός
- LSJ, ὥρα
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