ἱστορίαι Historiai
Hdt. 5.41 The Histories, Herodotus; served verbatim
After no long time the second wife gave birth to Cleomenes. She, then, gave the Spartans an heir to the royal power, and as luck would have it, the first wife, who had been barren before, conceived at that very time. When the friends of the new wife learned that the other woman was pregnant, they began to make trouble for her. They said that she was making an empty boast, so that she might substitute a child. The Ephors were angry, and when her time drew near, they sat around to watch her in childbirth because of their skepticism. She gave birth first to Dorieus, then straightway to Leonidas, and right after him to Cleombrotus. Some, however, say that Cleombrotus and Leonidas were twins. As for the later wife, the mother of Cleomenes and the daughter of Prinetadas son of Demarmenus, she bore no more children.

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

← Hdt. 5.40 contents Hdt. 5.42 →

Filed here — the addresses this episode attests; counted by the house’s first pass
Cleombrotus — a candidate entry Cleomenes — a candidate entry Cleomenes I — a life Dorieus — a life Leonidas — a candidate entry Leonidas I — a life

The Histories, Herodotus — translated by A. D. Godley, 1920–25
Perseus Digital Library — Herodotus, The Histories (Godley translation) · A. D. Godley, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press / William Heinemann, 1920–25
license: public-domain (US: pre-1930 publication); Perseus digital edition CC BY-SA 4.0, attribution recorded in ops/corpus-staging/SOURCES.md