herodotus

not so much because he cared for the Eginetans as because he felt envyand jealousy of him. Then Cleomenes, after he returned from Egina,planned to depose Demaratos from being king, making an attempt uponhim on account of this matter which follows:--Ariston being king inSparta and having married two wives, yet had no children born to him;and since he did not acknowledge that he himself was the cause ofthis, he married a third wife; and he married her thus:--he had afriend, a man of the Spartans, to whom of all the citizens Ariston wasmost inclined; and it chanced that this man had a wife who was of allthe women in Sparta the fairest by far, and one too who had become thefairest from having been the foulest. For as she was mean in heraspect, her nurse, considering that she was the daughter of wealthypersons and was of uncomely aspect, and seeing moreover that herparents were troubled by it,--perceiving I say these things, her nursedevised as follows:--every day she bore her to the temple of Helen,which is in the place called Therapne, lying above the temple ofPhoebus; and whenever the nurse bore her thither, she placed herbefore the image and prayed the goddess to deliver the child from herunshapeliness. And once as the nurse was going away out of the temple,it is said that a woman appeared to her, and having appeared asked herwhat she was bearing in her arms; and she told her that she wasbearing a child; upon which the other bade her show the child to her,but she refused, for it had been forbidden to her by the parents toshow it to any one: but the woman continued to urge her by all meansto show it to her. So then perceiving that the woman earnestly desiredto see it, the nurse showed her the child. Then the woman stroking thehead of the child said that she should be the fairest of all the womenin Sparta; and from that day her aspect was changed. Afterwards whenshe came to the age for marriage, she was married to Agetos the son ofAlkeides, this friend of Ariston of whom we spoke. 62. Now Ariston itseems was ever stung by the desire of this woman, and accordingly hecontrived as follows:--he made an engagement himself with his comrade,whose wife this woman was, that he would give him as a gift one thingof his own possessions, whatsoever he should choose, and he bade hiscomrade make return to him in similar fashion. He therefore, fearingnothing for his wife, because he saw that Ariston also had a wife,agreed to this; and on these terms they imposed oaths on one another.After this Ariston on his part gave that which Agetos had chosen fromthe treasures of Ariston, whatever the thing was; and he himself,seeking to obtain from him the like return, endeavoured then to takeaway the wife of his comrade from him: and he said that he consentedto give anything else except this one thing only, but at length beingcompelled by the oath and by the treacherous deception,[46] he allowedher to be taken away from him. 63. Thus had Ariston brought into hishouse the third wife, having dismissed the second: and this wife, nothaving fulfilled the ten months[47] but in a shorter period of time,