Love Stories (5)

Alcippus was a Lacedaemonian by birth; he married Damocrita and became the father of two daughters. Now since he was a most excellent counsellor to the state and conducted affairs to the satisfaction of the Lacedaemonians, he was envied by his political opponents, who misled the ephors by false statements to the effect that Alcippus wished to destroy the constitution, and they thereby brought about his exile. So he departed from Sparta, but wher his wife Damocrita, with their daughters,

wished to follow her husband, she was prevented from doing so, and moreover his property was confiscated, that the girls might not be provided with dowries. And when even so there were some suitors who wooed the girls on account of their father’s high character, his enemies got a bill passed, forbidding anyone to woo the girls, saying that their mother Damocrita had often prayed that her daughters might speedily bear sons who should grow up to be their father’s avengers. Damocrita, being harassed on all sides, waited for a general festival in which married women along with unmarried girls, slaves, and infant children took part, and the wives of those in authority passed the whole night in a great hall by themselves. Then she buckled a sword about her waist, took the girls, and went by night into the sacred place, waiting for the moment when all the women were performing the mysteries in the hall. Then, after the entrances had all been closed, she heaped a great quantity of wood against the doors (this had been prepared by the othei’s for the sacrifice belonging to the festival) and set it on fire. And when the men came running up to save their wives, Damocrita killed her daughters with the sword and then herself over their dead bodies. But the Lacedaemonians, not knowing how to vent their anger, threw the bodies of Damocrita and her daughters out beyond the boundaries; and they say that because the god was offended by this the great earthquake[*] came upon the Lacedaemonians.