Chapter 3

A certain poor man, Scedasus by name, lived at Leuctra, a small village in the territory of the Thespians, and had two daughters, Hippo and Miletia, or as others say, Theano and Euxippe. This Scedasus was a very good man, and, to the extent of his fortune, very hospitable to strangers. This was the reason that most readily and gladly he entertained two young gentlemen of Sparta, that came to lodge at his house; who, falling in love with the virgins, were yet so overawed by the kindness that Scedasus had showed them, that they durst not make any rude attempt for that time. The next morning therefore they went directly to the city of Delphi, whither they were journeying, where after they had consulted the oracle touching such questions as they had to put, they returned homeward, and travelling through Boeotia, stopped again at Scedasus’s house, who happened at that time not to be at Leuctra. However, his daughters, according to that education to which their father had accustomed them, gave the same entertainment to the strangers as if their father had been at home. But such was the perfidious ingratitude of these guests, that finding the virgins alone, they ravished and by force deflowered the damsels; and, which was worse, perceiving them lamenting to excess the undeserved injury they had received, the ravishers murdered them, and after they had thrown their bodies into a well, went their ways. Soon after Scedasus, returning home, missed both his daughters, but all things else he found safe and in order, as he left them; which put him into such a quandary, that he knew not what to say or do, till instructed by a little bitch, that several times in a day came whining and fawning upon him and then returned to the well, he began to suspect what he found to be true; and so he drew up the dead bodies of his daughters. Moreover, being then informed by his neighbors, that they had seen the two Lacedaemonian gentlemen which he had entertained some time before go into his house, he guessed them to be the persons who had committed the fact, for that they would be always praising the virgins when they lodged there before, and telling their father what happy men they would be that should have the good fortune to marry them. Thereupon away he went to Lacedaemon, with a resolution to make his complaint to the Ephori; but being benighted in the territory of Argos, he put into a public house, where he found another old man of the city of Oreus, in the province of Histiaea; whom when he heard sighing and cursing the Lacedaemonians, Scedasus asked him what injury the Lacedaemonians had done him. In answer to which, the old man gave him this account: I am, said he, a subject to the Lacedaemonians, by whom Aristodemus was sent to Oreus to be governor of that place, where he committed several outrages and savage enormities. Among the rest, being fallen in love with my son, when he could by no fair means procure his consent, he endeavored to carry him away by main force out of the wrestling-place. But the president of the exercises opposing him, with the assistance of several of the young men, Aristodemus was constrained to retire; but the next day, having provided a galley to be in readiness, he ravished away my son, and sailing from Oreus to the opposite continent, endeavored, when he had the boy there, to abuse his body; and because the lad refused to submit to his lust, cut the child’s throat. Upon his return he made a great feast at Oreus, to which he invited all his friends. In the mean while, I being soon informed of the sad accident, presently went and interred the body; and having so done, I made haste to Sparta, and preferred my complain to the Ephori, but they gave no answer, nor took any notice of the matter.

Scedasus, having heard this relation, remained very much dejected, believing he should have no better success. However, in his turn, he gave an account to the stranger of his own sad mischance; which when he had done, the stranger advised him not to complain to the Ephori, but to return to his own country, and erect a monument for his two daughters. But Scedasus, not liking this advice, went to Sparta, made his case known to the Ephori, and demanded justice; who taking no notice of his complaint, away he went to the Kings; but they as little regarding him, he applied himself to every particular citizen, and. recommended to them the sadness of his condition. At length, when he saw nothing would do, he ran through the city, stretching forth his hands to the sun and stamping on the ground with his feet, and called upon the Furies to revenge his cause; and when he had done all he could, in the last place slew himself. But afterwards the Lacedaemonians dearly paid for their injustice. For being at that time lords of all Greece, while all the chiefest cities of that spacious region were curbed by their garrisons, Epaminondas the Theban was the first that threw off their yoke, and cut the throats of the garrison that lay in Thebes. Upon which, the Lacedaemonians making war upon the revolters, the Thebans met them at Leuctra, confident of success from the name of the place; for that formerly they had been there delivered from slavery, at what time Amphictyon, being driven into exile by Sthenelus, came to the city of Thebes, and finding them tributaries to the Chalcidians, after he had slain Chalcodon king of the Euboeans, eased them altogether of that burthen. In like manner it happened that the Lacedaemonians were vanquished not far from the monument of Scedasus’s daughters. It is reported also, that before the fight, Pelopidas being then one of the Theban generals, and troubled by reason of some certain signs that seemed to portend some ill event in the battle, Scedasus appeared to him in a dream and bade him be of good courage, for that the Lacedaemonians were come to Leuctra, to receive the just vengeance which they deserved from him and his daughters; only the ghost advised him, the day before he encountered the Lacedaemonians, to sacrifice a white colt, which he should find ready for him close by his daughters’ sepulchre. Whereupon Pelopidas, while the Lacedaemonians yet lay encamped at Tegea, sent certain persons to examine the truth of the matter; and finding by the inhabitants thereabouts that every thing agreed with his dream, he advanced with his army boldly forward, and won the field.