Chapter 5

Alcippus was a Lacedaemonian by birth, who marrying Damocrita became the father of two daughters. This Alcippus, being a person that always advised the city for the best, and one that was always ready to serve his countrymen upon all occasions, was envied by a contrary faction, that continually accused him to the Ephori as one that endeavored to subvert the ancient laws and constitutions of the city. At length the Ephori banished the husband, who being condemned forsook the city; but when Damocrita and his daughters would fain have followed him, they would not permit them to stir. Moreover, they confiscated his estate, to deprive his daughters of their portions. Nay, more than this, when there were some that courted the daughters for the sake of their father’s virtue, his enemies obtained a decree whereby it was forbid that any man should make love to the young ladies, cunningly alleging that the mother had often prayed to the Gods to favor her daughters with speedy wedlock, to the end they might the sooner bring forth children to be revenged of the injury done their father. Damocrita thus beset, and in a strait on every side, stayed till the general festival, when the women, together with their daughters, servants, and little children, feast in public together; on which day, the wives of the magistrates and persons in dignity feast all night in a spacious hall by themselves. But then it was that Damocrita, with a sword girt about her, and taking her daughters with her, went in the night-time to the temple; and watching her opportunity, when the women were all busy in the great hall performing the mysteries of the solemnity, after all the ways and passages were stopped up, she fetched the wood that was ready prepared for the sacrifices appertaining to the festival, and piled it against the doors of the room, and so set fire to it. All was then in a hurry, and the men came crowding in vain to help their wives; but then it was that Damocrita slew her daughters, and upon their dead bodies herself. Thus the Lacedaemonians, not knowing upon whom to wreak their anger, were forced to be contented with only throwing the dead bodies of the mother and the daughters without the confines of their territories. For which barbarous act of theirs, the Deity being highly offended plagued the Lacedaemonians, as their histories record, with that most dreadful earthquake so remarkable to posterity.