Chapter 2

Gorgo, daughter of king Cleomenes, when Aristagoras of Miletus was urging her father to enter upon the war against the Persian king in behalf of the Ionians, promising a vast sum of money, and, in answer to Cleomenes’ objections, making the amount larger and larger, said, Father, the miserable foreigner will be your ruin if you don’t get him out of the house pretty soon!

Once when her father told her to give some grain to a man by way of remuneration, and added, It is because he showed me how to make the wine taste good, she said, Then, father, there will be more wine drunk, and the drinkers will become more intemperate and depraved.

When she had watched Aristagoras having his shoes put on and laced by one of the servants, she said, Father, the foreigner hasn’t any hands!

When a foreigner made advances in a mild and leisurely way, she pushed him aside, saying, Get away from here, you who cannot play a woman’s part either!

Being asked by a woman from Attica, Why is it that you Spartan women are the only women that lord it over your men, she said, Because we are the only women that are mothers of men.

As she was encouraging her husband Leonidas, when he was about to set out for Thermopylae, to show himself worthy of Sparta, she asked what she should do; and he said, Marry a good man, and bear good children.