describes the conduct of the Spartan women who fled with Cleomenes (the quasi-Socialist king) to Egypt, and who were murdered by their cruel hosts. He first wins our sympathies for the wife of Panteus, “most noble and beautiful to look upon,” and tells us how she was but lately married to Panteus, so that “their misfortunes came to them in the heyday of their love.” He then describes how this great lady behaved when she was overtaken by death in company with the mother and children of the king: She it was who now took the hand of Cratesicleia as she was led forth by the soldiers, held up her robe for her, and bade her be of good courage. And Cratesicleia herself was not one whit dismayed at death, but asked one favour only, that she might die before the children died. However, when they were come to the place of execution, first the children were slain before her eyes, and then Cratesicleia herself was slain, making but one cry at sorrows so great: “O children, whither are ye gone?” Then the wife of Panteus, girding up her robe, vigorous and stately woman that she was, ministered to each of the dying women calmly and without a word, and laid them out for burial as well as she could. And, finally, after all were cared for, she arrayed herself, let down her robe from about her neck, and suffering no one besides the executioner to come near or look on her, bravely met her end, and had no need of any one to array or cover up her body after death. Thus her decorum of spirit attended her in death, and she maintained to the end that watchful care of her body which she had set over it in life. That “decorum of spirit” is, for Plutarch, the finishing grace of the noble life. And he summarises his creed in the triumphant comment on the Spartan women: “So then, Sparta, bringing her women’s tragedy into emulous competition with that of her men, showed the world that in the last extremity Virtue cannot be outraged by Fortune.”