Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and RomansPlutarch
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Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch
Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
Dieuchidas says he was the sixth from Patrocles and the eleventh from
Hercules. Be this as it will, Sous certainly was the most renowned of
all his ancestors, under whose conduct the Spartans made slaves of the
Helots, and added to their dominions, by conquest, a good part of
Arcadia, There goes a story of this king Sous, that, being besieged by
the Clitorians in a dry and stony place so that he could come at no
water, he was at last constrained to agree with them upon these terms,
that he would restore to them all his conquests, provided that himself
and all his men should drink of the nearest spring. After the usual
oaths and ratifications, he called his soldiers together, and offered to
him that would forbear drinking, his kingdom for a reward; and when not
a man of them was able to forbear, in short, when they had all drunk
their fill, at last comes king Sous himself to the spring, and, having
sprinkled his face only, without swallowing one drop, marches off in the
face of his enemies, refusing to yield up his conquests, because himself
and all his men had not, according to the articles,
drunk of their water.
Although he was justly had in admiration on this account, yet his family
was not surnamed from him, but from his son Eurypon (of whom they were
called Eurypontids); the reason of which was that Eurypon relaxed the
rigor of the monarchy, seeking favor and popularity with the many.
They, after this first step, grew bolder; and the succeeding kings
partly incurred hatred with their people by trying to use force, or, for
popularity's sake and through weakness, gave way; and anarchy and
confusion long prevailed in Sparta, causing, moreover, the death of the
father of Lycurgus. For as he was endeavoring to quell a riot, he was
stabbed with a butcher's knife, and left the title of king
to his eldest son Polydectes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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