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Herodotos’ narrative (5.49–51)

Branscome, D. (2010) “Herodotus and the Map of Aristagoras”, Classical Antiquity 29: 1–44.

"Moreover, while still in Susa he allegedly warned the Spartans of Xerxes’ imminent expedition by a stratagem which only Kleomenes’ daughter, Gorgo, was able to understand (Hdt. 7.239)." p. 275

"Finally, shortly after his return to Sparta, Kleomenes died in circumstances reminiscent of a Victorian novel: he became insane and his relatives put him under guard, until one day he managed to procure a dagger from the servant who guarded him and lacerated himself to death (Hdt. 6.74–5). This rather dramatic tale probably masks the active role Kleomenes’ relatives played in his demise: since the only relatives we can identify are his half‐brother Leonidas, who succeeded him on the Agiad throne, and his daughter Gorgo, who married Leonidas, a regicide has been suspected (Harvey (1979)). If so, Kleomenes’ mysterious death puts Leonidas and Gorgo, respectively the hero of Thermopylai and the queen portrayed in Spartan tradition as the perfect personification of female Spartan values (Paradiso 2003), into a darker perspective."

"By marrying Gorgo, Leonidas strengthened his claim to the throne. A secondary tradition reported by Herodotos (5.41.3), recounted that the last two children of Anaxandridas, Leonidas and Kleombrotos, were twins. By stressing that Leonidas succeeded Kleomenes not only because he was born before Kleombrotos, but because he had married Kleomenes’ daughter (7.205.1), the historian implicitly admits that being the son‐in‐law of the king proved decisive, and this, in turn, makes it likely that Leonidas and Kleombrotos were actually twins."

All above p 275 Lupi Companion

Harvey, D. (1979) “Leonidas the Regicide? Speculations on the Death of Kleomenes I”, in Bowersock, G.W., W. Burkert and M.C.J. Putnam, eds, Arktouros: Hellenic Studies Presented to Bernard M.W. Knox on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, 253–60. Berlin.

Paradiso, A. (1993) “Gorgo, la Spartana”, in N. Loraux, ed., La Grecia al femminile, 107–22. Rome and Bari.

Richer, p. 539: "Girls, then, probably had also to prepare themselves daily at home for their future role as “wives and mothers of Spartan soldiers”, in the words attributed to Gorgo, the daughter of Kleomenes and wife of Leonidas (Plutarch, Lykourgos, 14. 8; Moralia, 227E and 240E)."

Millender, p. 503: "Herodotos recounts that Gorgo, the daughter of Kleomenes I and later the wife of Leonidas I (c.490–480), was responsible for decoding the secret message that the exiled Eurypontid king Damaratos (c.515–c.491) sent to the Lakedaimonians concerning Xerxes’ plan to attack Hellas (7.239.4). While this account suggests that Gorgo was familiar with wooden writing tablets, it reveals nothing more about her literacy. Gorgo’s educational experience as an Agiad princess also does not necessarily reflect that of the average Spartan girl."

Millender p. 514: "While a number of factors helped to shift the balance of power in Spartan gender relations in individual oikoi and the polis as a whole, Sparta’s unique hereditary dyarchy played a particularly significant role in the creation of Lakedaimon’s politically influential women (cf. Millender 2009; forthcoming c). Evidence concerning the hereditary Agiad and Eurypontid dynasties suggests that they attempted to maintain and increase their political and economic power at the expense of one another as well as of other elite Spartiate families by means of marriage, inheritance, and intra‐familial political patronage. These dynastic politics enabled female members of the royal families, by virtue of their wealth and birth, to acquire political and economic influence. This influence was essentially passive in nature but certain Spartan princesses and queens were able to translate it into active interference in the political realm. According to Herodotos, the Agiad Gorgo was just such a politically active figure (Millender 2009, 15–18; cf. Paradiso 1993). We should, of course, approach Herodotos’ treatment of Spartan royal women with caution, given his conceptual association of the Spartan dyarchy with autocracy throughout the Histories (Millender 2002; 2009, 3–5, 7–8). Indeed, Herodotos’ construction of Spartan ‘despotism’ shapes his depictions of the female members of the Spartan royal houses, which parallel his representations of the powerful female members of dynastic courts (Millender 1999, 357; 2002, 13–14; 2009, 7–8). For example, his account of the young Gorgo’s role as wise advisor to her father (5.51.2–3) links Gorgo with a number of females in the Histories who perform a similar function in the courts of Greek and non‐Greek dynasts, such as the daughter of the Greek tyrant Polykrates (3.124; cf. Millender 1999, 357; 2009, 7–8). While it is also doubtful that Gorgo gave her father advice on political matters at the age of eight (Hdt. 5.51.2–3), her privileged status as the daughter and wife of Spartan kings may have allowed her to wield an informal kind of political influence. More importantly, her position as the only child and heir of her powerful father, Kleomenes I (cf. Hdt. 5.48, 51.1), may have provided her with extra leverage in the ‘court’ of her husband, Leonidas I, and may account for her involvement in decoding Damaratos’ message (Hdt. 7.239.4). Herodotos points to the economic and dynastic roots of Gorgo’s influence when he mentions Leonidas I’s marriage to Gorgo as one of the factors behind his succession to the throne in 490 instead of his brother Kleombrotos (7.205.1; cf. Paradiso 1993, 114). Gorgo’s inheritance of the land and other wealth possessed by her mother and affluent father would have made her a valuable commodity on the royal marriage exchange, in which the Agiads and Eurypontids pursued close‐kin unions to concentrate royal property and thus improve both their land‐holdings and status, as we have seen above (cf. Hodkinson 1986, 394; 2000, 95, 410–11). Gorgo’s union with her half‐uncle, Leonidas, may also have aided his accession to the Agiad throne by helping to legitimize (515) his connection to the previous king, his half‐brother Kleomenes I, and by strengthening his blood bond to their father, Anaxandridas II (Millender 2009, 17)."