Cleomenes herodotus biography

Agiad King of Sparta from c.524 BC to c.490 BC

Cleomenes I (; Greek Κλεομένης; died c.

Cleomenes I - Encyclopedia.com

490 BC) was Agiad King of Sparta from c. 524 to c. 490 BC. One of the most important Spartan kings, Cleomenes was instrumental in organising the Greek resistance against the Persian Empire of Darius, as well as shaping the geopolitical balance of Classical Greece.

Herodotus' account

Most of the life of Cleomenes is known through the Histories of Herodotus, an Athenian historian of the second half of the 5th century.^[2] He is one the most important characters of books 5 and 6, covering the decades before the Persian Wars.^[3] Herodotus' account however contains many mistakes, especially on the chronology of several major events, and is also very biased against Cleomenes.^[4] It seems that Herodotus got his information on Cleomenes from his opponents: the descendants of his half-brothers Leonidas and Cleombrotus, as well as those of Demaratus, the A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology BIWYP