Chelidonis was a Sparta

Sparta

Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

n princess who, according to fantasy novelist Jessica Salmonson acted as a captain of a group of female warriors during a 280 BC

280 BC

Year 280 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Laevinus and Coruncanius...

 siege of Sparta. Solmonson believes she fought with a rope tied around her neck so that she wouldn't be taken alive.

She was the wife of Cleonymus

Cleonymus

Cleonymus was a political ally of Cleon and an Athenian general. In 424 BC, Cleonymus had dropped his shield in battle and fled and was branded a coward. This act is often used to comic effect by Aristophanes.-References:...

, but was unfaithful to him with Acrotatus

Acrotatus

Acrotatus was an Agiad King of Sparta from 265 to 262 BC. He was the son of Areus I, and grandson of Acrotatus I.He had unlawful intercourse with Chilonis, the young wife of Cleonymus, uncle of his father Areus. It was this, together with the disappointment of not obtaining the throne, which led...

.

According to the text of The Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives

Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, commonly called Parallel Lives or Plutarch's Lives, is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, written in the late 1st century...

/The Life of Pyrrhus
by Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

, Cleonymus’ wife Chelidonis (Chilonis) was neither a captain nor a warrior during the siege of Sparta. In the battle she withdrew from the rest, and kept a halter about her neck, that she might not come into the power of Cleonymus if the city were taken.