Gorgo, Queen of Sparta
Encyclopedia
Gorgo (fl. 480 BC
) was the daughter and the only child of Cleomenes I
, King of Sparta
(r. 520-490 BC) during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. She was the wife of King Leonidas I
, Cleomenes' half-brother, who fought and died in the Battle of Thermopylae
. Gorgo is noted as one of the few female historical figures actually named by Herodotus
, and for her political acumen and wisdom. She is unique for being the daughter of a King of Sparta, the wife of another king of Sparta, and the mother of a third king of Sparta. Her birth date is uncertain, but is almost certain to have been between 510 and 506 BC, based on Herodotus dating (Histories, 5:51).
, and succeeded his father at his death; however, he had three paternal half-brothers, of whom the second, Dorieus, would cause him some trouble. The other two half-brothers were Leonidas I and Cleombrotus. All four were sons of Anaxandridas II, one of the dual kings of Sparta of the Agiad house.
According to one version (Herodotus's Histories, 5.4), Gorgo's grandfather Anaxandridas II was long married without children, and was advised to remarry (i.e. take a second wife) which he did. His second wife gave birth to the future Cleomenes I who was thus his eldest son; however, his first wife subsequently became pregnant, and eventually gave birth to three sons, including Leonidas I. This version is however not supported by other sources, which imply that Cleomenes was either born by the king's first marriage or by a non-marital alliance. In either case, there appears to have been some tension between the eldest son and his half-brothers, resolved only by the former's death (or murder) and the accession of Leonidas I (at once his half-brother and his son-in-law).
Gorgo's mother is unknown, but she was probably Spartan by birth. Both Xenophon
and Plutarch
(in his Life of Lycurgus, the law-giver for Sparta) mention that Spartan society was concerned with blood purity, with avoidance of intermarriage with the rest of the population (the helots
and others, possibly of Achaean
stock), and with marriages of heiresses.
Little about Gorgo's childhood is known, although she was probably raised like other Spartan girls of noble family, encouraged in daily physical exercise to strengthen her body, and reared to be married off to an older Spartan husband who would see little of her. According to Herodotus's Histories, at about the age of eight to nine years old, she advised her father Cleomenes not to trust Aristagoras
of Miletus
, a foreign diplomat trying to induce Cleomenes to support an Ionian revolt against Persians. "Father, you had better have this man go away, or the stranger will corrupt you." Cleomenes followed her advice.
Cleomenes was, however, slowly going mad. His foreign policy, which had always been aggressive, became increasingly erratic. Consistent with a long tradition of deposing tyrants throughout the 6th Century BC, Sparta in the reign of Cleomenes had driven the Athenian tyrant Hippias out of Attica, paving the way for radical democratic reforms. Two years later, however, Cleomenes abruptly changed sides and sided with the Athenian aristocrat Isagoras to drive the leader of the democratic faction, Kleisthenes, out of Athens. When Cleomenes then tried to impose a less democratic constitution on the Athenians, however, they revolted and forced Cleomenes to withdraw. Cleomenes then tried to lead a new attack on Athens with the aid of Sparta's allies in the Peloponnese. On learning Cleomenes' intentions, however, the allies refused to continue with the campaign and Cleomenes' co-monarch, the Eurypontid King Demaratus, threw his authority behind the allies, also refusing to advance on Athens. The campaign had to be called off. This fiasco resulted in a restructuring of Sparta's relations with her allies in the Peloponnese. Henceforth, every city state had an equal vote and no aggressive action could be undertaken by the Peloponnesian League unless a majority of its members voted in favour - a serious blow to Sparta's prestige, if not her power.
Cleomenes next outraged the ancient world and humiliated Sparta by bribing the Oracle at Delphi to declare his co-monarch King Demaratus illegitimate. Before the bribery was discovered, Demaratus was deposed and defected to the Persian camp, yet another serious setback for Sparta.
Cleomenes then started a war with Sparta's arch-rival Argos. Although he won a stunning victory in which the bulk of the Argive army was destroyed, he failed to follow up on this victory by taking the city itself. Instead, he burned a sacred woods and personally slaughtered those Argives who surrendered to him in good faith. On his return to Sparta he was tried for treason by the ephors, but talked his way out of the charges by saying he had received bad "signs" from the Gods.
Cleomenes erratic behaviour became even more acute in the years following. He attacked citizens on the streets and fled the city when he feared sanctions from the Assembly. Abroad he tried to stir up rebellion against Sparta and this frightened the Spartans into begging him to return. Still his irrational behaviour continued until the Spartans were provoked into confining him in the stocks. Here he came to a gruesome end. According to Herodotus
, he talked a helot into giving him a knife and then "Cleomenes began to mutilate himself, beginning on his shins. He sliced his flesh into strips, working upwards to his thighs, and from them to his hips and sides, until he reached his belly, and while he was cutting that into strips he died."
According to Herodotus
"Most people in Greece say that [Cleomenes' madness] was punishment for having corrupted the Priestess at Delphi...The Athenians, however, put it down to his devastating the sacred land of Demeter and Persephone, when he marched to Eleusis; while the Argives maintain that was a punishment for his sacrilege when, after a battle, he fetched the Argive fugitives from the holy ground of Argos and cut them to pieces...." The Spartans themselves, on the other hand, blamed Cleomenes' madness on the fact that he drank his wine "neat," i.e. undiluted.
Some modern historians are not satisfied with these explanations for Cleomenes' death and prefer to see a sinister plot to murder Cleomenes instigated by none other than the hero of Thermoplylae, Cleomenes' half-brother, son-in-law and successor, Leonidas I. However, as W.G. Forrest points out, modern psychiatry shows that "the details of [Cleomenes] final self-mutilation are in fact consistent with a paranoid schizophrenic suicide; moreover... [schizophrenia] can for long be combined with an apparent near-normalcy, even cleverness, revealing itself only in a degree of violence, ruthlessness and an inability to get along with people (Kleomenes provides illustrations of all three in plenty)."
, co-King of Sparta from 480 BC
to his death in 459 BC
/458 BC
.
Gorgo's most significant role came during the aftermath of the Battle of Thermopylae
(480 BC), when her husband Leonidas I was killed in battle along with 299 Spartans and many other Greeks. According to Herodotus's Histories, a message from Demaratus
arrived at Sparta after the Battle of Thermopylae; it was a warning that Greece was going to be invaded by Xerxes
. In order to pass enemy lines without suspicion, the message was written on a wooden tablet and then covered with wax. The Spartan generals did not know what to do with the seemingly blank, wax-covered wooden writing tablet. It was Queen Gorgo who advised them to clear the wax off the tablet; she is described by David Kahn in his book The Codebreakers
as one of the first female cryptanalysts whose name has been recorded.
According to Plutarch
, before the Battle of Thermopylae, knowing that her husband's death in battle was inevitable, she asked him what to do. Leonidas replied "marry a good man who will treat you well, bear him children, and live a good life."
, co-King of Sparta from 480 BC
to his death in 458 BC
.
Her son was a minor at his father's death, so his uncle Cleombrotus (d 480 BC) and then his first cousin and heir Pausanias
(r. 480-479 BC) acted as his regent. It was Pausanias who was the architect of the narrow Greek victory at the Battle of Plataea
(479 BC) . When Pausanias fell into disfavor and was accused of plotting treason, Leonidas's son Pleistarchus ruled alone from 478 BC to his death 459/458 BC.
Plutarch quotes Queen Gorgo as follows:
"When asked by a woman from Attica, 'Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?', she said: 'Because we are also the only ones who give birth to men.'" Another version has this as, "...some foreign lady, as it would seem, told her that the women of Lacedaemon were the only women in the world who could rule men; 'With good reason,' she said, 'for we are the only women who bring forth men.'" (Plutarch's Lives: Lycurgus)
, who later became a politician in her home country, in the 1962 film The 300 Spartans
.
In the 2007 motion picture 300
, based on Frank Miller
's graphic novel of the same name, English actress Lena Headey
plays Gorgo. Unlike the graphic novel, this adaptation gives her a more important role in the events surrounding the war with Persia; she is the one killing the traitor in the Spartans' midst.
Helena P. Schrader has published the first book in a three-part biographical novel on Leonidas and Gorgo. The first book, Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge, focuses on Leonidas boyhood in the infamous Spartan agoge
, but books two and three will give prominence to Gorgo too.
480 BC
Year 480 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vibulanus and Cincinnatus...
) was the daughter and the only child of Cleomenes I
Cleomenes I
Cleomenes or Kleomenes was an Agiad King of Sparta in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. During his reign, which started around 520 BC, he pursued an adventurous and at times unscrupulous foreign policy aimed at crushing Argos and extending Sparta's influence both inside and outside the...
, King of 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...
(r. 520-490 BC) during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. She was the wife of King Leonidas I
Leonidas I
Leonidas I was a hero-king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles, possessing much of the latter's strength and bravery...
, Cleomenes' half-brother, who fought and died in the Battle of Thermopylae
Battle of Thermopylae
The Battle of Thermopylae was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I over the course of three days, during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August...
. Gorgo is noted as one of the few female historical figures actually named by Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, and for her political acumen and wisdom. She is unique for being the daughter of a King of Sparta, the wife of another king of Sparta, and the mother of a third king of Sparta. Her birth date is uncertain, but is almost certain to have been between 510 and 506 BC, based on Herodotus dating (Histories, 5:51).
Family background
Her father Cleomenes was the eldest-born son of the previous Agiad king, Anaxandridas IIAnaxandridas II
Anaxandridas II was a king of Sparta, son of Leon, between 560 to 525 BC. At the time when Croesus sent his embassy to form alliance with " the mightiest of the Greeks," i. e. about 554, the war with Tegea, which in the late reigns went against them, had now been decided in the Spartans' favour,...
, and succeeded his father at his death; however, he had three paternal half-brothers, of whom the second, Dorieus, would cause him some trouble. The other two half-brothers were Leonidas I and Cleombrotus. All four were sons of Anaxandridas II, one of the dual kings of Sparta of the Agiad house.
According to one version (Herodotus's Histories, 5.4), Gorgo's grandfather Anaxandridas II was long married without children, and was advised to remarry (i.e. take a second wife) which he did. His second wife gave birth to the future Cleomenes I who was thus his eldest son; however, his first wife subsequently became pregnant, and eventually gave birth to three sons, including Leonidas I. This version is however not supported by other sources, which imply that Cleomenes was either born by the king's first marriage or by a non-marital alliance. In either case, there appears to have been some tension between the eldest son and his half-brothers, resolved only by the former's death (or murder) and the accession of Leonidas I (at once his half-brother and his son-in-law).
Gorgo's mother is unknown, but she was probably Spartan by birth. Both Xenophon
Xenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
and 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...
(in his Life of Lycurgus, the law-giver for Sparta) mention that Spartan society was concerned with blood purity, with avoidance of intermarriage with the rest of the population (the helots
Helots
The helots: / Heílôtes) were an unfree population group that formed the main population of Laconia and the whole of Messenia . Their exact status was already disputed in antiquity: according to Critias, they were "especially slaves" whereas to Pollux, they occupied a status "between free men and...
and others, possibly of Achaean
Achaeans (tribe)
The Achaeans were one of the four major tribes into which the people of Classical Greece divided themselves. According to the foundation myth formalized by Hesiod, their name comes from Achaeus, the mythical founder of the Achaean tribe, who was supposedly one of the sons of Xuthus, and brother of...
stock), and with marriages of heiresses.
Little about Gorgo's childhood is known, although she was probably raised like other Spartan girls of noble family, encouraged in daily physical exercise to strengthen her body, and reared to be married off to an older Spartan husband who would see little of her. According to Herodotus's Histories, at about the age of eight to nine years old, she advised her father Cleomenes not to trust Aristagoras
Aristagoras
Aristagoras was the leader of Miletus in the late 6th century BC and early 5th century BC.- Background :Aristagoras served as deputy governor of Miletus, a polis on the western coast of Anatolia around 500 BC. He was the son of Molpagoras, and son-in-law of Histiaeus, whom the Persians had set up...
of Miletus
Miletus
Miletus was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, a foreign diplomat trying to induce Cleomenes to support an Ionian revolt against Persians. "Father, you had better have this man go away, or the stranger will corrupt you." Cleomenes followed her advice.
Cleomenes was, however, slowly going mad. His foreign policy, which had always been aggressive, became increasingly erratic. Consistent with a long tradition of deposing tyrants throughout the 6th Century BC, Sparta in the reign of Cleomenes had driven the Athenian tyrant Hippias out of Attica, paving the way for radical democratic reforms. Two years later, however, Cleomenes abruptly changed sides and sided with the Athenian aristocrat Isagoras to drive the leader of the democratic faction, Kleisthenes, out of Athens. When Cleomenes then tried to impose a less democratic constitution on the Athenians, however, they revolted and forced Cleomenes to withdraw. Cleomenes then tried to lead a new attack on Athens with the aid of Sparta's allies in the Peloponnese. On learning Cleomenes' intentions, however, the allies refused to continue with the campaign and Cleomenes' co-monarch, the Eurypontid King Demaratus, threw his authority behind the allies, also refusing to advance on Athens. The campaign had to be called off. This fiasco resulted in a restructuring of Sparta's relations with her allies in the Peloponnese. Henceforth, every city state had an equal vote and no aggressive action could be undertaken by the Peloponnesian League unless a majority of its members voted in favour - a serious blow to Sparta's prestige, if not her power.
Cleomenes next outraged the ancient world and humiliated Sparta by bribing the Oracle at Delphi to declare his co-monarch King Demaratus illegitimate. Before the bribery was discovered, Demaratus was deposed and defected to the Persian camp, yet another serious setback for Sparta.
Cleomenes then started a war with Sparta's arch-rival Argos. Although he won a stunning victory in which the bulk of the Argive army was destroyed, he failed to follow up on this victory by taking the city itself. Instead, he burned a sacred woods and personally slaughtered those Argives who surrendered to him in good faith. On his return to Sparta he was tried for treason by the ephors, but talked his way out of the charges by saying he had received bad "signs" from the Gods.
Cleomenes erratic behaviour became even more acute in the years following. He attacked citizens on the streets and fled the city when he feared sanctions from the Assembly. Abroad he tried to stir up rebellion against Sparta and this frightened the Spartans into begging him to return. Still his irrational behaviour continued until the Spartans were provoked into confining him in the stocks. Here he came to a gruesome end. According to Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, he talked a helot into giving him a knife and then "Cleomenes began to mutilate himself, beginning on his shins. He sliced his flesh into strips, working upwards to his thighs, and from them to his hips and sides, until he reached his belly, and while he was cutting that into strips he died."
According to Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
"Most people in Greece say that [Cleomenes' madness] was punishment for having corrupted the Priestess at Delphi...The Athenians, however, put it down to his devastating the sacred land of Demeter and Persephone, when he marched to Eleusis; while the Argives maintain that was a punishment for his sacrilege when, after a battle, he fetched the Argive fugitives from the holy ground of Argos and cut them to pieces...." The Spartans themselves, on the other hand, blamed Cleomenes' madness on the fact that he drank his wine "neat," i.e. undiluted.
Some modern historians are not satisfied with these explanations for Cleomenes' death and prefer to see a sinister plot to murder Cleomenes instigated by none other than the hero of Thermoplylae, Cleomenes' half-brother, son-in-law and successor, Leonidas I. However, as W.G. Forrest points out, modern psychiatry shows that "the details of [Cleomenes] final self-mutilation are in fact consistent with a paranoid schizophrenic suicide; moreover... [schizophrenia] can for long be combined with an apparent near-normalcy, even cleverness, revealing itself only in a degree of violence, ruthlessness and an inability to get along with people (Kleomenes provides illustrations of all three in plenty)."
Marriage and reign
Presumably, after Cleomenes's death, his only child Gorgo became his sole heiress. She was apparently already married in the late 490s (in her early teens) to her half-uncle Leonidas I. Leonidas and Gorgo would have at least one child, a son, PleistarchusPleistarchus
Pleistarchus or Plistarch was the Agiad King of Sparta from 480 to 458 BC. He was the son of Leonidas I and Gorgo. For the early part of his reign, his cousin Pausanias, acted as regent because Pleistarchus was not of age.-Popular culture:...
, co-King of Sparta from 480 BC
480 BC
Year 480 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vibulanus and Cincinnatus...
to his death in 459 BC
459 BC
Year 459 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vibulanus and Uritinus...
/458 BC
458 BC
Year 458 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rutilus and Carvetus...
.
Gorgo's most significant role came during the aftermath of the Battle of Thermopylae
Battle of Thermopylae
The Battle of Thermopylae was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I over the course of three days, during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August...
(480 BC), when her husband Leonidas I was killed in battle along with 299 Spartans and many other Greeks. According to Herodotus's Histories, a message from Demaratus
Demaratus
Demaratus was a king of Sparta from 515 until 491 BC, of the Eurypontid line, successor to his father Ariston. As king, he is known chiefly for his opposition to the other, co-ruling Spartan king, Cleomenes I.-Biography:...
arrived at Sparta after the Battle of Thermopylae; it was a warning that Greece was going to be invaded by Xerxes
Xerxes I of Persia
Xerxes I of Persia , Ḫšayāršā, ), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the fifth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire.-Youth and rise to power:...
. In order to pass enemy lines without suspicion, the message was written on a wooden tablet and then covered with wax. The Spartan generals did not know what to do with the seemingly blank, wax-covered wooden writing tablet. It was Queen Gorgo who advised them to clear the wax off the tablet; she is described by David Kahn in his book The Codebreakers
The Codebreakers
The Codebreakers – The Story of Secret Writing is a book by David Kahn, published in 1967 comprehensively chronicling the history of cryptography from ancient Egypt to the time of its writing...
as one of the first female cryptanalysts whose name has been recorded.
According to 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...
, before the Battle of Thermopylae, knowing that her husband's death in battle was inevitable, she asked him what to do. Leonidas replied "marry a good man who will treat you well, bear him children, and live a good life."
Children
She had at least one son by Leonidas I, PleistarchusPleistarchus
Pleistarchus or Plistarch was the Agiad King of Sparta from 480 to 458 BC. He was the son of Leonidas I and Gorgo. For the early part of his reign, his cousin Pausanias, acted as regent because Pleistarchus was not of age.-Popular culture:...
, co-King of Sparta from 480 BC
480 BC
Year 480 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vibulanus and Cincinnatus...
to his death in 458 BC
458 BC
Year 458 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rutilus and Carvetus...
.
Her son was a minor at his father's death, so his uncle Cleombrotus (d 480 BC) and then his first cousin and heir Pausanias
Pausanias (general)
Pausanias was a Spartan general of the 5th century BC. He was the son of Cleombrotus and nephew of Leonidas I, serving as regent after the latter's death, since Leonidas' son Pleistarchus was still under-age. Pausanias was also the father of Pleistoanax, who later became king, and Cleomenes...
(r. 480-479 BC) acted as his regent. It was Pausanias who was the architect of the narrow Greek victory at the Battle of Plataea
Battle of Plataea
The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479 BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Greek city-states, including Sparta, Athens, Corinth and Megara, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes...
(479 BC) . When Pausanias fell into disfavor and was accused of plotting treason, Leonidas's son Pleistarchus ruled alone from 478 BC to his death 459/458 BC.
Historical mentions
Sections where she is present at court or in council and gives advice to the king or the elders. This either indicates that Gorgo was highly thought of by Herodotus who often left out the names of the female figures he included in his books, or that as the wife of Leonidas I, her actions and counsel were all the more noteworthy.Plutarch quotes Queen Gorgo as follows:
"When asked by a woman from Attica, 'Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?', she said: 'Because we are also the only ones who give birth to men.'" Another version has this as, "...some foreign lady, as it would seem, told her that the women of Lacedaemon were the only women in the world who could rule men; 'With good reason,' she said, 'for we are the only women who bring forth men.'" (Plutarch's Lives: Lycurgus)
In popular culture
Queen Gorgo was portrayed by Greek actress Anna SynodinouAnna Synodinou
Anna Synodinou is a Greek actress and a politician. She once served as a member of the Greek parliament.-Filmography:*Thanassakis o politevomenos - Mairy...
, who later became a politician in her home country, in the 1962 film The 300 Spartans
The 300 Spartans
The 300 Spartans is a 1962 Cinemascope film depicting the Battle of Thermopylae. Made with the cooperation of the Greek government, it was shot in the village of Perachora in the Peloponnese...
.
In the 2007 motion picture 300
300 (film)
300 is a 2007 American fantasy action film based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller. It is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. The film was directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant...
, based on Frank Miller
Frank Miller (comics)
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, writer and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300...
's graphic novel of the same name, English actress Lena Headey
Lena Headey
Lena Headey is an English actress. Headey's performance in a one-off show when she was 17 caught the attention of a casting agent, who took a photo and asked her to audition and eventually she got a supporting role alongside Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke in the 1992 British drama film Waterland and...
plays Gorgo. Unlike the graphic novel, this adaptation gives her a more important role in the events surrounding the war with Persia; she is the one killing the traitor in the Spartans' midst.
Helena P. Schrader has published the first book in a three-part biographical novel on Leonidas and Gorgo. The first book, Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge, focuses on Leonidas boyhood in the infamous Spartan agoge
Agoge
The agōgē was the rigorous education and training regimen mandated for all male Spartan citizens, except for the firstborn son in the ruling houses, Eurypontid and Agiad. The training involved learning stealth, cultivating loyalty to one's group, military training The agōgē (Greek: ἀγωγή in Attic...
, but books two and three will give prominence to Gorgo too.
Sources
Online Sources For Queen Gorgo and Family- A Profile of Gorgo from a website.
- Herodotus's Histories Book VII "Polymnia" where Gorgo is mentioned in Section 239 (7.239) advising the Spartan elders after Thermopylae.
Note
Sparta had a system of dual kings, from two rival but related houses, descended allegedly from twin sons of an early king of Sparta.Further reading
- Blundell, Sue. Women in Ancient Greece. British Museum Press, London, 1995.
- Sealey, Raphael. Women and Law in Classical Greece. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London, 1990.
- Pomeroy, Sarah. Spartan Women. Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Schrader,Helena P., '"Scandalous" Spartan Women,' Sparta Reconsidered, http://elysiumgates.com/~helena/index
- Schrader, Helena P., "Scenes from a Spartan Marriage," Sparta: Journal of Ancient Spartan and Greek History, Vol.6, #1.
- Schrader Helena P., "The Bride of Leonidas," the Leonidas Trilogy, http://sparta-leonidas-gorgo.com/articleindex.html