DEMARATUS (Doric Aaµaparos, Ionic Arlµapi

See also:

• ROS, SIR RICHARD (b. 1429)
• ROS, or DE

ros)  , king of Sparta of the Eurypontid line, successor of his father Ariston . He is known chiefly for his opposition to his colleague Cleomenes I . (q.v.) in his attempts to make Isagoras tyrant in Athens and afterwards to punish Aegina for medizing . He did his utmost to bring Cleomenes into disfavour at home . Thereupon Cleomenes urged Leotychides, a relative and personal enemy of Demaratus, to claim the throne on the ground that the latter was not really the son of Ariston but of Agetus, his mother's first husband . The Delphic oracle, under the influence of Cleomenes' bribes, pronounced in favour of Leotychides, who became king (491 B.C.) . Soon afterwards Demaratus fled to Darius, who gave him the cities of Pergamum, Teuthrania and . Halisarna, where his descendants were still ruling at the beginning of the 4th century (Xen . Anabasis, ii . 1 . 3, vii . 8 .

17; Hellenica, iii . 1 . 6); to these 980 Gambreum should perhaps be added (

Athenaeus i . 29 f) . He accompanied Xerxes on his expedition to Greece, but the stories told of the warning and advice which on several occasions he addressed to the king are scarcely historical . See Herodotus v . 75, vi . 50-7o, vii . ; later writers either repro-duce or embellish his narrative (Pausanias iii . 4, 3-5, 7, 7-8; Diodorus xi . 6; Polyaenus ii . 2o; Seneca, De benefciis, vi .

31, 4-I2) . The

story that he took part in the attack on Argos which was repulsed by Telesilla, the poetess, and the Argive women, can hardly be true (Plutarch, Mul. virt . 4; Polyaenus, Strat. viii . 33; G . Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, 563, note 4) . (M . N .