because he
desired to do a pleasure to their cities, delivering them over severally
to that city from which each one came.

38. Now the men of Mitylene, so soon as they received Coes into their
hands, brought him out and stoned him to death; but the men of Kyme let
their despot go, and so also most of the others let them go. Thus then
the despots were deposed in the various cities; and Aristagoras the
Milesian, after having deposed the despots, bade each people appoint
commanders in their several cities, and then himself set forth as an
envoy to Lacedemon; for in truth it was necessary that he should find
out some powerful alliance.

39. Now at Sparta Anaxandrides the son of Leon was no longer surviving
as king, but had brought his life to an end; and Cleomenes the son of
Anaxandrides was holding the royal power, not having obtained it by
merit but by right of birth. For Anaxandrides had to wife his own
sister's daughter and she was by him much beloved, but no children were
born to him by her. This being so, the Ephors summoned him before them
and said: "If thou dost not for thyself take thought in time, yet we
cannot suffer this to happen, that the race of Eurysthenes should become
extinct. Do thou therefore put away from thee the wife whom thou now
hast, since, as thou knowest, she bears thee no children, and marry
another: and in doing so thou wilt please the Spartans." He made answer
saying that he would do neither of these two things, and that they did
not give him honourable counsel, in that they advised him to send away
the wife whom he had, though she had done him no wrong, and to take to
his house another; and in short he would not follow their advice.

40. Upon this the Ephors and the Senators deliberated together and
proposed to Anaxandrides as follows: "Since then we perceive that thou
art firmly attached to the wife whom thou now hast, consent to do this,
and set not thyself against it, lest the Spartans take some counsel
about thee other than might be wished. We do not ask of thee the putting
away of the wife whom thou hast; but do thou give to her all that
thou givest now and at the same time take to thy house another wife in
addition to this one, to bear thee children." When they spoke to him
after this manner, Anaxandrides consented, having two wives, a thing
which was not by any means after the Spartan fashion.

41. Then when no long time had elapsed, the wife who had come in
afterwards bore this