Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
In Haliartus in Boeotia there was a girl of surpassing beauty named Aristocleia, daughter of Theophanes. She was courted by Straton of Orchomenus and Callisthenes of Haliartus. Straton was the wealthier and somewhat the more smitten of the two, for he had happened to see her bathing at the spring Hercyna in Lebadeia, when she was about to carry the sacred basket for Zeus the King. But Callisthenes had the greater claim, since he was also a kinsman of the girl. Theophanes, at a loss what to do — for he feared Straton, who surpassed almost all the Boeotians in wealth and lineage — wished to refer the choice to Trophonius. Straton, too, having been persuaded by the girl's household servants that she was more inclined toward him, demanded that the choice be left to the bride herself. When Theophanes questioned the girl before everyone and she preferred Callisthenes, Straton at once showed plainly that he took the slight hard. But after letting two days pass, he came to Theophanes and Callisthenes and asked that his friendship with them be preserved, even though he had been cheated of the marriage by some divine power. They approved of what he said, so much so that they even invited him to the wedding feast. He, however, having gathered a crowd of companions and no small number of servants, scattered them among the guests unnoticed, and waited until the girl, according to ancestral custom, went down to the spring called Cissoessa to offer the preliminary sacrifices to the Nymphs. Then all his men lying in ambush rushed together and seized her. Straton himself took hold of the girl, and Callisthenes, naturally, along with his companions, laid hold of her in turn, until, unnoticed, the girl perished in the hands of those pulling her from both sides. Callisthenes at once vanished — whether he had done away with himself, or gone into exile from Boeotia, no one could say what had become of him. But Straton openly slew himself upon the girl.
A certain Phidon of the Peloponnesians, aiming at supreme power and wishing his own city, Argos, to rule over the rest, first plotted against the Corinthians. He sent and asked of them a thousand young men outstanding in vigor and courage, and they sent the thousand, appointing Dexander as their general. Phidon, intending to attack these men so that he might have Corinth the weaker and make use of the city — since it would be the most strategically placed outpost of the whole Peloponnese — disclosed the plan to some of his companions. Among them was one Habron, who, being a guest-friend of Dexander, told him of the plot. And so the Phliasians escaped safely into Corinth before the attack, while Phidon tried to track down the man who had betrayed him and sought him diligently. Habron, in fear, fled to Corinth, taking his wife and servants, to Melissus, a village in Corinthian territory, where he also fathered a son whom he named Melissus, taking the name from the place. From this Melissus was born a son, Actaeon, the most handsome and most modest of his contemporaries, who had a great many lovers, but especially Archias, a man of the lineage of the Heraclids and the most eminent of the Corinthians in wealth and other power. Since he could not persuade the boy, he resolved to use force and seize the youth; so he made a raid upon the house of Melissus, bringing with him a crowd of both friends and servants, and tried to carry the boy off. When the father and his friends resisted, and the neighbors too ran up and pulled against them, Actaeon, torn between the two sides, died in the struggle; and so the others withdrew. Melissus carried his son's corpse into the marketplace of the Corinthians and displayed it, demanding justice from those who had done this; but they showed no more than pity for the man. Having accomplished nothing, he withdrew and watched for the festival of the Isthmian games, and going up to the temple of Poseidon, he cried out against the Bacchiadae and reminded them of the benefaction of his father Habron; then, calling upon the gods, he threw himself down from the rocks. Not long after, drought and plague seized the city, and when the Corinthians consulted the oracle about relief, the god declared that it was the wrath of Poseidon, who would not relent until they avenged the death of Actaeon. When Archias learned of this — for he himself had been present as a sacred envoy — he did not willingly return to Corinth, but sailed to Sicily and founded Syracuse. Having become there the father of two daughters, Ortygia and Syracusa, he was treacherously murdered by Telephus, who had been his beloved and who, commanding a ship, had sailed with him to Sicily.
A poor man named Scedasus lived at Leuctra, a small village in the territory of the Thespians. He had two daughters, called Hippo and Miletia, or, as some say, Theano and Euxippe. Scedasus was a good man and hospitable to strangers, though he possessed little. Two Spartan young men who arrived he welcomed eagerly; but they, overcome with desire for the girls, were restrained from acting on their boldness by the goodness of Scedasus. The next day they set off for Delphi, for that was the road that lay before them; and having consulted the god about what they needed, they went back home again, and passing through Boeotia they came once more to the house of Scedasus. He happened not to be at home in Leuctra, but his daughters, following their usual custom, received the strangers. Finding the girls alone, the men violated them; and seeing them exceedingly angry at the outrage, they killed them, threw them into a well, and departed. When Scedasus returned he did not see his daughters, but found everything else left behind intact, and was at a loss over the matter, until, the dog whining and running repeatedly to him and back again to the well, he guessed what had happened, and so drew up the bodies of his daughters. Learning from the neighbors that they had seen, the day before, the same Lacedaemonians who had earlier lodged with them going in, he put together what had happened, since those men had also earlier repeatedly praised the girls, calling blessed whoever would marry them. He set off for Lacedaemon to meet with the ephors; and coming into the Argolid as night fell, he lodged at an inn, where at the same time another old man, by birth from Oreus, a city of Hestiaeotis, was also staying. Hearing him groaning and cursing the Lacedaemonians, Scedasus asked what harm he had suffered from them. The man told his story: that he was a subject of Sparta, and that Aristodemus, sent to Oreus as governor by the Lacedaemonians, had shown much cruelty and lawlessness. "For," he said, "having fallen in love with my son, since he was unable to persuade him, he tried to use force and take him from the wrestling school; when the trainer prevented him and many young men rushed to help, Aristodemus withdrew at once. But the next day, manning a trireme, he seized the boy, and sailing across from Oreus to the mainland opposite, tried to force himself on him, and when the boy would not allow it, he slew him. Returning to Oreus, he feasted. And I," he said, "learning of what had been done, and having buried the body, went to Sparta and appealed to the ephors, but they paid no attention." Hearing this, Scedasus grew despondent, supposing that the Spartans would pay no heed to him either, and in turn told the stranger his own misfortune. The man urged him not even to approach the ephors, but to return to Boeotia and build a tomb for his daughters. Scedasus, however, was not persuaded, but went on to Sparta and met with the ephors, who paid him no attention at all; he then went to the kings, and from them to each of the citizens in turn, lamenting. Accomplishing nothing further, he ran through the middle of the city, stretching his two hands up toward the sun, then striking the ground, calling upon the Furies, and at last took his own life. Some time later, however, the Lacedaemonians paid the penalty: for when they were ruling all the Greeks and had occupied the cities with garrisons, Epaminondas the Theban first slew the garrison of Lacedaemonians stationed with him, and when the Lacedaemonians declared war over this, the Thebans went out to meet them at Leuctra, taking the site as a good omen, because it was there too that freedom had earlier been won, when Amphitryon, driven into exile by Sthenelus, came to the city of the Thebans, and, after imposing tribute on the Chalcidians, ended the tribute, having killed Chalcodon, king of the Euboeans. And it happened that the Lacedaemonians suffered utter defeat right beside the very monument of the daughters of Scedasus. They say that before the battle, Pelopidas, one of the generals of the Theban army, troubled because certain unfavorable signs had been read, saw Scedasus stand over him in his sleep and bid him take courage, for the Lacedaemonians were coming to Leuctra to pay the penalty to him and to his daughters; and the day before joining battle with the Lacedaemonians, he ordered a white foal to be readied and sacrificed at the tomb of the maidens. They say that Pelopidas, while the Lacedaemonians were still on campaign at Tegea, sent men to Leuctra to inquire about this tomb, and, learning of it from the local people, led out the army with confidence and won the victory.
Phocus was Boeotian by birth, from Glisas; he was the father of Calliroe, who excelled in both beauty and modesty. She was courted by thirty of the most highly regarded young men in Boeotia, but Phocus kept postponing the marriage again and again, fearing that he might be met with violence. At last, when they pressed him, he asked that the choice be made by consulting the Pythian god. They grew angry at this proposal, and rushing at him, killed Phocus; and in the confusion the girl fled and ran through the countryside, pursued by the young men. She came upon farmers piling up a threshing floor and found safety with them, for the farmers hid her among the grain, and so those pursuing her passed her by. Having thus been saved, she kept the festival of the Pamboeotia, and then, coming to Coronea, sat as a suppliant at the altar of Athena Itonia, and told of the lawlessness of the suitors, naming each one and his home city. The Boeotians pitied the girl and were indignant at the young men; they, learning of this, fled for refuge to Orchomenus. When the Orchomenians would not receive them, they rushed in upon Hippotae, a village lying by Helicon between Thisbe and Coronea, and its people took them in. Then the Thebans sent demanding the murderers of Phocus, and when they were not given up, they campaigned along with the rest of the Boeotians, under the command of Phoedus, who then governed the Thebans, and besieging the village, which was well fortified, when those inside were overcome by thirst, they stoned to death the murderers when captured, and enslaved the rest who were in the village; and tearing down the walls and houses, they divided the land between the people of Thisbe and Coronea. They say that on the night before the capture of Hippotae, a voice was heard many times from Helicon saying, "I am here," and the thirty suitors recognized this utterance as being that of Phocus. On the day they were stoned, they say the tomb of the old man at Glisas ran with saffron. And to Phoedus, the ruler and general of the Thebans, returning from the battle, it was announced that a daughter had been born to him, whom, taking it as a good omen, he named Nicostrate.
Alcippus was Lacedaemonian by birth; having married Damocrita, he became father of two daughters. Since he advised the city most excellently and did whatever the Lacedaemonians needed, he was envied by his political opponents, who, misleading the ephors with false charges — that Alcippus wished to overthrow the laws — drove the man into exile. He withdrew from Sparta, but when his wife Damocrita wished to follow her husband together with her daughters, they prevented her; indeed they even confiscated his property, so that the girls should have no means for a dowry. And when, even so, some still wished to court the girls on account of their father's virtue, his enemies had it forbidden by decree that anyone should court them, saying that their mother Damocrita had often prayed that her daughters might quickly bear sons who would avenge their father. Hemmed in from every side, Damocrita watched for a certain public festival, at which the women, together with maidens and household members and infants, celebrated together, while the wives of those in office kept vigil apart through the night in a great men's hall. Girding on a sword and taking her daughters, she came by night to the temple, having watched for the moment when all were performing the mystery rites in the hall; and, with the entrances shut, she piled up against the doors much wood — the very wood that had been prepared by the women themselves for the sacrifice of the festival — and set it on fire. As the men ran together to help, Damocrita slew her daughters, and then herself upon them. Not knowing where to vent their anger, the Lacedaemonians threw the bodies of Damocrita and her daughters outside their borders. And they say that, the god being angered at this, a great earthquake befell the Lacedaemonians.