Cleomēdes

, a famous athlete of Astypalæa, above Crete. In a combat at Olympia, he killed one of his antagonists by a blow with his fist. On account of this accidental murder, he was deprived of the victory, and he became delirious. In his return to Astypalæa, he entered a school and pulled down the pillars which supported the roof, and crushed to death 60 boys. He was pursued with stones, and he fled for shelter into a tomb, whose doors he so strongly secured, that his pursuers were obliged to break them for acce . When the tomb was opened, Cleome des could not be found either dead or alive. The oracle of Delphi was consulted, and gave this answer, Ultimus heroum Cleome des Astypalæus . Upon this they offered sacrifices to him as a god. Pausanias , bk. 6 , ch. 9 .— Plutarch , Romulus . Cleomĕnes I. , king of Sparta, conquered the Argives, and burnt 5000 of them by setting fire to a grove where they had fled, and freed Athens from the tyranny of the Pisistratidæ. By bribing the oracle, he pronounced Demaratus, his colleague on the throne, illegitimate, because he had refused to punish the people of Ægin a, who had deserted the Greeks. He killed himself in a fit of madne , 491 B.C. Hero dot us , bks. 5, 6, & 7.— Pausanias , bk. 8 , ch. 3 , . Cleomĕnes II. , succeeded his brother Ages i polis  II. He reigned 61 years in the greatest tranquillity, and was father to Acrotatus and Cleonymus, and was succeeded by Areus  I. son of Acrotatus. Pausanias , bk. 3 , ch. 6 . Cleomĕnes III. , succeeded his father Leonidas. He was of an enterprising spirit, and resolved to restore the ancient discipline of Lycurgus in its full force, by banishing luxury and intemperance. He killed the Ephori, and removed by poison his royal colleague Eurydamidas, and made his own brother Euclidas king, against the laws of the state, which forbade more than one of the same family to sit on the throne. He made war against the Achæans, and attempted to destroy their league. Aratus the general of the Achæans, who supposed himself inferior to his enemy, called An tigon us to his a istance; and Cleomenes, when he had fought the unfortunate battle of Sell asia, B.C. 222, retired into Egypt, to the court of Ptolemy Evergetes, where his wife and children had fled before him. Ptolemy received him with great cordiality; but his succe or, weak and suspicious, soon expre ed his jealousy of this noble stranger, and imprisoned him. Cleomenes killed himself, and his body was flayed and exposed on a cro , B.C. 219. Polybius , bk. 6 .— Plutarch , Parallel Lives .— Justin , bk. 28 , ch. 4 .