Alcippus was a Lacedaemonian by birth, who marrying Damocrita became
the father of two daughters. This Alcippus, being a person that always
advised the city for the best, and one that was always ready to serve
his countrymen upon all occasions, was envied by a contrary faction,
that continually accused him to the Ephori as one that endeavored to
subvert the ancient laws and constitutions of the city. At length the
Ephori banished the husband, who being condemned forsook the city; but
when Damocrita and his daughters would fain have followed him, they
would not permit them to stir. Moreover, they confiscated his estate,
to deprive his daughters of their portions. Nay, more than this, when
there were some that courted the daughters for the sake of their
father’s virtue, his enemies obtained a decree whereby it was forbid
that any man should make love to the young ladies, cunningly alleging
that the mother had often prayed to the Gods to favor her daughters
with speedy wedlock, to the end they might the sooner bring forth
children to be revenged of the injury done their father. Damocrita thus
beset, and in a strait on every side, stayed till the general festival,
when the women, together with their daughters, servants, and little
children, feast in public together; on which day, the wives of the
magistrates and persons in dignity feast all night in a spacious hall
by themselves. But then it was that Damocrita, with a sword girt about
her, and taking her daughters with her, went in the night-time to the
temple; and watching her opportunity, when the women were all busy in
the great hall performing the mysteries of the solemnity, after all
the ways and passages were stopped up, she fetched the wood that was
ready prepared for the sacrifices appertaining to the festival, and
piled it against the doors of the room, and so set fire to it. All was
then in a hurry, and the men came crowding in vain to help their wives;
but then it was that Damocrita slew her daughters, and upon their dead
bodies herself. Thus the Lacedaemonians, not knowing upon whom to wreak
their anger, were forced to be contented with only throwing the dead
bodies of the mother and the daughters without the confines of their
territories. For which barbarous act of theirs, the Deity being highly
offended plagued the Lacedaemonians, as their histories record, with
that most dreadful earthquake, so remarkable to posterity.