23.6
At all events, in Sparta, so far as the outside was concerned, it was possible to say of him, No child of Achilles he, but Achilles himself,The first part of the passage in quotation marks is an adaptation of an iambic trimeter by some unknown poet, which Plutarch uses entire in Plut. Morals 51c. Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. (2) p. 907. such a man as Lycurgus trained; but judging by what he actually felt and did, one might have cried with the poet, ’Tis the selfsame woman still! Electra, of Helen, in Eur. Orest. 129.
23.7
For while Agis the king was away on his campaigns, Alcibiades corrupted Timaea his wife, so that she was with child by him and made no denial of it. When she had given birth to a male child, it was called Leotychides in public, but in private the name which the boy’s mother whispered to her friends and attendants was Alcibiades. Such was the passion that possessed the woman. But he, in his mocking way, said he had not done this thing for a wanton insult, nor at the behest of mere pleasure, but in order that descendants of his might be kings of the Lacedaemonians.
23.8
Such being the state of things, there were many to tell the tale to Agis, and he believed it, more especially owing to the lapse of time. There had been an earthquake, and he had run in terror out of his chamber and the arms of his wife, and then for ten months had had no further intercourse with her. And since Leotychides had been born at the end of this period, Agis declared that he was no child of his. For this reason Leotychides was afterwards refused the royal succession.Cf. Plut. Lys. 22.4-6
