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Now Cleomenes, it is said, was not right in his mind; indeed he
verged upon madness; while Dorieus surpassed all his co-mates, and
looked confidently to receiving the kingdom on the score of merit.
When, therefore, after the death of Anaxandridas, the Spartans
kept to the law, and made Cleomenes, his eldest son, king in his
room, Dorieus, who had imagined that he should be chosen, and who
could not bear the thought of having such a man as Cleomenes to rule
over him, asked the Spartans to give him a body of men, and left
Sparta with them in order to found a colony. However, he neither
took counsel of the oracle at Delphi as to the place whereto he should
go, nor observed any of the customary usages; but left Sparta in
dudgeon, and sailed away to Libya, under the guidance of certain men
who were Theraeans. These men brought him to Cinyps, where he
colonised a spot, which has not its equal in all Libya, on the banks
of a river: but from this place he was driven in the third year by the
Macians, the Libyans, and the Carthaginians.
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