Cleobis

Cleobis (also spelled Kleobis) and his brother Biton were two young men of Argos who hauled their mother's wagon to the temple of Hera. The story is best known from Herodotus, who has the Athenian Solon tell it to King Croesus as an example of the happiest of lives. Cleobis and Biton died in their sleep after their mother's prayer.

Who Were Cleobis and Biton?

Herodotus calls them Argives by birth, men with enough to live on and great bodily strength. Both had won prizes in athletic contests (Herodotus, Histories 1.31.2). Their mother was a priestess of Hera at Argos; Herodotus does not give her name or their father's. Plutarch also says that their mother was priestess of Hera (Consolation to Apollonius 14).

The Festival of Hera

There was a festival of Hera at Argos, and the priestess had to be carried to the temple by a team of oxen. The oxen had not come back from the fields in time. Because the hour was pressing, the young men put the yoke on their own shoulders and drew the wagon, with their mother riding on it. They travelled forty-five stades, which is about five miles, until they reached the temple (Herodotus, Histories 1.31.2). In Plutarch's version the delay was in the arrival of the mules that usually drew her wagon (Consolation to Apollonius 14).

The Prayer and Death

The whole gathering saw what they had done. The Argive men crowded round the youths and praised their strength, and the Argive women congratulated their mother on having such sons. Overjoyed, the mother stood before the image of the goddess and prayed that Hera would give Cleobis and Biton, who had honoured her so greatly, the best thing that a human being can receive (Herodotus, Histories 1.31.3–4).

After the prayer the brothers sacrificed and feasted. They then lay down to sleep in the temple and never rose again; death held them there. Herodotus says that by this the god showed that for human beings it is better to die than to live (Histories 1.31.3, 1.31.5). Plutarch likewise says that they lay down to sleep and never rose again, the goddess granting them death as a reward for their devotion (Consolation to Apollonius 14).

Honours

The Argives made statues of the two brothers and dedicated them at Delphi, as of the best of men (Herodotus, Histories 1.31.5). Pausanias, travelling in the Argolid, saw Cleobis and Biton carved in relief on stone at Argos, drawing the carriage and taking their mother to the sanctuary of Hera (Description of Greece 2.20.3). Pausanias also mentions, in Argos, a statue of a Biton carrying a bull on his shoulders, a feat attributed by the poet Lyceas to a Biton who carried a bull to a sacrifice to Zeus at Nemea; Pausanias does not connect him with the brother of Cleobis (Description of Greece 2.19.5).

Solon and Croesus

Herodotus tells the story in the conversation between Solon and Croesus, king of Lydia. Croesus asked Solon whom he thought the happiest of men, expecting to be named himself. Solon named Tellus of Athens first. When Croesus pressed him for the second place, Solon answered, “Cleobis and Biton” (Histories 1.30–31). Croesus was vexed at being ranked below ordinary men, and Solon replied that the divine is entirely grudging and troublesome to human beings and that a man must be seen to end well before he can be called happy (Histories 1.32). Plutarch also reports that Solon named Tellus, and Cleobis and Biton as the next happiest, because of their love for each other and for their mother (Life of Solon 27). In Lucian’s dialogue Charon, Solon gives Croesus the same answer, naming Cleobis and Biton, the sons of the priestess at Argos, as the most fortunate of men (Charon 10).

Cleobis and Biton Sources

Herodotus, Histories 1.30–32 (1.31); Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.19.5 and 2.20.3; Plutarch, Consolation to Apollonius 14, and Life of Solon 27; Lucian, Charon 10.

See Also: Hera, Argos, Delphi, Croesus, Solon and Croesus