How to portray a Spartan king from the classical era?

[PMBardunias]

That's why he needed bodyguards(Olympic or Pythia champions) fighting by him

I recently read a chapter in one of Powell's spartan titles about Spartans and the olympics. There was a table that showed almost all of the olympic victors in the last quarter of the 5th c were winners only of chariot racing. Since the winner of chariot races were not even the fellow driving, but the person who bred and trained the horses, this does not speak well for the qualification of a bodyguard! Perhaps someone knows more about the list of victors than was in this one chapter I found.

If these chariot winners were claiming rights such as a place of honor in the battle line, it puts an even greater emphasis on the way they would have been humbled by the incident with Kyniska. Her victory would have made a mockery of this system and the men who benefitted from it.