Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER VII.

Of the family of Eurysthenes then, called the Agiadæ, Cleomenes the son of Leonidas was the last king at Sparta: but as to the other branch this is what I have heard. Procles the son of Aristodemus had a son called Sous, whose son Eurypon attained such glory that the family were called Eurypontidæ from him, though till his time they were called Proclidæ. And Eurypon had a son Prytanis, and it was in his days that animosity broke out between the Lacedæmonians and Argives, and even earlier than this quarrel they fought with the Cynurians, but during the succeeding generations, when Eunomus the son of Prytanis and Polydectes the son of Eunomus were kings, Sparta continued at peace. But Charillus the son of Polydectes ravaged the Argive territory, and made a raid into Argolis, and under his leadership the Spartans went out to Tegea, when the Lacedæmonians hoped to take Tegea and slice the district off from Arcadia, following a beguiling oracle. And after the death of Charillus Nicander his son succeeded to the kingdom, and it was in his reign that the Messenians killed Teleclus the king of the other family in the temple of Artemis Limnas. And Nicander invaded Argolis with an army, and ravaged most of the country. And the Asinæans having taken part with the Lacedæmonians in this expedition, not long afterwards paid the penalty to the Argives in the destruction of their country and their own exile. And Theopompus the son of Nicander, who was king after his father, I shall make mention of when I come to the history of Messenia. During his reign came on the contest for Thyrea between the Lacedæmonians and Argives. Theopompus himself took no part in this, partly from old age, but still more from sorrow at the death of his son Archidamus. Not that Archidamus died childless, for he left a son Zeuxidamus, who was succeeded in the kingdom by his son Anaxidamus. It was in his reign that the Messenians evacuated the Peloponnese, having been a second time conquered in war by the Spartans. And Anaxidamus had a son Archidamus, and he had a son Agesicles: and both of them had the good fortune to spend all their life in peace and without wars. And Aristo the son of Agesicles having married a girl who they say was the most shameless of all the girls in Lacedæmon, but in appearance the most beautiful girl next to Helen, had by her a son Demaratus seven months after marriage. And as he was sitting with the ephors in council a servant came and told him of the birth of his son. And Aristo, forgetting the lines in the Iliad[31] about the birth of Eurystheus, or perhaps not knowing them, said it couldn’t be his child from the time. He was sorry afterwards for these words which he had spoken. And when Demaratus was king and in other respects in good repute at Sparta, and had cooperated with Cleomenes in freeing the Athenians from the Pisistratidæ, this thoughtless word of Aristo, and the hatred of Cleomenes deprived him of the kingdom. And he went to Persia to king Darius, and they say his descendants continued for a long time in Asia. And Leotychides, who became king in his place, shared with the Athenians and their General Xanthippus, the son of Ariphron, in the action at Mycale, and also marched into Thessaly against the Aleuadæ. And though he might have reduced all Thessaly, as he was victorious in every battle, he allowed the Aleuadæ to buy him off. And being impeached at Lacedæmon he went voluntarily into exile to escape trial, and became a suppliant at Tegea at the temple of Alean Athene there, and as his son Zeuxidamus had previously died of some illness, his grandson Archidamus succeeded him, on his departure to Tegea. This Archidamus injured the Athenian territory excessively, invading Attica every year, and whenever he invaded it he went through all the country ravaging it, and also captured after a siege the town of Platæa which was friendly to the Athenians. Not that Platæa had ever stirred up strife between the Peloponnesians and Athenians, but as far as in its power lay had made them both keep the peace. But Sthenelaidas, one of the Ephors, a man of great power at Lacedæmon, was mainly the cause of the war at that time. And this war shook Greece, which was previously in a flourishing condition, to its foundation, and afterwards Philip the son of Amyntas reduced it completely, when it was already rotten and altogether unsound.