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Agiad
The Agiad dynasty was one of the two royal families of Sparta, a powerful city-state of Ancient Greece. The Agiads were seniors to the other royal house, the Eurypontids, with whom they had an enduring rivalry. Their hypothetical founder was Agis I, possibly the first king of Sparta at the end of the 10th century, who gave his name to the dynasty. The last Agiad king was Agesipolis III, deposed by the Eurypontid Lycurgus in 215 BC. Their most famous member was probably Leonidas I, known for his heroic death at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. History In order to explain the peculiarity of the Spartan two kings, the Spartans elaborated a legend saying that Aristodemos—the first king of Sparta—had twins, Eurysthenes and Prokles. Since the Spartans did not know who was born first, they opted for a diarchy, a college of two kings with the same power; Eurysthenes being the first Agiad, Prokles the first Eurypontid.Hard, ''Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology'', p. 291. Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurypontid Dynasty
For most of its history, the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta in the Peloponnese was ruled by kings. Sparta was unusual among the Greek city-states in that it maintained its kingship past the Archaic age. It was even more unusual in that it had two kings simultaneously, who were called the ''archagetai'', coming from two separate lines. According to tradition, the two lines, the Agiads (, ) and Eurypontids (, ), were respectively descended from the twins Eurysthenes and Procles, the descendants of Heracles, who supposedly conquered Sparta two generations after the Trojan War. The dynasties themselves, however, were named after the twins' grandsons, the kings Agis I and Eurypon, respectively. The Agiad line was regarded as being senior to the Eurypontid line.Cartledge, Paul, ''The Spartans'', Vintage Books, 2003. Although there are lists of the earlier purported Kings of Sparta, there is little evidence for the existence of any kings before the middle of the sixth century BC or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonidas I
Leonidas I (; grc-gre, Λεωνίδας; died 19 September 480 BC) was a king of the Greek city-state of Sparta, and the 17th of the Agiad line, a dynasty which claimed descent from the mythological demigod Heracles. Leonidas I was son of King Anaxandridas II. He succeeded his half-brother King Cleomenes I to the throne in c. 489 BC. His co-ruler was King Leotychidas. He was succeeded by his son, King Pleistarchus. Leonidas had a notable participation in the Second Greco-Persian War, where he led the allied Greek forces to a last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) while attempting to defend the pass from the invading Persian army; he died at the battle and entered myth as the leader of the 300 Spartans. While the Greeks lost this battle, they were able to expel the Persian invaders in the following year. Life According to Herodotus, Leonidas' mother was not only his father's wife but also his father's niece and had been barren for so long that the ephors, the five ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurysthenes
Eurysthenes ( el, Εὐρυσθένης, "widely ruling") was king of Sparta and one of the Heracleidae in Greek mythology. He was a son of Aristodemus and Argia, daughter of Autesion. He had a twin brother, Procles. Together they received the land of Lacedaemon after Cresphontes, Temenus and Aristodemus defeated Tisamenus, the last Achaean king of the Peloponnesus. Eurysthenes married Lathria, daughter of Thersander, King of Kleonoe, sister of his sister-in-law Anaxandra, and was the father of his successor, Agis I, founder of the Agiad dynasty of the Kings of Sparta. The title of ''archēgetēs'', "founding magistrate," was explicitly denied to Eurysthenes and Procles by the later Spartan government on the grounds that they were not founders of a state, but were maintained in their offices by parties of foreigners. Instead the honor was granted to their son and grandson, for which reason the two lines were called the Agiads and the Eurypontids. Legend of the double kingship Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agis I
Agis I (Greek: ) was a king of Sparta and eponym of the Agiad dynasty. He was possibly the first historical king of Sparta, reigning at the end of the tenth century BC, during the emergence of the Dorians in Laconia. He is said by most ancient authors to have conquered the region and enslaved the helots. Life Agis was the eponymous founder of the Agiad dynasty, one of the two royal families in Sparta (the other being the Eurypontids). The Greek historian Herodotus makes him the son of Lathria and Eurysthenes, who was the elder of the twin sons of Aristodemus—the first Heraclid king of Sparta as great-great-grandson of Herakles. However, Eurysthenes was certainly invented in order to extend the length of Spartan rule to the fall of the Mycenean civilisation—some time after 1200—while there was in fact a gap of more than two centuries before the arrival of the Dorians in Laconia. For the same reason, early Spartan kings were given a reign of 40 years on average, which in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agesipolis III
Agesipolis III ( grc-gre, Ἀγησίπολις; died 183 BC) was the 32nd and last of the kings of the Agiad dynasty The Agiad dynasty was one of the two royal families of Sparta, a powerful city-state of Ancient Greece. The Agiads were seniors to the other royal house, the Eurypontids, with whom they had an enduring rivalry. Their hypothetical founder was Agis I ... in ancient Sparta. Agesipolis was the son of another Agesipolis and grandson of Cleombrotus II and Chilonis, daughter of Leonidas II and Cratesiclea. After the death of Cleomenes III he was elected king while still a minor, and placed under the dubious guardianship of an uncle named Cleomenes. Agesipolis was, however, soon deposed by his colleague Lycurgus (king of Sparta), Lycurgus. In 195 BC, he was at the head of the Laconia, Lacedaemonian exiles, who joined Titus Quinctius Flamininus in his attack upon Nabis, the tyrant of Lacedaemon (see War against Nabis). Agesipolis was a member of an embassy sent about 183 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charilaus
Charilaus ( grc-gre, Χαρίλαος), also spelled Charilaos, Charillos, or Charillus, was a king of Sparta in the middle of the 8th century BC. He was probably the first historical king of the Eurypontid dynasty. Life and reign Sparta was a diarchy, with two kings of equal powers from distinct dynasties. However, in its earliest history, Sparta was likely ruled by only one king, from the Agiad dynasty. In the 8th century, a synoecism occurred on the site of Sparta, where four villages merged to create the polis of Sparta. At this occasion, two of the villages ( Limnai and Kynosoura) probably requested to also have a king from their territory sharing power with the Agiad one, who was based in the other two villages ( Pitana and Mesoa). In later times, the Spartans crafted a mythical story making the second dynasty—the Eurypontids—as old as the Agiads, notably by inventing several kings to make the two dynasties symmetrical. Modern scholars consider instead that Charilaus w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archelaus Of Sparta
Archelaus ( grc-gre, Ἀρχέλαος, ''Ἀrkhélaos''; reigned from c. 790 to c. 760 BC) was the 7th Agiad dynasty king of Sparta. He was a son of Agesilaus I. Together with Charilaus, he conquered Elis. During his reign he also conquered the city of Aegys and sold the inhabitants into slavery. He was succeeded by king Teleclus Teleclus or Teleklos (Greek: Τήλεκλος) was the 8th Agiad dynasty king of Sparta during the eighth century BC. He was the son of King Archelaus and grandson of King Agesilaus I. Pausanias reports that Teleclus' reign saw the conquest of Am .... 8th-century BC rulers 8th-century BC Spartans Agiad kings of Sparta {{AncientGreece-bio-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soos (king Of Sparta)
Soos ( grc-gre, Σόος) was a fictional king of Sparta, created in the 4th century BC in order to harmonise the list of the two Spartan dynasties. Various deeds were also attached to his reign, dated by ancient authors to the 11th century BC. Life Soos is supposed to be the son of Procles, the alleged founder of the Eurypontid dynasty, one of the two royal family in Sparta (the other being the Agiads). However, modern historians consider that he was invented during the 4th century BC. Soos is absent from the lists of kings given by Herodotus, who wrote in the 5th century. He makes his first appearance in Plato's dialogue ''Cratylus'', but he is only described there as a nobleman, not a king. A bit later, the historian Ephorus implicitly recognized him as king by referring to Lycurgus as the sixth Eurypontid in line from Procles, which is only possible if Soos is counted as king. The main reason for his addition was the need to synchronize the reigns of the Eurypontid Theopompus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Procles
In Greek legends, Procles ( el, Προκλῆς, "the renowned") was one of the Heracleidae, a great-great-great-grandson of Heracles, and a son of Aristodemus and Argia. His twin was Eurysthenes. Together they received the land of Lacedaemon after Cresphontes, Temenus and Aristodemus defeated Tisamenus, the last Achaean king of the Peloponnesus. Procles married Anaxandra, daughter of Thersander, King of Kleonoe, sister of his sister-in-law Lathria, and was the father of Soos and the grandfather of Eurypon, founder of the Eurypontid dynasty of the Kings of Sparta. The title of ''archēgetēs'', "founding magistrate," was explicitly denied to Eurysthenes and Procles by the later Spartan government on the grounds that they were not founders of a state, but were maintained in their offices by parties of foreigners. Instead the honor was granted to their son and grandson, for which reason the two lines were called the Agiads and the Eurypontids. Legend of the double kingship After t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece. Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami. The decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state maintained its political independence until its forced integration into the Achaean League in 192 BC. The city nevertheless ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitane (Laconia)
Pitane ( grc, Πιτάνη), or Pitana (Πιτάνα), was a settlement that existed before the Dorian conquest. It was united with three other such settlements ( Mesoa, Limnae, and Cynosura) by a common sacrifice to Artemis, and eventually coalesced into ancient Sparta. Pitane is called a polis by Euripides, and is also mentioned as a place by Pindar. Herodotus, who had been there, calls it a deme. He also mentions a λόχος Πιτανάτης; and Caracalla, in imitation of antiquity, composed a λόχος Πιτανάτης of Spartans. It appears from the passage of Pindar quoted above, that Pitane was at the ford of the Eurotas, and consequently in the northern part of the city. It was the favourite and fashionable place of residence at Sparta, like Collytus at ancient Athens and Craneion at Corinth. We are also told that Pitane was near the temple and stronghold of Issorium. Pitane was also the home of the Agiads, one of the two Spartan dynasties. Its site is unlocate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycurgus (king Of Sparta)
Lycurgus ( grc-gre, Λυκοῦργος ; 219–217 BC) was a king of Sparta, who reigned from 219 BC until his death shortly before 211 BC. Of obscure background and possibly of non-royal descent, Lycurgus led Sparta in the Social War (220–217 BC), Social War against Macedon with varying success, and underwent multiple exiles during his checkered reign. He also effectively abolished the traditional Spartan diarchy by dethroning his fellow king Agesipolis III and ruling Sparta as its sole monarch. Life In 219 BC, after the death of the exiled king Cleomenes III in Egypt, the Spartans restored their traditional diarchy, installing Cleomenes's underaged grandnephew Agesipolis III as the king from the Agiad dynasty and an obscure Lycurgus as representative of the Eurypontid dynasty. According to the historian Polybius, Lycurgus was not in fact of royal descent, and had made good his claim to the throne by bribing the ephors with one silver talent each. Modern historians have doubted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
