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Sparta is a city of Laconia in the Peloponessus.
Laconia is a part of a vaster region, Lacedaemon, a
name which has also been used to denote the city of
Sparta. To the north of Laconia are
Argolis and
Arcadia, and to the west
Messenia.
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First king
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The first Laconian king was Lelex 2, a "son of
the soil" [see
AUTOCHTHONOUS] or,
as others say, a son of
Poseidon and Libya,
that is a descendant of Io,
since Libya is daughter of Epaphus 1, king of Egypt
and son of Zeus and
Io. Lelex 2 himself is said
to have arrived to Laconia from Egypt.
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Inventor of the mill
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Lelex 2 was succeeded on the throne by his son
Myles, the inventor of the mill. His mother was the
naiad Cleocharia. Another son, Polycaon 1,
emigrated and became the first king of
Messenia.
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Public works
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Yet another son of Lelex 2, Eurotas, who is also
called son of Myles, became king after the latter.
Eurotas had a daughter Sparta, who married
Lacedaemon, son of Zeus and
the Pleiad Taygete, after whom the Lacedaemonians
are called. It is told that Eurotas led down to the
sea the stagnant water on the plain, and when it
flowed away, a river-stream was formed which he
named Eurotas after himself.
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Lacedaemon
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After Eurotas, Lacedaemon became king and had by
Sparta a son Amyclas 1, and a daughter Eurydice 2.
According to some, this daughter married King
Acrisius of Argos, and
gave birth to Danae,
mother of Perseus 1,
the founder of Mycenae.
Lacedaemon called the inhabitants Lacedaemonians
after himself, and having founded a city, he called
it Sparta after his wife.
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Memorials and name of flower
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This curious and original custom of leaving
memorials behind was also followed by King
Lacedaemon's son and successor, King Amyclas 1, who
having founded a city near Sparta, called it
Amyclae. Amyclas 1 married Diomede 2, and among
their children is
Hyacinthus 1, a
handsome young man whom
Apollo loved, and
accidentally killed with the cast of a quoit. His
blood, which had stained the grass, transformed
into a flower.
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Two successors
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Argalus, son of Amyclas 1 and Diomede 2, became
king after his father, and on his own death was
succeeded by his brother Cynortes.
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Oebalus 1
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After Cynortes, one of his sons, Oebalus 1,
became king. Some say that Oebalus 1 married the
naiad Batia 2, while others say that his wife was
Gorgophone 2, daughter of
Perseus 1. It is said
that Gorgophone 2 was the first woman to marry a
second time, and that her husbands were brothers.
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Dispute concerning the kingdom
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Among the children of Oebalus 1 are
Tyndareus (father of
Helen), Icarius 1 (father
of Penelope,
Odysseus' wife), and
Hippocoon 2. These sons disputed for the kingdom,
and Hippocoon 2 expelled both Icarius 1 and
Tyndareus from
Lacedaemon, and became king of the Lacedaemonians.
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Occasion for war
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At this time, Heracles
1 was campaigning in the Peloponessus; he had
already captured Elis, and
after attacking Pylos, he
killed Neleus and his
sons except Nestor. When
Pylos was taken,
Heracles 1 marched
against Lacedaemon, because the Lacedaemonians had
supported the Pylians in their war against
Heracles 1, and also
because he wished to punish the sons of Hippocoon 2
for the death of Oeonus. This Oeonus, son of
Licymnius, had once visited Sparta with
Heracles 1, and was
killed by the sons of Hippocoon 2, for having
himself killed their dog that had attacked him.
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Invasion of Lacedaemon
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In order to invade Lacedaemon,
Heracles 1 requested
and obtained military assistance from King Cepheus
2 of Tegea (in Arcadia),
who at the beginning was reluctant to go to war, as
he feared the Argives could march against his city.
However, he was finally persuaded when
Heracles 1 provided a
lock of the hair of Medusa
1 that he received from
Athena. This lock, he
explained, used in a certain way, would protect
Tegea from any attack. During the invasion of
Lacedaemon, however, Cepheus 2 and his sons
perished in battle. Som say that Iphicles, son of
Amphitryon and
Alcmena and brother of
Heracles 1, was also
killed in this battle; however, others affirm that
Iphicles was wounded in the first battle fought by
Heracles 1 against
King Augeas of Elis, and
died later of his wound.
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King Tyndareus
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But as Hippocoon 2 and his sons were defeated
and dead, and Sparta subjugated,
Heracles 1 restored
Tyndareus, entrusting
the kingdom to him.
Tyndareus married
Leda and had children by
her: the DIOSCURI,
Clytaemnestra,
Helen, Timandra 1,
Phylonoe, and Phoebe 6. During his rule,
Helen was abducted by
Theseus, and later (when
Helen had been brought
back) many kings and princes of Hellas came to
Sparta as SUITORS OF
HELEN. On this occasion, The Oath of
Tyndareus was exacted
from the SUITORS.
Tyndareus gave
Penelope to
Odysseus, and
Helen to
Menelaus.
Clytaemnestra
married first Tantalus 3, and after him King
Agamemnon of
Mycenae, brother of
Menelaus. Timandra 1
married Echemus, king of the Arcadians, and
Phylonoe was made immortal by
Artemis. Some day or
other, Tyndareus died,
having bequeathed the kingdom of Sparta to his
son-in-law Menelaus.
Tyndareus is said to
have been raised from the dead by
Asclepius.
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King Menelaus
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Menelaus and
Helen reigned as king and
queen of Sparta when the Trojan
Paris came for a visit,
and violating all rules of hospitality, abducted
his host's wife and took her to
Troy. This outrage was
regarded by Menelaus
and the kings of Hellas who were bound by The Oath
of Tyndareus, as a
reason for waging war against
Troy.
After the war,
Menelaus and
Helen returned to Sparta,
having wandered in the Mediterranean for seven
years. Menelaus and
Helen never died because
they were made immortal by
Hera, and sent to the
Elysian Fields, but
on earth Menelaus was
succeeded on the throne by his nephew
Orestes 2, son of
Agamemnon.
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Dispute between the sons of
Agamemnon and
Achilles echoes
previous conflict
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Hermione, daughter
of Menelaus and
Helen, was nine years old
when she was abandoned by her mother. She married
Orestes 2, but when he
went mad after killing his mother
Clytaemnestra,
Neoptolemus, son of
Achilles, carried her
off, because she had previously been promised to
him at Troy by her father.
However, when Orestes 2
recovered his mind, he and his troops looked for
Neoptolemus, and
finding him at Delphi,
they murdered him and took
Hermione back.
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Extension of the kingdom of
Orestes 2
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King Orestes 2 ruled
over a vaster territory than his father. For when
Cylarabes died childless, leaving vacant the throne
of Argos,
Orestes 2 succeeded
him, thus adding this kingdom to his own.
Orestes 2 also
succeeded to the throne of
Sparta, for the
Lacedaemonians considered his claim to the throne
prior to that of Nicostratus and Megapenthes 1,
these being sons of
Menelaus by one or
perhaps two slave women, whereas
Orestes 2 was the son
of one of the daughters of King
Tyndareus. Besides
Sparta and Argos,
Orestes 2 also extended
his rule over the greater part of
Arcadia, and obeying the
oracle of Delphi, he
moved his capital from
Mycenae to
Arcadia.
Messenia was held in
ancient times by the line of
Neleus and
Nestor until some time
after the Trojan War;
then Orestes 2 annexed
the region to his kingdom, and
Messenia was ruled by
him and his descendants down to the return of the
HERACLIDES.
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The sons of Orestes
2
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When Orestes 2 died,
killed by the bite of a snake at Oresteum in
Arcadia, his son by
Hermione, Tisamenus 2,
came to the throne, while his bastard son by
Erigone 1 (daughter of
Aegisthus and
Clytaemnestra),
Penthilus 1, led the Aeolian colonisation, which
preceded the Ionian by four generations. He
advanced as far as Thrace sixty years after the
Trojan War, about the
time of the return of the
HERACLIDES to the
Peloponnesus.
Tisamenus 2 lost both life and kingdom when the
HERACLIDES Temenus 2
and Cresphontes invaded the country. With him
disappeared the dynasty of the
Pelopides, and the
HERACLIDES,
descendants of Perseus
1, took over.
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Two Royal Houses
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Casting lots after victory, the
HERACLIDES
Cresphontes and the twin brothers Procles 2 and
Eurysthenes 1 divided the territory they had
conquered, Messenia
being assigned to Cresphontes, and Sparta to the
twins.
The twins Procles 2 and Eurysthenes 1 were
bitter enemies, but as they had won by lot the
kingdom of Lacedaemon, they decided to rule with
two royal houses, and this is why there were two
kings in Sparta also in historical times.
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