The man who killed Xanthus, last sole king in Pausanias' Theban roll — not in fair fight but by craft, in a duel whose outcome persuaded the Thebans to divide their government among several magistrates.1
Pausanias records only the duel and its constitutional consequence: Xanthus fought Andropompus, and Andropompus killed him by craft and not in fair fight. After Xanthus' death the Thebans thought it better to entrust the government to several people, rather than to let everything depend on one man.2
Nothing else is told of this Andropompus — neither his lineage nor his later fate — only that his treacherous victory closed the long roll of Theban kings that had begun with Cadmus and ended with the Peneleid grandson of the Trojan captain Peneleos.3
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story