Aristodemus, youngest son of Aristomachus and brother of Temenus and Cresphontes, was the Heraclid whose line received Lacedaemon when the conquered Peloponnese was divided; he died before the Dorian Return was achieved, leaving twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, from whom the two royal houses of Sparta descended.1
He was the third of the three brothers who led the descendants of Heracles back into the Peloponnese — Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus, the sons of Aristomachus. When the kingdoms were apportioned, Cresphontes asked for Messenia on the ground that he was older than Aristodemus, marking Aristodemus as the youngest of the three.2
Aristodemus did not live to see the Return achieved. As the Heraclid army gathered at Naupactus and built its ships, Apollodorus records that he was struck dead by a thunderbolt, leaving twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, by Argia, daughter of Autesion.3
Pausanias preserves rival traditions of his death: some hold that Aristodemus simply died at Delphi before the Dorians crossed into the Peloponnese; those who magnify his fate say Apollo shot him for failing to consult the oracle, having already learned from Heracles, who met him on the way, that the Dorians would make the Return; while the truer account, Pausanias judges, is that he was murdered by the sons of Pylades and Electra, cousins of Tisamenus son of Orestes. By every account he was already dead at the Return.4
In the casting of lots for the conquered lands, Temenus and the two sons of Aristodemus, Procles and Eurysthenes, threw stones into the pitcher of water, while Cresphontes, wanting Messene, threw in a clod of earth that dissolved; so the other two lots came up, and Lacedaemon fell to the line of Aristodemus.5
Because his sons were twins, two royal houses arose at Lacedaemon, the arrangement approved (so they say) by the Pythian priestess. Their mother was Argeia, daughter of Autesion and sister of Theras, who served as the boys' guardian.6
The twins Procles and Eurysthenes were bitter enemies though born together. From Eurysthenes descended the Agiad house, and from Procles the line first called the Procleidae and later, after Eurypon, the Eurypontidae — the two dynasties that held the dual Spartan kingship.7
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
