Cleitor, son of Azan and grandson of Arcas, was the most powerful of the Arcadian kings of his generation and the eponymous founder of the city Cleitor in the northern Arcadian highlands. He dwelt at Lycosura and named the city he raised after himself.1
When Arcas divided Arcadia among his sons, his eldest, Azan, took a portion of the land; and to Azan, Pausanias relates, a son Cleitor was born, set beside his cousins Aleus son of Apheidas and the five sons of Elatus, the heirs of the other brothers. This whole line hangs on a single thread, for Pausanias alone preserves Azan and his son Cleitor.2
On the death of Azan the first athletic contests in Arcadia were held in his honour, horse-races for certain, Pausanias notes, though he will not vouch for what other events were run. Cleitor outstripped his kinsmen in power: dwelling at Lycosura, he became the most powerful of all the kings of the line, and founded a city which he named Cleitor after himself, while his cousin Aleus was content to hold his own father's portion.3
His city long outlived him. In Pausanias' own day Cleitor stood on a level plain ringed by low hills in the north of Arcadia, its sanctuaries of Demeter, Asclepius and Eileithyia still standing, and the periegete records once more that the place took its name from Cleitor the son of Azan.4
For all his power, Cleitor died childless, and with him Azan's branch of the royal house came to an end. The sovereignty of the Arcadians did not stay in his line but devolved upon Aepytus son of Elatus, who, ruling in his stead, was himself soon to die out hunting, killed not by any great beast but by a small seps he never saw.5
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