Chosen king of Thebes when Autesion departed for the Dorians — in Pausanias' reckoning, a son of Opheltes son of Peneleos, and one of the last sole rulers before the Thebans divided the government among several magistrates.1
Pausanias closes the Theban monarchy with a short roll of Peneleid kings. On Autesion's departure, Damasichthon was chosen — son of Opheltes, son of Peneleos the Boeotian captain who had led Thebes to Troy in young Tisamenus' stead and fallen to Eurypylus son of Telephus.2
This Damasichthon had a son Ptolemy, who was the father of Xanthus. When Xanthus fought a duel with Andropompus and was killed by craft rather than in fair fight, the Thebans changed their constitution: hereafter they thought it better to entrust the government to several people, rather than to let everything depend on one man — the end, in Pausanias' telling, of single kingship at seven-gated Thebes.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