Twin son of the Heraclid Aristodemus, who with his brother Procles became a joint first king of Sparta when the Dorians returned to the Peloponnese.1
Eurysthenes was a great-grandson of Heracles in the line that pressed the return to the Peloponnese: Hyllus begot Cleodaeus, Cleodaeus begot Aristomachus, and Aristomachus' three sons were Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus. Aristodemus, while the army lay at Naupactus, was struck dead by a thunderbolt, leaving twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, by Argia the daughter of Autesion.2
Pausanias preserves a different death for Aristodemus: that he was killed at Delphi by Apollo's arrow before the Dorians crossed, while others held he was slain by the sons of Pylades and Electra. Either way the boys came fatherless, and so when the Heraclidae returned in the reign of Tisamenus, Argos fell to Temenus and Messene to Cresphontes, but in Lacedaemon, because the sons of Aristodemus were twins, two royal houses arose and reigned together, an arrangement they say the Pythian priestess approved.3
When the conquered land was divided by lot among the leaders, Temenus and the two sons of Aristodemus, Procles and Eurysthenes, cast stones into a pitcher of water, while Cresphontes, coveting Messene, threw in a clod of earth that dissolved so that his lot would not be drawn; thus the brothers received Lacedaemon.4
Though they shared the Spartan throne, Eurysthenes and Procles were bitter enemies whose quarrel lasted all their lives; yet they joined together to help their mother's brother Theras settle his colony on Calliste, the island afterward called Thera.5
Eurysthenes, the elder of the two, had a son named Agis, and after Agis the family descended from Eurysthenes was called the Agiadae, the senior royal house of Sparta.6
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