Son of Zeus by the Pleiad Taygete, the king after whom the country of Lacedaemon was named; by Sparta, daughter of Eurotas, he fathered Amyclas and Eurydice.1
The line runs through the daughters of Atlas: Taygete had by Zeus a son, Lacedaemon, after whom the country of Lacedaemon is called. Hyginus likewise sets him among the sons gods begot on mortal women, counting Lacedaemon born of Zeus and Taygete, daughter of Atlas.2
Pausanias tells the Laconian succession plainly: Eurotas, having no male issue, left the kingdom to Lacedaemon, whose mother was Taygete, after whom the mountain was named, while by report his father was none other than Zeus. Wedded to Sparta, daughter of Eurotas, he first changed the names of the land and its inhabitants, calling them after himself, then founded and named after his wife a city still called Sparta in Pausanias' own day. His son Amyclas in turn built a town in Laconia and fathered Hyacinthus.3
By Sparta, daughter of Eurotas — himself a son of the earth-born Lelex by the Naiad nymph Cleocharia — Lacedaemon had a son Amyclas and a daughter Eurydice, whom Acrisius married.4
The Lacedaemonians held that he founded their worship of the Graces: against the Boeotians, who reckoned three, they said the Graces were two, instituted by Lacedaemon son of Taygete, who gave them the names Cleta and Phaenna. Pausanias also records his hero-shrine at Alesiae in Laconia, where he is named the son of Taygete.5
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