Persecuted by Eurystheus after Heracles' death, the hero's sons at last reclaimed the Peloponnese: Hyllus failed when Echemus slew him, but Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus cast lots for Argos, Messenia, and Sparta — driving out the Achaean Tisamenus and founding the Dorian royal lines.1
Eurystheus' end⚖
When Eurystheus harried the orphaned Heraclids, his own sons fell in battle and he fled toward the Scironian cliffs. Hyllus overtook him, cut off his head, and gave it to Alcmena — though Pausanias sets his tomb near Megara and says Iolaus, rejuvenated by Hebe, was the slayer there.2
Hyllus and Echemus
Hyllus married Iole as his father had commanded and asked Delphi how the Return should succeed. Misreading the oracle's 'third crop' as three years, he marched into the Peloponnese too soon. Echemus, king of Tegea, accepted his challenge to single combat and killed him — so the true Return waited for his descendants.3
The three brothers
From Hyllus through Cleodaeus came Aristomachus, whose three sons — Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus — at last understood the oracle: the third crop meant the third generation. With the Aetolian Oxylus as guide they invaded the Peloponnese, defeated Tisamenus son of Orestes, and cast lots for the three lands.4
Argos, Messenia, Sparta
Temenus took Argos and gave his daughter Hyrnetho to Deiphontes. Cresphontes won Messenia and wed Merope, but the usurper Polyphontes slew him until their son Aepytus avenged the murder — Pausanias remembers that Perieres and the earlier Messenian kings had dwelt at Andania before the royal seat moved seaward to Arene and later Stenyclerus. Aristodemus died at Delphi — struck by Apollo's bolt in one account — leaving twin sons Eurysthenes and Procles to found the two Spartan kingships.5
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