This article will be permanently flagged as inappropriate and made unaccessible to everyone. Are you certain this article is inappropriate? Excessive Violence Sexual Content Political / Social
Email Address:
Article Id: WHEBN0000234718 Reproduction Date:
This article is part of the series: Spartan Constitution
This list of kings of Sparta details the important rulers of the Greek city-state of Sparta in the Peloponnesus. Sparta was unusual among Greek city-states in that it maintained its kingship past the Archaic age. It was even more unusual in that it had two kings simultaneously, called Archagetai,[1][n 1] coming from two separate lines. According to tradition, the two lines, the Agiads and Eurypontids, were respectively descended from the twins Eurysthenes and Procles, the descendants of Heracles who supposedly conquered Sparta two generations after the Trojan War. The dynasties themselves, however, were named after the twins' grandsons, the kings Agis I and Eurypon, respectively. The Agiad line was regarded as being senior to the Eurypontid line.[3] Although there are lists of the earlier purported Kings of Sparta, there is little evidence for the existence of any kings before the middle of the 6th century BC or so. Spartan kings received a recurring posthumous hero cult like that of the Dorian kings of Cyrene.[4] The kings' firstborns sons, as heirs apparent, were the only Spartan boys expressly exempt from the Agoge, however they were allowed to take part if they so wished, and this endowed them with increased prestige when they ascended the throne.
The ancient Greeks named males after their fathers, producing a patronymic by infixing -id-; for example, the sons of Atreus were the Atreids. In the case of royal houses the patronymic formed from the founder or an early significant figure became the age of the dynasty. A ruling family might in this way have a number of dynastic names; for example, Agis I named the Agiads, but he was a Heraclid, and so were his descendants.
In cases where the descent was not known or was scantily known the Greeks made a few standard assumptions based on their cultural ideology. A people was treated as a tribe, presumed to have descended from an ancestor bearing its name. He must have been a king, who founded a dynasty of his name. This mythologizing extended even to place names. They were presumed to have been named after kings and divinities. Kings often became divinities, in their religion.
The Spartan kings as Heracleidae claimed descent from Hercules, who through his mother was descended from Perseus. Disallowed the Peloponnesus, he embarked on a life of wandering. They became ascendant in the Eurotas valley with the Dorians who, at least in legend, entered it during an invasion called the return of the Heracleidae; driving out the Atreids and at least some of the Mycenaean population.
The dynasty was named after its second king, Agis.
The dynasty is named after its third king Eurypon. Not shown is Lycurgus, the lawgiver, a younger son of the Eurypontids, who served a brief regency either for the infant Charilaus (780–750 BC) or for Labotas (870–840 BC) the Agiad.
Following Cleomenes III's defeat against Antigonus III Doson of Macedon and the Achaean League in the Battle of Sellasia, the Spartan system began to break down. Sparta was a republic from 221 to 219 BC. The dual monarchy was restored in 219 BC.
The Achaean League annexed Sparta in 192 BC.
Ancient Greece, Thebes, Greece, Battle of Thermopylae, Greek mythology, Roman Republic
Roman Empire, Athens, Philosophy, Plato, Classical Antiquity
Helios, Sparta, Greek mythology, God, Myles
Ancient Egypt, Cyprus, Ionia, Ionian Revolt, Herodotus
Biography, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Ethics, Greek mythology
Herodotus, Sparta, Plutarch, Greek mythology, Cleomenes I
Aristodemus, Heracles, Greek mythology, Isaac Newton, Agis I
Philip II of Macedon, Athens, Sparta, Plutarch, Greek mythology
Sparta, Athens, Leonidas I, Anaxandrides II, Greek language