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Agiads
The Agiad dynasty (, ''Agiádai'') was one of the two royal families of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta. They ruled jointly along with the Eurypontid dynasty, possibly from the 8th century BC onwards, being the senior of the two houses. The hypothetical founder of the dynasty was Agis I, possibly the first king of Sparta at the end of the 10th century BC, who subsequently gave his name to the dynasty. The two lines, who maintained an enduring rivalry, were, according to tradition, respectively descended from the twins Eurysthenes and Procles, both descendants of Heracles. The most famous member of the Agiad dynasty was Leonidas I, known for his heroic death at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. The last Agiad king was Agesipolis III, deposed by the Eurypontid Lycurgus in 215 BC. History In order to explain the peculiarity of the Spartan two kings, the Spartans elaborated a legend saying that Aristodemos—the first king of Sparta—had twins, Eurysthenes and Prokles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Kings Of Sparta
For most of its history, the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek city-state of Sparta in the Peloponnese was ruled by kings. Sparta was unusual among the Greek Polis, city-states in that it maintained its kingship past the archaic Greece, Archaic age. It was even more unusual in that it had diarchy, two kings simultaneously, who were called the ''archagetai'', coming from two separate dynasty, lines. According to tradition, the two lines, the Agiad dynasty, 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.Cartledge, Paul, ''The Spartans'', Vintage Books, 2003. Although there are lists of the earlier purported Kings of Sparta, there is little evidence for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heracleidae
The Heracleidae (; ) or Heraclids were the numerous descendants of Heracles, especially applied in a narrower sense to the descendants of Hyllus, the eldest of his four sons by Deianira (Hyllus was also sometimes thought of as Heracles' son by Melite). Other Heracleidae included Macaria, Lamos, Manto, Bianor, Tlepolemus, and Telephus. These Heraclids were a group of Dorian kings who conquered the Peloponnesian kingdoms of Mycenae, Sparta and Argos; according to the literary tradition in Greek mythology, they claimed a right to rule through their ancestor. Since Karl Otfried Müller's ''Die Dorier'' (1830, English translation 1839), I. ch. 3, their rise to dominance has been associated with a " Dorian invasion". Though details of genealogy differ from one ancient author to another, the cultural significance of the mythic theme, that the descendants of Heracles, exiled after his death, returned some generations later to reclaim land that their ancestors had held in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agis I
Agis I (Greek: ) was a king of Sparta and eponym of the Agiad dynasty. He was possibly the first historical king of Sparta, reigning at the end of the tenth century BC, during the emergence of the Dorians in Laconia. He is said by most ancient authors to have conquered the region and enslaved the helots. Life Agis was the eponymous founder of the Agiad dynasty, one of the two royal families in Sparta (the other being the Eurypontids). The Greek historian Herodotus makes him the son of Lathria and Eurysthenes, who was the elder of the twin sons of Aristodemus—the first Heraclid king of Sparta as great-great-grandson of Herakles. However, Eurysthenes was certainly invented in order to extend the length of Spartan rule to the fall of the Mycenean civilisation—some time after 1200—while there was in fact a gap of more than two centuries before the arrival of the Dorians in Laconia. For the same reason, early Spartan kings were given a reign of 40 years on average, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurysthenes
Eurysthenes (, "widely ruling") was king of Sparta and one of the Heracleidae in Greek mythology. He was a son of Aristodemus and Argia, daughter of Autesion. He had a twin brother, Procles. Together they received the land of Lacedaemon after Cresphontes, Temenus and Aristodemus defeated Tisamenus, the last Achaean king of the Peloponnesus. Eurysthenes married Lathria, daughter of Thersander, King of Kleonae, sister of his sister-in-law Anaxandra, and was the father of his successor, Agis I, founder of the Agiad dynasty of the Kings of Sparta. The title of ''archēgetēs'', "founding magistrate," was explicitly denied to Eurysthenes and Procles by the later Spartan government on the grounds that they were not founders of a state, but were maintained in their offices by parties of foreigners. Instead the honor was granted to their son and grandson, for which reason the two lines were called the Agiads and the Eurypontids. Legend of the double kingship The story of the double k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Procles
In Greek legends, Procles (, "the renowned") was one of the Heracleidae, a great-great-great-grandson of Heracles, and a son of Aristodemus and Argia. His twin was Eurysthenes. Together they received the land of Lacedaemon after Cresphontes, Temenus and Aristodemus defeated Tisamenus, the last Achaean king of the Peloponnesus. Procles married Anaxandra, daughter of Thersander, King of Kleonoe, sister of his sister-in-law Lathria, and was the father of Soos and the grandfather of Eurypon, founder of the Eurypontid dynasty of the Kings of Sparta. The title of ''archēgetēs'', "founding magistrate," was explicitly denied to Eurysthenes and Procles by the later Spartan government on the grounds that they were not founders of a state, but were maintained in their offices by parties of foreigners. Instead the honor was granted to their son and grandson, for which reason the two lines were called the Agiads and the Eurypontids. Legend of the double kingship After the death o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soos (king Of Sparta)
Soos () was a fictional king of Sparta, created in the 4th century BC in order to harmonise the list of the two Spartan dynasties. Various deeds were also attached to his reign, dated by ancient authors to the 11th century BC. Life Soos is supposed to be the son of Procles, the alleged founder of the Eurypontid dynasty, one of the two royal family in Sparta (the other being the Agiads). However, modern historians consider that he was invented during the 4th century BC. Soos is absent from the lists of kings given by Herodotus, who wrote in the 5th century. He makes his first appearance in Plato's dialogue '' Cratylus'', but he is only described there as a nobleman, not a king. A bit later, the historian Ephorus implicitly recognized him as king by referring to Lycurgus as the sixth Eurypontid in line from Procles, which is only possible if Soos is counted as king. The main reason for his addition was the need to synchronize the reigns of the Eurypontid Theopompus and the Agiad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitane (Laconia)
Pitane (), or Pitana (Πιτάνα), was a settlement that existed before the Dorian conquest. It was united with three other such settlements ( Mesoa, Limnae, and Cynosura) by a common sacrifice to Artemis, and eventually coalesced into ancient Sparta. Pitane is called a polis by Euripides, and is also mentioned as a place by Pindar. Herodotus, who had been there, calls it a deme. He also mentions a λόχος Πιτανάτης ("company of Pitane"); and Caracalla, in imitation of antiquity, composed a λόχος Πιτανάτης of Spartans. Thucydides claims that the "λόχος Πιτανάτης" cited by Herodotus never actually existed, and cites the story as an example of baseless hearsay propagated by "other Hellenes." It appears from the passage of Pindar quoted above, that Pitane was at the ford of the Eurotas, and consequently in the northern part of the city. It was the favourite and fashionable place of residence at Sparta, like Collytus at ancient Athens and Cra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and communities. Prior to the Roman period, most of these regions were officially unified only once under the Kingdom of Macedon from 338 to 323 BC. In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Three centuries after the decline of Mycenaean Greece during the Bronze Age collapse, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece, from the Greco-Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens and the Peloponnesian War. The u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycurgus (lawgiver)
Lycurgus (; ) was the legendary lawgiver of Sparta, credited with the formation of its (), involving political, economic, and social reforms to produce a military-oriented Spartan society in accordance with the Delphic oracle. The Spartans in the historical period honoured him as a god. As a historical figure, almost nothing is known for certain about him, including when he lived and what he did in life. The stories of him place him at multiple times. Nor is it clear when the political reforms attributed to him, called the Great Rhetra, occurred. Ancient dates range from – putting aside the implausibly early Xenophonic 11th century BC – the early ninth century () to as late as early eighth century (). There remains no consensus as to when he lived; some modern scholars deny that he existed at all. The reforms at various times attributed to him touch all aspects of Spartan society. They included the creation of the Spartan constitution (in most traditions a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charilaus
Charilaus (), also spelled Charilaos, Charillos, or Charillus, was a king of Sparta in the middle of the 8th century BC. He was probably the first historical king of the Eurypontid dynasty. Life and reign Sparta was a diarchy, with two kings of equal powers from distinct dynasties. However, in its earliest history, Sparta was likely ruled by only one king, from the Agiad dynasty. In the 8th century, a synoecism occurred on the site of Sparta, where four villages merged to create the polis of Sparta. At this occasion, two of the villages ( Limnai and Kynosoura) probably requested to also have a king from their territory sharing power with the Agiad one, who was based in the other two villages ( Pitana and Mesoa). In later times, the Spartans crafted a mythical story making the second dynasty—the Eurypontids—as old as the Agiads, notably by inventing several kings to make the two dynasties symmetrical. Modern scholars consider instead that Charilaus was the first historica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archelaus Of Sparta
Archelaus (, ''Ἀrkhélaos''; reigned from c. 790 to c. 760 BC) was the 7th Agiad dynasty king of Sparta. He was a son of Agesilaus I. Together with Charilaus, he conquered Elis. During his reign he also conquered the city of Aegys and sold the inhabitants into slavery. He was succeeded as king by his son, Teleclus Teleclus or Teleklos (Greek: Τήλεκλος) was the 8th Agiad dynasty king of Sparta during the eighth century BC. He was the son of King Archelaus and grandson of King Agesilaus I. Pausanias reports that Teleclus' reign saw the conquest of .... References 8th-century BC monarchs 8th-century BC Spartans Agiad kings of Sparta {{AncientGreece-royal-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synoecism
Synoecism or synecism ( ; , ''sunoikismos'', ), also spelled synoikism ( ), was originally the amalgamation of villages in Ancient Greece into ''poleis'', or city-states. Etymologically, the word means "dwelling together (''syn'') in the same house (''oikos'')." Subsequently, any act of civic union between polities of any size was described by the word ''synoikismos'', in addition to the Latinized synoecism. Synoecism is opposed to Greek dioecism (διοικισμóς, ''dioikismos''), the creation of independent communities within the territory of a polis. Synoecism is the result of a few major factors, mainly an increase in population density of adjacent settlements, with an incorporation proposed for economic, political or ideological advantages, such as the synoecism of the communities of Attica into Athens, or by imposition of a ruling power, such as the synoecism of Messenia into the newly built city of Messene. Additionally, synoecism may be the result of less active forc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
