Areus II ( grc, Ἀρεύς Β΄) was Agiad

King of Sparta For most of its history, the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta in the Peloponnese was ruled by kings. Sparta was unusual among the Greek city-states in that it maintained its kingship past the Archaic age. It was even more unusual in that it had ...

from 262 to 254 BC. He never reigned as he was still a child when he died. He was succeeded by his cousin

Leonidas II Leonidas II (; grc, Λεωνίδας Β΄, ''Leōnídas B, "Lion's son, Lion-like") was the 28th Agiad King of Sparta from 254 to 242 BC and from 241 to 235 BC. Biography Leonidas was the son of Cleonymus and grandson of king Cleomenes II (), ...

, who had served as regent.

Life

Areus was the son of Acrotatus () and Chilonis, who belonged to the Agiad dynasty, one of the two royal families at Sparta (the other being the

Eurypontids For most of its history, the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta in the Peloponnese was ruled by kings. Sparta was unusual among the Greek city-states in that it maintained its kingship past the Archaic age. It was even more unusual in that it had ...

). He was named after his grandfather Areus I (). His father died early in his reign at the Battle of

Megalopolis A megalopolis () or a supercity, also called a megaregion, is a group of metropolitan areas which are perceived as a continuous urban area through common systems of transport, economy, resources, ecology, and so on. They are integrated enou ...

in 262, towards the end of the

Chremonidean War The Chremonidean War (267–261 BC) was fought by a coalition of some Greek city-states and Ptolemaic Egypt against Antigonid Macedonian domination. It ended in a Macedonian victory which confirmed Antigonid control over the city-states of ...

, during which Areus I had likewise fallen in battle three years earlier. Areus II was still a minor at the time, and his cousin

Leonidas Leonidas I (; grc-gre, Λεωνίδας; died 19 September 480 BC) was a king of the Greek city-state of Sparta, and the 17th of the Agiad line, a dynasty which claimed descent from the mythological demigod Heracles. Leonidas I was son of King ...

was appointed regent. Leonidas was the son of Cleonymus, who had also been regent to his nephew Areus I in 309. However, Areus II never reigned as he died still a child in 254, and Leonidas succeeded him (). Areus II was honoured by a

proxeny Proxeny or ( grc-gre, προξενία) in ancient Greece was an arrangement whereby a citizen (chosen by the city) hosted foreign ambassadors at his own expense, in return for honorary titles from the state. The citizen was called (; plural: o ...

decree by the city of

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracl ...

in 255/254. This decree shows the transformation of the Spartan kingship in the third century, as the honours received by the infant king are similar to those of the

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium i ...

monarchs of the period, whereas Spartan kings usually had a limited role in the

Spartan constitution The Spartan Constitution (or Spartan politeia) are the government and laws of the classical Greek city-state of Sparta. All classical Greek city-states had a politeia; the politeia of Sparta however, was noted by many classical authors for ...

. The decree also mentions Chilonis, Areus' mother, in the manner of the Ptolemaic dynasty of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

, which was allied with Sparta at the time and whose court Areus I had tried to emulate.Walthall, "Becoming Kings", p. 139 (note 36).

References

Bibliography

* D. Alexander Walthall, "Becoming Kings: Spartan ''Basileia'' in the Hellenistic Period", in

Nino Luraghi Nino Luraghi (born 30 November 1964) is an Italian historian of ancient Greece, who holds the Wykeham Professorship of Ancient History at Oxford University. Life Luraghi is the son of Raimondo Luraghi (1921–2012), an Italian resistance fighte ...

(editor), ''The Splendors and Miseries of Ruling Alone, Encounters with Monarchy from Archaic Greece to the Hellenistic Mediterranean'', Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2013. 254 BC deaths 3rd-century BC monarchs in Europe 3rd-century BC Spartans Agiad kings of Sparta Year of birth unknown Monarchs who died as children {{AncientGreece-bio-stub