List of kings of Sparta

Ancient Greeks named males after their fathers, producing a patronymic with the suffix -id-; for example, the sons of Atreus were the Atreids. For royal houses, the patronymic was formed from the name of the founder or of an early significant figure of a dynasty. A ruling family might thus have a number of dynastic names; for example, Agis I named the Agiads, but he was a Heraclid and so were his descendants.

If the descent was not known or was scantily known, the Greeks made a few standard assumptions based on their cultural ideology. Agiad people were 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. That 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 Lelegid were the descendants of Lelex (a back-formation), ancestor of the Leleges, an ancient tribe inhabiting the Eurotas valley before the Greeks, who, according to the mythological descent, amalgamated with the Greeks

The Lacedaemonids contain Greeks from the age of legend, now treated as being the Bronze Age in Greece. In the language of mythologic descent, the kingship passed from the Leleges to the Greeks.

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The Atreidai (Latin Atreidae) belong to the Late Bronze Age, or the Mycenaean Period. In mythology, they were the Perseids. As the name of Atreus is attested in Hittite documents, this dynasty may well be protohistoric.

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The Spartan kings as Heracleidae claimed descent from Heracles, who through his mother was descended from Perseus. Disallowed the Peloponnesus, Heracles embarked on a life of wandering. The Heracleidae 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.

File:Pauly-Wissowa III,1, 0067.jpg

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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.

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Currently known two lists of kings:

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According to Herodotus, VIII: 131

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According to Pausanias, III, 7: 5-6

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The Achaean League annexed Sparta in 192 BC.

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;References

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• Paul Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia, A Regional History 1300–362 BC, London, Routledge, 2002 (originally published in 1979). {{ISBN|0-415-26276-3}}
• The Cyclopædia, Volume 20. By Abraham Rees. Page [https://books.google.com/books?id=rvH8ra5JriwC&pg=PT157 157]+ (List of kings of Sparta on pg. [https://books.google.com/books?id=rvH8ra5JriwC&pg=PT164 164]).
• Sir William Smith, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uUPhhcdSACQC A New Classical Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, Mythology, and Geography]: Partly Based Upon the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Harper & Brothers, 1851.
• Sir William Smith. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ok4pAAAAYAAJ Abaeus-Dysponteus]. J. Murray, 1890.
• Sir William Smith. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology: [https://books.google.com/books?id=diQkGQcmb7QC Earinus-Nyx]. J. Murray, 1876.
• William Smith (Ed.) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology: [https://books.google.com/books?id=f-5WAAAAMAAJ Oarses-Zygia]. J. Murray, 1880.

• [http://www.livius.org Livius]
• [https://www.livius.org/so-st/sparta/agiads_and_eurypontids.html Eurypontids and Agiads] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051118200031/https://www.livius.org/so-st/sparta/agiads_and_eurypontids.html |date=2005-11-18 }} by Jona Lendering

{{Kings of Laconia & Sparta}}

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Sparta, Kings

Sparta