Aristodemus

Brother of Temenus and Cresphontes, the third Heraclid leader — killed at Naupactus before the crossing of the Gulf of Corinth. In Apollodorus *Bibliotheca* 2.8.2 the death is by a thunderbolt from Apollo, punishment for a failed consultation; other sources have him shot from ambush. His share of the command passed at once to his twin sons Eurysthenes and Procles, who after the invasion drew Lacedaemon by lot at the partition and — with both twins having equal claim and neither willing to yield — founded the dual kingship of Sparta that the classical state preserved to the end: the Agiad royal house from Eurysthenes, the Eurypontid from Procles (Paus. 3.1.5–7; Hdt. 6.52, where the Spartans themselves argued independently that Aristodemus had crossed alive and been their founder-king). Herodotus flags the disagreement between the Spartan version and the canonical 'killed at Naupactus' version preserved in all other Greek authorities.

Associated Places