Temenus

Great-great-grandson of Heracles (through Hyllus → Cleodaeus → Aristomachus → Temenus) and senior of the three brothers — Temenus, Cresphontes, Aristodemus — who led the definitive Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese four generations after their ancestor's death (Apollodorus *Bibliotheca* 2.8.2–5). At Naupactus he took command after his brother Aristodemus was killed before the crossing. In the partition by lot at Argos after the successful invasion, he drew the Argive share and founded the Temenid royal house of Argos that the classical city still remembered (Pausanias 2.18.7 + 2.19.1; Diodorus 4.58). In the later tradition he was murdered by his own sons for favouring his son-in-law Deiphontes over them — a foundation-cycle familiar enough to serve as the plot of several lost tragedies.

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