Aristodemus

A son of Aristomachus, and a descendant of Heracles, was married to Argea, by whom he became the father of Eurysthenes and Procles.

According to some traditions Aristodemus was killed at Naupactus by a flash of lightning, just as he was setting out on his expedition into the Peloponnese,1 or by an arrow of Apollo at Delphi because he had consulted Heracles about the return of the Heraclidae instead of the Delphic oracle.2 According to this tradition, Eurysthenes and Procles were the first Heraclid kings of Lacedaemon; but a Lacedaemonian tradition stated, that Aristodemus himself came to Sparta, was the first king of his race, and died a natural death.3

Another Heraclid of this name, the grandfather of the above, is mentioned by Euripides.4

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References

Notes

  1. Pseudo-Apollodorus. The Library ii, 8.2 ff.
  2. Pausanias. Description of Greece iii, 1.5.
  3. Herodotus. Histories vi, 52; Xenophon. Agesilaus, 8.7.
  4. ap. the Scholiast on Pindar's Isthmian Odes iv, 104.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.