Description of Greece

​To Eurysthenes, who was the elder of the children of Aristodemus in age, they say there was born a son Agis; and from him they call the family of Eurysthenes Agiadae. In his time, when Patreus, the son of Preugenes, was founding a city in Achaea, which they call Patrae even in our day after this Patreus, the Lacedaemonians helped him in the settlement. They also helped Gras, the son of Echelas, the son of Penthilus, the son of Orestes, who was setting out with ships for a colony. And Gras indeed was going to occupy the land between Ionia and Mysia, which is called Aeolis in our day; but his ancestor Penthilus had seized Lesbos, the island opposite this mainland, even before.

​While Echestratus the son of Agis was reigning in Sparta, the Lacedaemonians expelled the Cynurians of military age, bringing the charge that, although the Argives were their kinsmen, robbers from the Cynurian territory were committing outrages in Argolis, and they themselves were openly making raids into the land. The Cynurians are said to be Argives by descent, and they say that their founder was Cynurus, the son of Perseus.

​Not many years later, Labotas, the son of Echestratus, obtained the rule in Sparta. Herodotus, in his account concerning Croesus, says that this Labotas, when he was a child, was under the guardianship of Lycurgus who established the laws; and he gives him the name Leobotes and not Labotas. Then for the first time it seemed good to the Lacedaemonians to wage war against the Argives; and they made charges against them that, although they themselves had taken the Cynurian land, the Argives were cutting off parts of it, and were inciting their perioikoi, who were their subjects, to revolt. At that time, although they went to war, they say that nothing worthy of mention was achieved by either side.

​But as for those who ruled in succession from this house, Doryssus the son of Labotas, and Agesilaus the son of Doryssus, fate overtook them both in a short time. Lycurgus also established the laws for the Lacedaemonians during the reign of Agesilaus; and some say that he established them having been instructed about them by the Pythia, while others say that he introduced them as being Cretan customs. The Cretans say that these laws were established for them by Minos, and that Minos deliberated about the laws not without a god. And Homer also, it seems to me, hinted at the lawgiving of Minos in these verses: “And among them is Cnossus, a great city, where Minos ruled for nine years, the companion of great Zeus. “ ​Of Lycurgus, then, I will make mention also in the subsequent parts of the narrative; and the son of Agesilaus was Archelaus. Under him, the Lacedaemonians, having conquered in war, enslaved Aegys, a city of the perioikoi, having suspected that the Aegytans favored the cause of the Arcadians. And Charilaus, the king of the other house, helped Archelaus to capture Aegys, but as for all the things he himself did when leading the Lacedaemonians on his own, we will make mention of these too as soon as the narrative moves on to those called Eurypontidae.

​The son of Archelaus was Teleclus; in his time, the Lacedaemonians, having conquered in war, captured the cities of the perioikoi, Amyclae, Pharis, and Geranthrae, which were still held by the Achaians. Of these, the people of Pharis and Geranthrae, terrified by the onset of the Dorians, were allowed to depart from the Peloponnese under truce; but the people of Amyclae they did not expel by a sudden inroad, but only after they had held out for a long time in the war and displayed deeds of no small renown. And the Dorians also showed this by raising a trophy over the Amyclaeans, as this was what was most worthy of mention for them at that time. Not long after these events, Teleclus was killed by the Messenians in the sanctuary of Artemis; and this sanctuary had been built on the border of Laconia and Messenia in a place called Limnae.

​When Teleclus died, Alcamenes, the son of Teleclus, succeeded to the rule; and the Lacedaemonians sent Charmidas, the son of Euthys, a man of distinction in Sparta, to Crete, both to put an end to the civil strifes for the Cretans, and to persuade the Cretans to abandon those small towns which were too far from the sea and otherwise weak, and in their stead to co-found those situated in favorable spots along the coastal route. They also destroyed Helos, a small town on the sea held by the Achaians, and defeated in battle the Argives who came to the aid of the Helots.