Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/346

330 HISTORY OF SKEECE. assumed as matters of course ; the proceedings ascribed to the early Spartan kings are such only as might beseem the palmy days when Sparta was undisputed mistress of all Laconia. The succession of Messenian kings, beginning with Kresphon- tes, the Herakleid brother, and continuing from father to son, jEpytus, Glaukus, Isthnius, Dotadas, Subotas, Phintas, the last being contemporary with Teleklus, is still less marked by inci- dent than that of the early Spartan kings. It is said that the reign of Kresphontes was troubled, and himself ultimately slain by mutinies among his subjects : ^Epytus, then a youth, having escaped into Arcadia, was afterwards restored to the throne by the Arcadians, Spartans, and Argeians. 1 From .^Epytus, the Messenian line of kings are stated to have been denominated JEpytids in preference to Herakleids, which affords another proof of their intimate connection with the Arcadians, since -3py- tus was a very ancient name in Arcadian heroic antiquity. 2 There is considerable resemblance between the alleged behavior of Kresphontes on first settling at Stenyklerus, and that of Eurys- thenes and Prokles at Sparta, so far as we gather from state- ments alike meagre and uncertified, resting on the authority of Ephorus. Both are said to have tried to place the preexisting inhabitants of the country on a level with their own Dorian bands ; both provoked discontents and incurred obloquy, with their con- temporaries as well as with posterity, by the attempt ; nor did either permanently succeed. Kresphontes was forced to concen- trate all his Dorians in Stenyklerus, while after all, the discontents ended in his violent death. And Agis, the son of Eurysthenes, is said to have reversed all the liberal tentatives of his father, so as to bring the whole of Laconia into subjection and dependence on the Dorians at Sparta, with the single exception of Amykloe. So odious to the Spartan Dorians was the conduct of Eurysthenes, that they refused to acknowledge him as their O3kist, and conferred that honor upon Agis ; the two lines of kings being called Agiada 1 Pausan. iv. 3, 5-6. ' Homer, Iliad, ii. 604. Ol <T i%ov 'A.pica6ir)v, inrb K.vWqvj}f ipof airri), A.ITTVTIOV irapti rvfiftov. S"*ol ad loc. (5 <5' AtTrurof upxaiorirof f/puf, 'Ap/caf rd