THE SUCCESSION TO THE SPARTAN KINGSHIP,

520-400 BC*

BRENDA GRIFFITH-WILLIAMS

Sparta, uniquely among ancient Greek poleis, retained an archaic system of hereditary
rulership into the Hellenistic era. The Spartan kings functioned primarily as military leaders
and were not absolute rulers; by the sixth century, if not earlier, their conduct was subject to
the oversight of the ephors and their authority to rule derived from the will of the citizen
body. In the normal course of events, a king’s successor would be his oldest son. The
sources surveyed here reveal a consistent adherence, from the earliest times, to a fixed order
of succession based on the principle of patrilineal male primogeniture, with provision for a
brother or other collateral kinsman to succeed a king who died leaving no son. There was,
unsurprisingly, no place in the system for a regnant queen. However, as we shall see from
the case of Gorgo (daughter, wife, and mother of successive kings), it is possible that the
succession could in some circumstances be influenced by the female bloodline.
Perhaps from as early as the tenth century BC, but more plausibly from the eighth
century, 1 the Spartan kingship was shared by members of two royal houses, the Agiad and
the Eurypontid. According to a Spartan tradition related by Herodotus, the dyarchy
originated when king Aristodemos died shortly after the birth of his twin sons,
Eurysthenes and Procles. The Spartans wanted to make the older child king according to
their nomos, but did not know which had been born first. After consulting the Delphic
oracle, and establishing which twin was the older, they made both children kings but gave
the older one greater honour. Herodotus discredits this story, saying that no-one but the
Spartans believed it, and modern scholars prefer to explain the dyarchy in terms of the
amalgamation of two communities, but the traditional story confirms the importance
attached by the Spartans to the nomos of primogeniture and their belief in its antiquity.

* I am indebted to Chris Carey and Simon Hornblower for allowing me to sit in on their MA class on Herodotus
5 and 7 (UCL, 2008-09), which provided the inspiration for this article. Professor Carey was kind enough to read
an early draft, and I am grateful for his comments and his encouragement to seek publication. I want especially
to thank the editors of this volume, whose constructive suggestions and guidance have enabled me to expand the
paper beyond its original scope.
1
P. Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia. A regional history, 1300-362 BC (2nd edn London 2002) 89, points out that
the conquest of Aigys in the joint reign of Archelaos and Charillos is ‘the first enterprise of the Spartan state
recorded to have been undertaken by both kings’. He goes on to suggest that the two royal houses did not rule
jointly before the amalgamation of the original four villages forming the polis Sparta: Pitana (site of the Agiad
burial grounds), Limnai (site of the Eurypontid burial grounds), Mesoa, and Kynosoura.

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The king-lists recorded by Herodotus reflect the Spartan tradition of an unbroken father
to son succession from the mythical founder Heracles until 491/490 BC. 2 There is no firm
evidence to refute the tradition, but modern scholars are almost certainly right to treat it with
scepticism. 3 After 490, there are five attested instances of succession by a brother of the
deceased king, 4 one by an uncle, and five by a more remote collateral kinsman.
A fixed order of succession cannot entirely rule out disputes, but it does have the
advantage of identifying an heir apparent, 5 who can be groomed for office from an early
stage. According to Plutarch, Spartan law exempted heirs to the kingship (τοὺς ἐπὶ βασιλείᾳ
τρεφομένους παῖδας, Plu. Ages. 1.2.6) from the rigorous educational curriculum (the agōgē)
that was imposed on other Spartan boys. Inevitably the designated heir does not always
survive to succeed his father, and in some cases the eventual successor will be someone who
was not the heir apparent from birth, but the system as a whole is likely to promote stability
and discourage contested successions. 6
The potential for conflict when the order of succession is uncertain is illustrated by two
examples of monarchies where, according to Herodotus, the succession was in the gift of the
ruling king. In the first case, Croesus acceded to the throne of Lydia by the gift of his father
Alyattes (δόντος τοῦ πατρὸς, Hdt. 1.92) after a struggle for the succession with his
homopatric half-brother, Pantaleon. In the second (which is discussed in more detail below
in relation to the succession of Leonidas to Cleomenes) the succession to the Persian king
Darius was disputed between his sons Xerxes and Artabazanes.
The downside of a fixed order of succession is that it may produce an heir who is
unfit for office because of mental or physical incapacity (or who is thought to be less
suitable than someone ranking lower in the order of succession). One means of dealing
with the problem is a modified hereditary principle with an elective element, of which
there is evidence in some tribal systems. 7 It would not be surprising to find elements of

2
Hdt. 7.204 (Agiad) and 8.131 (Eurypontid).
3
See, e.g., Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia (n. 1 above) 296-97: ‘ ... even if Herodotus’ lists are adaptations of
king-lists drawn up in the joint reigns of Kleomenes I and Demaratus, we should make allowance for an
unknowable number of collateral successions’. One might add that the number of successions from father to
younger son (after the death of the first son) is also unknowable, as is that of grandfather to grandson successions
(of which the succession of Leotychidas II to Archidamus is a later example).
4
According to Plutarch there was an earlier case: the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus ruled for eight months after the
death of his half-brother Polydectes (800 BC), but stepped down in favour of Polydectes’ posthumous son
Charillus, for whom he acted as regent (Plu. Lyc. 3.1).
5
According to the OED, this term is ‘applied to one who will undoubtedly inherit, if he survive the present
possessor, as opposed to an heir presumptive, who though at present the nearest in succession, is liable to have
his hope intercepted by the birth of a nearer heir’.
6
Cf. V. Bogdanor, The monarchy and the constitution (Oxford, 1997) 42: ‘Since [monarchy] depends on the
right of hereditary succession, rather than election or appointment, it is of prime importance that there be clear
and unambiguous rules regulating the succession to the throne so that there can be no dispute as to who should
succeed’.
7
Cf. ‘Political system’ in Encyclopaedia Britannica 2011, retrieved from Britannica Online, 8 April 2011:
‘Anthropological records show that tribal chiefs or kings were sometimes selected as a result of ritual tests or the
display of magical signs and proofs of divine origin, usually as determined by the tribal elders or magical
leaders; in other cases, a principle of heredity, often diluted by a choice among heirs in terms of physique or
warrior ability, was applied; in still other cases, the chief was elected, often from among the adult males of a
select group of families’.

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 BRENDA GRIFFITH-WILLIAMS: THE SUCCESSION TO THE SPARTAN KINGSHIP 45

such a system in Sparta, where mental and physical fitness would have been especially
relevant in view of the military functions of the kings. 8
Custom, as well as law, plays a part in both ancient and modern succession systems.
One of the difficulties faced by the English translator of Greek historiography is the
ambiguity of the word nomos, which may equate to either ‘law’ (in the sense of a statute
enacted by a legislature and enforced by the courts) or ‘custom’ (in the sense of an
established practice with which compliance is expected by members of a social or political
group but not legally enforceable). 9 In practice, however, the distinction may not be of great
importance. Especially in a context of limited literacy, such as archaic and classical Sparta, a
nomos which had been observed through several generations, whether or not it originated as
the formal pronouncement of a legislator, would have acquired great authority. 10
In this paper I hope to shed new light on some of the issues surrounding the royal
succession in Sparta by examining ancient historiographers’ accounts of four disputed or
problematic cases from the sixth and fifth centuries, two each from the Eurypontid and the
Agiad houses.

The Eurypontid succession, 1: the deposition of Demaratus (491BC)

The Eurypontid king Ariston, according to Herodotus, had no children by either of his
first two wives. He fell in love with the wife of his friend Agetus, and, after he had tricked
Agetus into divorcing her, she became his third wife. Less than ten months later she bore a
son, Demaratus, but Ariston, counting the months since their marriage, swore in the
presence of the ephors that the child could not be his. No-one took much notice of this,
and Ariston later changed his mind, accepting Demaratus as his own son. When Ariston
died, Demaratus became king (ἔσχε τὴν βασιληίην, 6.64), but the doubts about his
paternity were later revived by his Agiad counterpart, Cleomenes, as a pretext to get rid of
him. At the instigation of Cleomenes, Leotychidas, a member of the Eurypontid royal
house (great-grandson of Hippocratides), asserted that Demaratus had no right to the
kingship because he was not Ariston’s son, and produced testimony from the ephors who
had heard Ariston disown the child born to his new wife. The Spartans could not agree on
the issue, and decided to consult the Delphic oracle. Bribed by Cleomenes, the Pythia
pronounced that Demaratus was not Ariston’s son.
After his deposition, Demaratus was mocked by Leotychidas and plagued by
scurrilous rumours about a liaison between his mother and a stableman, so he asked her to

8
The issue of fitness to rule arose, in relation to the British monarchy, as recently as 1936. When it became clear
that Edward VIII was likely to abdicate, there was concern that the burden of kingship would be too great for his
brother Prince Albert (later George VI) in view of his poor health record and (as some thought) mental
instability.
9
The relationship between law and custom is a complex subject on which much has been written by modern
jurists. For a brief discussion of the legal status of custom, see H. L. A. Hart, The concept of law (2nd edn Oxford
1994) 44-49.
10
Even in modern Britain it is probably not widely understood that there are no statutory rules on the royal
succession. Legislation dating from the seventeenth century deals with such matters as the relationship between
Parliament and the Crown, but the order of succession is a matter of common law. For discussion see Bogdanor,
Monarchy (n. 6 above) 42-45.

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Table 1: The Eurypontid succession from Hippocratides to Archidamus III

tell him the truth about his birth. She said that on the third night after her marriage to
Ariston, she had been visited in her bedroom by a phantom that looked exactly like her new
husband and was wearing a wreath which it left with her before disappearing. Ariston, who
joined her later, denied all knowledge of the wreath, which was found to have come from
the shrine of the hero Astrabacus. So, since that was the night on which Demaratus was
conceived, his father was either Ariston or a dead hero. The mother went on to explain that
Ariston had disowned the newborn baby because he had not been aware of the possibility of
a premature birth, but had later accepted that Demaratus was his own son.
Leotychidas, who succeeded Demaratus, would have needed to convince the Spartans
of his own title to the kingship. As a great grandson of king Hippocratides (see Table 1), 11
he was a second cousin of Demaratus; but since the latter was excluded from the
succession by the finding that he was illegitimate, Leotychidas became the legitimate
successor to the previous king, Ariston (his first cousin once removed). Presumably he
was Ariston’s closest surviving kinsman by the time of the deposition (we know that
Ariston had no sons apart from Demaratus), but we do not have enough information about

11
The names and regnal years of the kings in Tables 1 and 2 are taken from OCD (3rd edn) 1432.

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 BRENDA GRIFFITH-WILLIAMS: THE SUCCESSION TO THE SPARTAN KINGSHIP 47

the family to reconstruct the precise order of succession. The deposition was, in any event,
an exceptional case, and the death of a king with neither male descendants nor surviving
brothers is unlikely to have been a frequent occurrence. It is possible that the Spartans did
not have rules to cover such remote eventualities, but simply dealt with them on an ad hoc
basis, perhaps by appointing the oldest surviving member of the royal household. We
should, as always, be careful to avoid assumptions based on modern theory or practice. 12
Herodotus’ account of the deposition shows that the Spartans had a formal procedure
for the removal of a king, even after more than twenty years in office. Leotychidas made
an accusation against Demaratus on oath (κατόμνυται ∆ημαρήτῳ, 6.65), and produced
witnesses (μάρτυρας παρεχόμενος) as in a lawsuit, but the details of the procedure are
otherwise left vague. 13 MacDowell argues plausibly that cases in which the kingship itself
was in dispute may, exceptionally, have been tried by the assembly of citizens rather than
a regular lawcourt or the senate, adding that proceedings of this kind were very rare and
‘should perhaps not be regarded as a trial at all’. 14 The episode, nevertheless, illustrates
both the Spartans’ concern to maintain the Heraclid lineage of their kings, and the
possibility of manipulating that concern for political ends.

The Eurypontid succession, 2: the succession of Agesilaus to Agis (400BC)

Xenophon relates that after the days of mourning had been observed for the Eurypontid
king Agis (who died in 400 BC) it was necessary to appoint a new king (ἔδει βασιλέα
καθίστασθαι, Xen. HG 3.3.1). Leotychidas claimed the succession as Agis’ legitimate
heir, but he was challenged by Agis’ younger half-brother, Agesilaus, who was lame.
According to Plutarch’s more elaborate version of the story, Leotychidas was the reputed
son of Alcibiades, who had an adulterous liaison with the wife of Agis during his exile in
Sparta. Agis had always treated Leotychidas with suspicion, refusing to give him the
honours due to a legitimate son, but on his deathbed he was persuaded by a tearful
Leotychidas to acknowledge him. Agesilaus, nevertheless, with the encouragement of his
lover Lysander (who was popular in Sparta after his victory over Athens at Aegospotami)
decided to contest the kingship on the basis that Leotychidas was a bastard (ὄντι νόθῳ,
Plu. Ages. 3.3). Many of the Spartans supported Agesilaus because of his personal
qualities (διὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν) and especially because he had shared with ordinary citizens in
the experience of the agōgē. (As the younger son of Archidamus, he had not enjoyed the
exemption granted to the heir apparent.) 15 Leotychidas was supported by a soothsayer,
Diopeithes, who warned that the gods would be displeased if a lame man were to become

12
The official website of the British monarchy lists 38 members of the royal family in order of succession to the
throne, extending to first cousins twice removed of the present queen. The majority of them can have no real
expectation of succeeding.
13
Herodotus’ account glosses over the passage of time. A sceptical reader might wonder how easy it was to find
the ephors who had been in office at the time of Demaratus’ birth, probably at least forty years before his
deposition.
14
D. M. MacDowell, Spartan law (Edinburgh 1986) 135.
15
We have no means of knowing how often a younger son, not groomed from birth for the kingship, had
succeeded in earlier Spartan history (see n. 3 above). The succession of Leonidas to Cleomenes, discussed
below, provides a later example. In modern British history, neither George V (second son of Edward VII) nor
George VI (second son of George V) was heir apparent from birth.

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king of Sparta. Lysander argued for a less literal interpretation of the words ‘lame
kingship’ (χωλὴν βασιλείαν, Xen. HG 3.3.3) in the oracle cited by Diopeithes: the gods
were not concerned with physical lameness, but would not tolerate a Spartan king who
was not a legitimate descendant of Heracles.
Plutarch refers to the debate between Agesilaus and Leotychidas as a ‘trial’ (ἐν τῇ
δίκῃ, Ages. 3.4). In Xenophon’s account, ὁ νόμος is unequivocally ‘the law’: Leotychidas
uses the language of forensic oratory when he says the law ordains that the king’s son, not
his brother, will be king, unless there is no son (ὁ νόμος ... κελεύει, Xen. HG 3.3.2). 16
Like an Athenian sunēgoros, Diopeithes ‘speaks in support’ of Leotychidas
(Λεωτυχίδῃ συναγορεύων, 3.3.3), and Lysander responds ‘on behalf of’ Agesilaus (πρὸς
αὐτὸν ὑπὲρ Ἀγησιλάου ἀντεῖπεν, 3.3.3). After hearing the arguments on both sides, the
polis chose Agesilaus as its king (τοιαῦτα δὲ ἀκούσασα ἡ πόλις ἀμφοτέρων Ἀγησίλαον
εἷλοντο βασιλέα, 3.3.4). So the dispute, like that between Demaratus and Leotychidas,
was resolved by a quasi-judicial procedure, and, if Plutarch’s more elaborate version of
events is reliable, the judgment of the polis prevailed over the late king’s dying wishes
concerning the succession.
The use of the verb αἵρεσθαι (‘choose’ or ‘elect’) need not be taken to imply that the
kingship had become elective by 400. 17 It simply means that in the event of a contested
succession, the Spartans had to choose between the contenders. But contests were the
exception, and in uncontested cases the citizens’ rôle in ‘choosing’ the king would no
doubt have been purely formal. It is, however, possible – though of course entirely
unprovable – that the formal ‘appointment’ of a Spartan king derived from an earlier
system where succession to the kingship was elective rather than strictly hereditary. 18
It appears that Leotychidas’ illegitimacy was the legally decisive factor in the
Spartans’ choice of Agesilaus, but personal merit, which on the face of it would seem
inimical to hereditary succession, also comes into play in relation to his claim to the
kingship. On the one hand (at least according to Plutarch) he gained support because of
his aretē, but on the other hand his opponents argued that his lameness disqualified him
from the succession. There is no suggestion that aretē was advanced as a legal argument
in support of his case (though no doubt some of those who voted were influenced by it)
but physical disability is another matter. Agesilaus’ lameness was formally adduced as an
argument against his claim, and the authority of the oracle strongly suggests that this was

16
We should note that the law, as cited here, merely gives the king’s lineal descendants priority over his
collateral relations. That is probably a universal feature of hereditary succession systems, so it remains possible
that the detailed order of succession was a matter of custom rather than law.
17
Thus S. Hornblower, ‘The Dorieus episode and the Ionian revolt’, in E. Irwin and E. Greenwood (eds.),
Reading Herodotus. A study of the logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories (Cambridge 2007) 168-78, at 170.
18
Cf. n.7 above. It is also worth noting that succession to the early English monarchy included an elective
element, of which traces remain in the modern coronation ceremony. Cf. Bogdanor, Monarchy (n.6 above) 2-3:
‘Succession to the throne required more than simply a claim based upon descent. In Anglo-Saxon times it was
accepted that a new sovereign had to belong to the royal house, but actual succession depended on the outcome
of complex dynastic loyalties and feuds. The succession to the throne would be determined by the leading
territorial magnates who comprised the Witan – the council of the sovereign’s advisers – which had the power to
depose a sovereign who proved inadequate.... The early Norman kings went through a form of election or
‘recognition’ by the Witan’s successor, the Commune Concilium’.

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a factor the Spartiates could have taken into account, although in this instance, persuaded
by Lysander, they decided not to do so.

The Agiad succession, 1: the succession of Cleomenes to Anaxandridas (c. 520 BC)
Herodotus tells us that Anaxandridas, son of Leon, married his sister’s daughter, of whom
he was very fond. She bore him no children, and the ephors, concerned about the
succession, advised him to divorce her and remarry. Anaxandridas refused, but complied
with their alternative proposal: that he should marry an additional wife, who was capable
of childbearing, and set up a separate home with each wife. Herodotus describes this
arrangement as unprecedented in Sparta (οὐδαμῶς Σπαρτιητικά, 5.40).
Anaxandridas’ second wife was a daughter of Prinetades, son of Demarmenus, and so,
apparently, a niece of the ephor Chilon (cf. 6.65, where Demaratus’ wife Percalos is
described as a daughter of Chilon, son of Demarmenos). She soon bore him a son,
Cleomenes, whom she presented to the Spartiates as the king’s successor (ἔφεδρον βασιλέα
Σπαρτιήτῃσι ἀπέφαινε, 5.41), but then the first wife also became pregnant. The second
wife’s family suspected trickery, and the pregnant first wife was closely watched. The
ephors witnessed the birth of her first son, Dorieus, after which she had two more sons,
Leonidas and Cleombrotus (who, according to some, were twins). The second wife had no
more children – presumably, although we are not explicitly told this, because Anaxandridas
abandoned her after the birth of Cleomenes and lived exclusively with his first wife.
Cleomenes was rumoured to be mad (ὡς λέγεται, ἦν τε οὐ φρενήρης ἀκρομανής τε, 5.42),
but Dorieus, the finest of his generation, was confident that he would become king on the
basis of his ‘manly virtue’ (εὖ τε ἠπίστατο 19 κατ’ ἀνδραγαθίην αὐτὸς σχήσων τὴν
βασιληίην, 5.42). Cleomenes succeeded, nevertheless, ‘not in accordance with manly virtue
but according to birth’ (οὐ κατ’ ἀνδραγαθίην … ἀλλὰ κατὰ γένος, 5.39); when
Anaxandridas died, the Spartans decided to make Cleomenes king according to their nomos
because he was the oldest son (χρεώμενοι τῷ νόμῳ ἐστήσαντο βασιλέα τὸν πρεσβύτατον
Κλεομένεα, 5.42). Dorieus took the setback badly and, not wanting to be ruled by
Cleomenes, went off to found colonies in Libya and in Sicily, where he died (c. 510 BC).
By definition a nomos – whether ‘law’ or ‘custom’ – cannot deal with a completely
unprecedented situation, so, if the circumstances were as Herodotus describes them, the
bald statement that the Spartans made Cleomenes king ‘according to their nomos’ requires
some explanation. How much credence, though, should we give to the story of
Anaxandridas and his two wives? Less obviously fantastic than some of Herodotus’ other
succession narratives, it contains no such supernatural element as the ghostly visitor to the
bedroom of Demaratus’ mother, yet a sceptic might think it suspiciously like the invention
of a stereotypically disgruntled younger son. What seems clear is that Cleomenes had
been expected all along to succeed his father; no doubt he enjoyed exemption from the
agōgē, if the relevant law was in force at the time, and any other privileges accorded to an
heir apparent. So much is hardly surprising, given that there was no rival claimant at the

19
On the use of the verb ἐπιστάσθαι to denote confident (but mistaken) belief, rather than knowledge of a true
fact, see Hornblower, ‘The Dorieus episode’ (n.17 above) 171.

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Table 2: The Agiad succession from Leon to Pleistarchus

time of his birth (and, if we believe Herodotus’ story, that the whole point of Anaxandridas’
second marriage was to produce an heir to the kingship). The situation was changed,
however, by the birth of Dorieus, after which hostility between the two half-brothers was
doubtless fuelled by political rivalry between the families of their respective mothers.
Herodotus omits many details in his account of the succession struggle, and, unlike
Xenophon on the succession to Agis, says nothing about the process by which Cleomenes
became king. In the statement that the Lacedaemonians ‘made Cleomenes king’, the verb
he uses is στήσασθαι (‘appoint’ or ‘establish’) rather than αἵρεσθαι (‘choose’, on which
see n. 15 above), so we cannot even be sure that there was a ‘trial’ of the competing
claims, as in the case of Agesilaus and Leotychidas. Perhaps Dorieus simply hoped to
mount a legal challenge to Cleomenes, or even to take over the kingship by force, but his
aspirations came to nothing through lack of support.
If we suppose that there was a formal hearing, what arguments could Dorieus have
put forward? He could not claim that Cleomenes was a bastard (nothos) in the sense in
which the word was used of Leotychidas, since Cleomenes’ paternity, and hence his
Heraclid descent, was unquestioned. Given that the Spartans were normally monogamous,
however, there could have been a taint of illegitimacy about a second ‘marriage’ and its

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 BRENDA GRIFFITH-WILLIAMS: THE SUCCESSION TO THE SPARTAN KINGSHIP 51

offspring, so, whether the story of the two queens was truth or fiction, Dorieus might have
argued that he, rather than Cleomenes, should have been treated as his father’s heir
because his mother was the king’s true wife. 20 The fact that she, unlike the mother of
Cleomenes, was herself of royal blood, so that he was descended on both sides from Leon,
could have been an additional point in his favour.
But Herodotus’ account gives prominence both to Dorieus’ expectations on the basis of
‘manly virtue’ and to the rumours that Cleomenes was mad. The stories of Cleomenes’
‘madness’ in Book 6 of the Histories are no longer credited as historical fact, 21 but it is
entirely plausible that he was rumoured to be mad (which is all that Herodotus claims in the
context of the succession struggle) as part of a smear campaign orchestrated by Dorieus and
his supporters. What, though, would have been the point of such a smear, in the context of a
succession system where the criterion was indeed heredity, not personal merit?
We have seen that neither aretē nor the backing of an influential sponsor was
sufficient to win the kingship for Agesilaus, and no more could Dorieus have succeeded
on the basis of andragathia alone. But Cleomenes’ alleged madness, like Agesilaus’ real
lameness, may well have been a factor that could have excluded him from the kingship, if
the majority of the Spartans had given credit to the rumours. 22 But we cannot tell, from
the brief account provided by Herodotus, whether they did in fact consider and reject the
rumours, or whether the nomos of primogeniture required them to appoint the king’s
oldest son regardless of mental incapacity, or indeed whether the issue never came to trial
because Dorieus did not formally challenge Cleomenes.

The Agiad succession, 2: the succession of Leonidas to Cleomenes (490 BC)

We have seen from the case of Agis that if a king died leaving no legitimate son, the next
in line of succession was his surviving brother. If there was more than one brother, they
probably succeeded in order of seniority, but what happened if the brother who was next
in line had already died? That was the situation when Cleomenes died, c. 490 BC. He was
succeeded by Leonidas, the older of his two surviving half-brothers (the oldest, Dorieus,
having died leaving a son, Euryanax). Herodotus concludes his account of Dorieus’
travels with the comment that if Dorieus had remained in Sparta he would have become
king, since Cleomenes did not reign for a long time 23 and left no male heir but only a

20
Cf. L. H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece. The city states c. 700-500 BC (London 1976) 123: ‘Thus Kleomenes was
the eldest son, but Dorieus the eldest by the first, true queen. Doubtless rival parties within the Agidai and
Chilon’s family fostered the dispute’.
21
See A. Griffiths, ‘Was Kleomenes mad?’, in A. Powell (ed.), Classical Sparta. The techniques behind her
success (London 1989) 51-78, at 70. Pointing out the similarities between Cleomenes’ story and that of
Cambyses, Griffiths concludes ‘that there exists a case for claiming that either one king’s story has been
transferred to the other, or that both draw on a repertoire of classic ‘wicked ruler’ tales’.
22
Our meagre sources of information do not reveal whether mental capacity was a factor in other areas of
Spartan law, but there are certainly parallels from other jurisdictions. Under Athenian law, in particular, a man
could not adopt a son and heir, or make a valid will, unless he was of sound mind.
23
This statement seems inconsistent with Herodotus’ account of Cleomenes’ reign, which suggests that he was
in fact king for about thirty years. Some modern scholars have taken this as evidence of Herodotus’ uncritical
acceptance of sources hostile to Cleomenes, while others have sought to exonerate him. Griffiths, ‘Was
Kleomenes mad?’ (n.21 above) 54, suggests a textual emendation: ‘All that is needed to restore both semantic
coherence and Herodotus’ reputation is the simple emendation of a single word: read εἰ for οὐ. ‘For while it is

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daughter, Gorgo. Leonidas’ claim to the kingship was, so far as we know, uncontested,
but it has caused problems for modern scholars seeking to explain it in terms of the
succession rules.
Modern discussion has been based on the understanding that the strict rule of patrilineal
primogeniture followed by the Spartans included a principle of representation, so a king who
died leaving no male descendants would be succeeded by his oldest surviving brother, or, if
the brother who would have been next in line had predeceased him, by that brother’s oldest
son. Only if the brother who was nearest in age to the deceased king had died leaving no
male issue would a younger brother of the deceased king succeed. This ‘rule’ was succinctly
formulated in 1907 by Benedictus Niese, who adds that ‘to our knowledge’ the Spartans
never deviated from it. 24 It will become clear from the discussion below that this is not
consistent with the evidence provided by Herodotus.
Following Niese’s ‘rule’, after the death of Dorieus the next in order of succession to
the kingship should have been his son, Euryanax. Accordingly, the accession of Leonidas
has been seen as implying that Dorieus was, for some reason, excluded from the succession,
and that Herodotus was mistaken in thinking that he could have become king if only he had
had the patience to endure Cleomenes’ rule. 25 How can this apparent anomaly be explained?
It has been argued that Dorieus’ exile from Sparta ruled him out of the succession, 26 but that
is difficult to reconcile with Herodotus’ account of Dorieus’ departure at 5.42: although he
left Sparta hastily, without consulting the oracle or observing the usual formalities, it is
implied that his expedition had official sanction because the Spartans granted his request for
a body of men to accompany him.
Various other explanations, none of them wholly satisfactory, have been offered. One
possibility 27 is that Dorieus, the brother of Cleomenes, simply did not leave a son: the
Dorieus named at Hdt. 9.10 as the father of Euryanax was a different man. How plausible
is this? The situation described by Herodotus is that Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus son of
Anaxandridas, is in command of the Greek land force at Plataea, acting as regent for his
cousin Pleistarchus (son of the now deceased Leonidas) who is under age. Pausanias
chooses as his co-commander ‘Euryanax the son of Dorieus, a man of the same family as
himself’ (Εὐρυάνακτα τὸν ∆ωριέος, ἄνδρα οἰκίης ἐόντα τῆς αὐτῆς). The exact

true that Kleomenes had a pretty long reign, still he died without an heir …’.’ This is endorsed by
S. Hornblower, Thucydides and Pindar (Oxford 2004) 109 n. 82, but rejected by G. L. Cawkwell, ‘Cleomenes’,
Mnemosyne 46 (1993) 505-27, at 507, as producing ‘a curious piece of Greek’. In Cawkwell’s view, what
Herodotus meant to convey is that Kleomenes, whose death was untimely, did not rule as long as he might have
done, so Dorieus, had he remained in Sparta, might have outlived him by some considerable time.
24
B. Niese, ‘Herodot-Studien. Besonders zur Spartanischen Geschichte’, Hermes 42 (1907) 419-68, at 451:
‘Wenn ein König starb, ohne einen Sohn zu hinterlassen, so folgte sein ältester Bruder oder, wenn er nicht mehr
lebte, der älteste Sohn desselben. Der jüngere Bruder des Verstorbenen trat erst ein, wenn der älteste keinen
Sohn hinterlassen hatte. Von dieser Regel sind die Spartaner unseres Wissens nie abgewichen’. Niese explains in
a footnote that the cases of Leotychidas II and Agesilaus II are exceptional, because their rival claimants to the
kingship were considered illegitimate.
25
Cf. Hornblower, Thucydides and Pindar (n. 23 above) 51.
26
See, e.g., T. Dunbabin, The western Greeks. The history of Sicily and South Italy from the foundation of the
Greek colonies to 480 BC (Oxford 1948) 354: ‘But Dorieus cut himself off from Sparta as soon as he left for the
first time. It is unlikely that he would still be considered for the succession’.
27
Mentioned by Hornblower, Thucydides and Pindar (n. 23 above) 109 n. 83.

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relationship between Pausanias and Euryanax is not specified, but, although the possibility
of another Dorieus in the same family – otherwise unmentioned by Herodotus – cannot be
ruled out, the likelihood does not seem great. 28 Alternatively, perhaps Euryanax was an
illegitimate son of Dorieus, 29 but in that case it is unlikely that Herodotus would have
described him as a kinsman of Pausanias, or indeed that Pausanias would have chosen to
share the command with him.
Another possibility is that Dorieus was not really the oldest son of Anaxandridas by
his first wife, but was younger than Leonidas. For Niese, since Euryanax did not succeed
Cleomenes in accordance with the rule he has postulated, it follows that Dorieus cannot
have been older than Leonidas. 30 Herodotus, he suggests, presented Dorieus as the next in
age after Cleomenes in order to ‘heighten the tragic effect of his downfall’ (‘um die
Tragik seines Unterganges zu steigern’). 31 The problem here is the lack of primary
evidence for the ‘rule’ as formulated by Niese.
Herodotus mentions the principle of royal succession by primogeniture several times,
according it considerable antiquity when he says it was not Paris but Hector who, as the
older brother and a better man (καὶ πρεσβύτερος καὶ ἀνὴρ ἐκείνου μᾶλλον ἐὼν, 2.120),
would have succeeded to the Trojan throne on Priam’s death. Then, in his account of the
origin of the Spartan dyarchy, Herodotus says that the Agiad royal house was held in
greater esteem because of its seniority (κατὰ πρεσβυγενείαν, 6.51), and that the Spartans
wanted the older of Aristodemos’ twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, to be king
according to their nomos. He refers again to the Spartan nomos of primogeniture in
relation to Cleomenes (5.42, discussed above), and when Darius’ eldest son Artabazanes
appeals to the supposedly universal nomos in support of his claim to the Persian throne
(7.2, discussed below).
As we have seen, there is also evidence of a Spartan nomos of primogeniture in
Plutarch and Xenophon, but none of the primary sources goes beyond the broad principles
that the oldest son has precedence, and that a king who leaves no sons is succeeded by his
brother. Such details as what would have happened if one of the king’s brothers had
predeceased him are not spelt out. There is, moreover, no attested case of a Spartan king
who was succeeded by his nephew, so we have no evidence for a ‘principle of
representation’ whereby a nephew whose father had predeceased his older brother would
take his father’s place in the order of succession. Such a principle is certainly found in
other succession or inheritance systems (including the ankhisteia in classical Athens and
the order of succession to the modern English throne) but that is not proof of its existence
in Sparta. So the flaw in Niese’s methodology is obvious: instead of building a hypothesis
about the Spartan nomos from the available evidence, he starts from a preconceived theory

28
LGPN records 7 instances of the name Dorieus in Sparta.
29
Thus M. E. White, ‘Some Agiad dates: Pausanias and his sons’, JHS 84 (1964) 140-52, at 150. Cf. Cartledge,
Sparta and Lakonia (n.1 above) 265.
30
Cf. A. H. M. Jones, Sparta (Oxford 1967) 49: ‘Actually it is not certain that Dorieus was the eldest son, as he
left a son, Euryanax, who survived till 479, but did not become king, as he would have done by the law of
primogeniture’.
31
Niese, ‘Herodot-Studien’ (n. 24 above) 452. In fact, Niese virtually rewrites the entire Dorieus episode on the
assumption that Herodotus distorted the facts to make the story more ‘tragic’.

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and dismisses any apparent aberration by assuming that Herodotus has made a mistake. In
this instance, a mistake about the relative seniority of Dorieus and Leonidas would be a
serious one, 32 and Herodotus’ account gains credibility from the fact that it is repeated, in
a completely different context, at 7.205 (discussed below).
Yet another proposed explanation is that Euryanax was excluded from the succession
because his father, Dorieus, had never reigned as king. This is based on a
misinterpretation of Hdt. 7.3, where Demaratus, who had fled to the court of the Persian
king, Darius, after his deposition, is said to have advised Darius’ son Xerxes about the
succession. 33 After his seizure of power, Darius polygamously married several wives, two
of whom, Atossa and Artystone, were daughters of Cyrus the Great (3.88). He had four
sons by Atossa, the oldest of whom was Xerxes. He already had three sons by an earlier
wife, whose father was Gobryas, an ‘eminent Persian’ (3.70) and, like Darius himself, one
of the seven conspirators against the Magi. Before setting off on his campaign against
Greece, Darius was required to nominate a successor ‘in accordance with the nomos of the
Persians’, as Herodotus claims. 34 There were two contenders: Artabazanes, one of Darius’
sons by the daughter of Gobryas, claimed the succession as the oldest of the whole family,
saying it was the nomos among all peoples that the oldest should have sovereignty (καὶ ὅτι
νομιζόμενον εἴη πρὸς πάντων ἀνθρώπων τὸν πρεσβύτατον τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔχειν, 7.2); Xerxes,
on the other hand, based his claim on the fact that his mother was a daughter of Cyrus,
who had won the Persians their freedom.
Demaratus, as rumour had it (ὡς ἡ φάτις μιν ἔχει, 7.3), advised Xerxes to point out to
his father that he (Xerxes) had been born while Darius was already king, whereas Darius
was still a private citizen (ἔτι ἰδίωτῃ ἐόντι, 7.3) when Artabazanes was born. Demaratus
added that even in Sparta it was customary (οὕτω νομίζεσθαι) that if there were already
sons born before their father became king, and a younger son born while he was already
king, the succession would pass to the later born son. Herodotus expresses doubt, not only
about the authenticity of the anecdote as a whole but also about the effectiveness of the
advice, which, in his opinion, could have made no difference to Darius’ decision because
of Atossa’s great power (ἡ γὰρ Ἄτοσσα εἶχε τὸ πᾶν κράτος).
Herodotus’ account of the Persian succession reflects Greek bias. Darius, as a
member of the royal clan, was the only plausible candidate to take over from Cambyses,
and had no need to deceive his fellow conspirators (as Herodotus claims at 3.84-88).
Unlike Atossa, however, Darius did not have the advantage of direct descent from Cyrus.
His appointment of her son, Xerxes, as his successor was therefore necessary to avoid

32
Cf. Hornblower, Thucydides and Pindar (n. 23 above) 109 n. 83.
33
Cf. R. W. Macan, Herodotus, the fourth, fifth and sixth books, 2 vols (London 1895) I, at 7.3: ‘The supposed
law looks rather like an inference from the case of Euryanax. Leonidas succeeded his brother, Kleomenes, and
was succeeded by his son Pleistarchus (in 480 BC), although there was a son of Dorieus in Sparta at the time …
who may have been excluded from the succession on the ground that Dorieus had never actually been king at
all’.
34
For the law, Hdt. 7.2. Darius’ choice, but not the existence of the law, is supported by epigraphic evidence
from XPf:§4: ‘Xerxes the king says: ‘Other sons of Darius there were (but) it was the desire of Auramazda that
my father Darius made me the greatest after himself’, trans. M. Brosius, The Persian empire from Cyrus II to
Artaxerxes I, LACTOR 16 (London 2000) no. 107, p. 68; cf. A. Kuhrt, The Persian empire: a corpus of sources
from the Achaemenid period, 2 vols (London 2007) I 244.

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 BRENDA GRIFFITH-WILLIAMS: THE SUCCESSION TO THE SPARTAN KINGSHIP 55

conflict between the two branches, and also to prevent the clan of Gobryas from gaining
access to the centre of power. So it was not Atossa’s power that determined the
nomination of her son as Darius’ successor, but rather Darius’ choice of Xerxes that
conferred great power on Atossa. Given the political imperatives, however, Herodotus
was no doubt right to observe that any advice offered by Demaratus would have been
superfluous.
My concern here is not with the historicity of the anecdote about Demaratus and
Xerxes, but with the authenticity of the Spartan nomos to which it alludes (and which, it is
worth noting, Herodotus does not directly question). It seems highly unlikely that such a
nomos, if it existed at all, could have been of general application in Sparta, since it would
have fatally undermined the principle of primogeniture. 35 But even if the nomos was a
genuine one, it would not explain the exclusion of Euryanax from the succession to
Cleomenes: a son who was born before his father’s accession to the throne (Artabazanes)
is not in a comparable position to a son whose father is a brother of the deceased king and
has never reigned at all (Euryanax).
I shall consider later whether there may have been special circumstances in which the
nomos alluded to by Demaratus did apply to the Spartan royal succession, but we need
first to look at Herodotus’ own explanation of the accession of Leonidas, which he gives
as part of his build-up to Leonidas’ moment of glory at Thermopylae. After reciting the
Agiad genealogy back to Heracles, Herodotus says that Leonidas took over the kingship
unexpectedly (ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου, 7.204). 36 For, since he had two older brothers,
Cleomenes and Dorieus, he had been excluded from consideration for the kingship
(ἀπελήλατο τῆς φροντίδος περὶ τῆς βασιληίης, 7.205). But now that Cleomenes had died
without a male heir, and Dorieus had already died in Sicily, the kingship descended to
Leonidas both because he was older than Cleombrotus (who was the youngest son of
Anaxandridas) and especially because he was married to Cleomenes’ daughter (καὶ δὴ καὶ
εἶχε Κλεομένεος θυγατέρα, 7.205).
This passage is difficult to reconcile with the theory that Dorieus had for some reason
been ruled out of the succession. The reference to Dorieus’ death clearly implies that, had
he survived, he would indeed have been a contender for the kingship, but Euryanax, who
would supposedly have taken Dorieus’ place in the order of succession after the latter’s
death, is not mentioned at all. In fact, the impression given is that the two contenders to
succeed Cleomenes were his half-brothers Leonidas and Cleombrotus. Moreover,
Herodotus seems to conflate two different reasons for the eventual accession of Leonidas:

35
The nomos has, nevertheless, been accepted by at least two modern scholars: ‘A king should be one begotten
by a king, not merely by a crown prince, so the king’s heir was not simply the eldest son, but – if possible – the
eldest son born to him after he himself had succeeded to the throne’ (Jeffery, Archaic Greece [n. 20 above] 116).
And MacDowell, Spartan law (n. 14 above) 126, believes that ‘the chances of having a youthful king were
increased by the curious law of succession, which laid down that a son born after his father became king took
precedence over one born before (Hdt. 7.3.3)’.
36
It is clear from the context that Leonidas’ succession was ‘unexpected’ from the historical perspective of his
relatively low position in the order of succession to his father Anaxandridas, not because of some unforeseen
turn of events around the time of Cleomenes’ death. The ‘unexpectedness’ cannot, therefore, be used to support
the theory that Euryanax and Leonidas were engaged in a succession struggle, the outcome of which remained
uncertain even after Leonidas had married Gorgo. Cf. V. Merante, ‘Sulla cronologia di Dorieo e su alcuni
problemi connessi’, Historia 19 (1970) 272-94, at 291.

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his seniority to Cleombrotus and his marriage to Gorgo. The marriage is singled out as the
decisive factor by the phrase καὶ δὴ καί (‘and in particular’), a combination of particles
which Herodotus frequently uses to focus attention on something he considers to be of
overriding importance. 37 But, if Leonidas was already qualified to succeed as the oldest
surviving brother of Cleomenes, why was the marriage a factor as well?
The best solution to the puzzle seems to be something along the following lines. First,
Dorieus had not been excluded, but, if he had outlived Cleomenes, he would have
succeeded to the kingship as Cleomenes’ oldest surviving brother (in which case
Herodotus was not wrong to say that Dorieus would have become king if he had remained
in Sparta). Secondly, after the death of Dorieus, the succession did not pass to his son but
to the brother who was next in age after him. In this case the ‘rule’ proposed by Niese (for
which, as we have already seen, there is no direct evidence) must be wrong, and the
‘problem’ of Euryanax is an invention of modern scholarship. Thirdly, it would appear
that Leonidas’ marriage to Gorgo clinched his right to the succession. (This might well
have been the decisive factor in the event of any doubt as to which of the surviving
brothers, Leonidas or Cleombrotus, was in fact the older, but perhaps the wording implies
that collateral succession in order of seniority was not an invariable rule.)
What, though, was the special significance of the marriage? Gorgo is one of
Herodotus’ ‘wise advisers’, characterized as an unusually shrewd and intelligent person,
wise beyond her years. 38 Perhaps, then, he is implying that she had some personal
influence on the choice of a successor to Cleomenes (as he thinks Atossa did in the case of
Xerxes mentioned above). But if that were so, one would expect him to name her, as he
does three times elsewhere in the Histories (5.48, 51, 7.239), whereas here he refers to her
simply as ‘the daughter of Cleomenes’, shifting the focus from her personal identity to her
public status. So it appears that it was being married to the king’s daughter that clinched
Leonidas’ title to the throne.
This situation resonates with the heroic custom of accession to the throne by marriage
to the king’s daughter, although there is no evidence of such a practice in historical
Sparta. 39 In any event Leonidas, unlike the typical heroic suitor, was not a newcomer to
Sparta but himself a member of the Agiad royal house. So, if Gorgo had been unmarried
when Cleomenes died, she would have been a patroukhos parthenos, the Spartan
equivalent to an Athenian epiklēros who could be claimed in marriage by one of her
father’s collateral kinsmen with a view to providing a successor who would be as closely

37
J. D. Denniston, The Greek particles, 2nd edn, rev. K. J. Dover (Oxford 1950) 255, observes that καὶ δὴ καί,
which is common in all Greek prose, is used proportionately more often by Herodotus than any other writer.
‘Normally the addition introduced by καὶ δὴ καί is of the same nature as what precedes. The idea is one of
climax, ‘and actually’, ‘and in fact’’.
38
As a child of 8 or 9, she warned her father against giving in to the attempted bribery of Aristagoras (5.51). As
Leonidas’ wife, she worked out how to decipher the secret message sent by Demaratus to Sparta (7.239).
39
M. Finkelberg, ‘Royal succession in heroic Greece’, CQ 41 (1991) 303-16, at 315 n. 63: ‘The material on the
wives of the Spartan kings is too meagre to allow any definite conclusion to be reached on its basis, but such
principal features of the kingship in Sparta as the absence of rotation between the two royal houses, the lack of
mobility and, above all, the father-to-son succession show clearly enough that what we have here is a form of
kingship essentially different from that practised in the Bronze Age’.

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related to her father as possible. 40 If, on the other hand, Cleomenes arranged the marriage
during his lifetime, Leonidas would have been in a similar position to an adopted son, or
perhaps he was indeed adopted by Cleomenos. The aim of the marriage, in either event,
would have been to provide Cleomenes with a direct heir through the female bloodline in
default of a male descendant.
It is possible, then, that if a Spartan king died leaving a daughter but no son, his male
collateral heir would be expected, or perhaps required, to marry the daughter (or,
presumably, the oldest daughter if there was more than one). It is impossible to provide a
definitive reconstruction of the historical circumstances surrounding the marriage of
Leonidas and Gorgo, but one point worth noting is that Leonidas was probably at least 50
years old when Gorgo reached marriageable age. 41 The considerable age difference was
not uncommon in ancient Greece, but it does suggest that this is unlikely to have been
Leonidas’ first marriage. Indeed, it is quite possible (though this can be no more than
speculation) that he divorced a previous wife in favour of the politically more
advantageous union. If so, this raises a question about the status of any children from such
an earlier marriage. Leonidas was himself a member of the royal house, and that would
have been sufficient, in normal circumstances, to give any legitimate son of his a place in
the order of succession. But Pleistarchus, who eventually succeeded him, had the
advantage of being also a lineal descendant of the previous king, Cleomenes, and it is
plausible to infer that this would have given him priority in the order of succession over
any older half-brothers. 42 If this is indeed what happened, it could have provided the basis
for Demaratus’ advice, whether real or suppositious, to Xerxes.

Conclusion
The basic rule of patrimonial primogeniture in the Spartan royal succession is well
attested, and there is clear evidence, at least by the fifth century, of a formal procedure for
the adjudication of a disputed succession and for the removal from office of a ruling king.
In each of the two attested cases the legal basis of the successful challenge was that the
king, or heir apparent, was disqualified from the kingship because he was not of legitimate
Heraclid descent. It is also possible that a claimant to the kingship could be excluded, at
the discretion of the citizens, on the ground of mental or physical incapacity, but the
evidence on this is inconclusive.
It is clear that if a king died leaving no sons (or sons’ sons) the succession passed to
his surviving brothers, probably in order of seniority, and the case of Leonidas’ succession

40
According to Herodotus, one of the functions of the Spartan kings was to decide who should marry an
unmarried ‘heiress’ if her father had not already given her in marriage (πατρούχου τε παρθένου πέρι, ἐς τὸν
ἱκνέεται ἔχειν, ἢν μή περ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτὴν ἐγγυήση, 6.57). The word patroukhos, used here as equivalent to the
Athenian epiklēros, may be from Herodotus’s own Ionic dialect rather than a genuinely Spartan term. Aristotle’s
account of the Spartan inheritance system (Arist. Pol. 1270a 15-34), where he uses the Attic term epiklēros,
reflects significant changes in the law since the time of Herodotus. For discussion, see MacDowell, Spartan law
(n. 14 above) 96-108.
41
Cf. J. R. Grant, ‘Leonidas’ last stand’, Phoenix 15 (1961) 14-27, at 22. On the normal age for marriage in
Sparta, see MacDowell, Spartan law (n. 14 above) 72-77.
42
Herodotus does not explicitly say that Gorgo was the mother of Pleistarchus, but the chronology makes this
more than likely.

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to Cleomenes suggests that there was no ‘principle of representation’ in collateral

successions, whereby a nephew (son of a brother who had predeceased the king) would
have had priority over a younger surviving brother. The order in which more distant
collateral kinsmen succeeded is unknown, and we cannot be sure whether there was a
fixed order of succession in such cases.
In the single attested case of a Spartan king whose only surviving descendant was a
daughter, marriage to the king’s daughter was, according to Herodotus, the factor that
assured his oldest surviving brother of the succession. That would be consistent with what
we know about the legal position of ‘heiresses’ more generally (epiklēroi in Athens and
patroukhoi parthenoi in Sparta). In the context of the royal succession, however, we
cannot tell whether someone who was not the next in line (such as the younger of a
deceased king’s two surviving brothers) could disrupt the normal order by marrying the
king’s daughter.
More speculatively, it is possible to infer that when the new king was married to his
predecessor’s daughter, their oldest son became the heir apparent (excluding any sons the
king already had by a previous marriage) and thus effectively heir to his maternal
grandfather. If that were indeed the case, it would introduce a small but possibly
significant element of matrilinearity into what was otherwise a strictly patrilineal system.

Department of Greek and Latin, University College London

© 2011 Institute of Classical Studies University of London