Naming the Kings: Spartan Genealogies and the Emergence of the Dyarchic System

This chapter argues that the names given to Spartan kings are an underused tool for investigating the origins of Spartan kingship. A comparison of Herodotus’ genealogies with the Eurypontid lists of Pausanias and of Pherekydes of Athens (preserved in P.Herc. 1788) shows that the names attested in Herodotus’ genealogies are reliable from Theopompos onwards, and that they form a more trustworthy sequence of royal names than that provided by the other sources. Common Greek naming practices – the reuse of family names and onomastic variation – appear only in the lower sections of the genealogies, roughly from the reign of Theopompos, confirming that their upper, mythical parts are artificial. It is further suggested (1) that the presence of the Eurypontid names Agis and Agesilaos in the mythical section of the Agiad line indicates that Herodotus’ genealogies were compiled between 444 and 427 BC in the milieu of king Arkhidamos II, father of Agis II and Agesilaos II; and (2) that the name Anaxandridas, ‘son of the Lord of men’, given to Theopompos’ son around 700 BC, points to the construction, at the very beginning of the archaic period, of an ideology of kingship that equated Theopompos’ conquest of Messene with the conquest of Troy by Agamemnon, ‘Lord of men’. Finally, since Tyrtaios knows of no co-ruler of Theopompos, the dyarchy is interpreted as the outcome of a single royal family splitting into two branches around the mid-seventh century.