To the Spartans: beware of a lame kingship (PW 112)

This entry comments on the Delphic oracle warning Sparta to beware of a “lame kingship” (PW 112; Fo. Q16), cited by the chresmologue Diopeithes during the dispute over the Eurypontid succession after Agis II’s death (400/399 BCE), when Leotychidas’ legitimacy was challenged in favour of the physically lame Agesilaos. Transmitted in prose by Xenophon and in four hexameters by Plutarch and Pausanias, the oracle opposes literal (Diopeithes, on Agesilaos’ disability) and metaphorical (Lysandros, on Leotychidas’ alleged bastardy) interpretations, the latter prevailing. The entry traces the oracle’s earlier application, during the Pentecontaetia, to Sparta’s “lame hegemony” (Diod. 11.50), arguing for the priority of the kingship reading over the hegemony one. It further situates the prophecy’s genesis within the institutionalisation of the Spartan dyarchy, proposing that its original purpose was to safeguard the balance between the two royal houses against the risk of one overshadowing the other.