Lacedaemon (mythology)

Lacedaemon
Eponymous king of Lacedaemon
Member of the Sparta Royal Family
Other names	Lacaedemon, Lacedemon
Predecessor	Eurotas
Successor	Amyclas
Abode	Laconia
Genealogy
Parents	Zeus and Taygete
Siblings	Several paternal half-siblings
Consort	Sparta Taygete
Children	Amyclas and Eurydice Himerus and Cleodice

Lacedaemon (/læsɪˈdiːmən/; Ancient Greek: Λακεδαίμων Lakedaímōn) or Lacaedemon was the eponymous king of Lacedaemon (i.e. Sparta) in classical Greek mythology.[1]

Family

Lacedaemon was the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Taygete. By Princess Sparta, the daughter of former King Eurotas, he was the father of his heir Amyclas and Eurydice, wife of King Acrisius of Argos.[2]

In a rare version of the myth, Taygete was the wife of Lacedaemon and their children were Himerus and Cleodice.[3]

Mythology

Unable to produce a male heir, King Eurotas bequeathed the kingdom to Lacedaemon, who then renamed the state after his wife,[1] Sparta (the daughter of Eurotas) in either 1539 BC[4] or the mid to late 1300s[5] Lacedemon was credited to be the founder of the sanctuary of the Graces, Cleta and Phaenna, near the river Tiasa.[6]

Regnal titles
Preceded by Eurotas	King of Sparta	Succeeded by Amyclas

Notes

1. Pausanias (1918). "III.1.2". Description of Greece. Translated by Jones, W. H. S.; Ormerod, H. A. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; Heinemann. Archived from the original on 2024-12-03 – via the Perseus Project.
2. Grimal, Pierre (1996). "s.v. "Eurydice" (2)". The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1.
3. Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis 17
4. Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt (biography) (2007-04-06). "Sparta". Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert - Collaborative Translation Project. hdl:2027/spo.did2222.0000.786.
5. "Chapter 28 - Bronze Age History of Laconia". ACT 青森ケーブルテレビ. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
6. Pausanias, 3.18.6 & 9.35.1 with Alcman as the authority for the names of the Charites

References

• Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1
• Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, Morals translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. ISBN 0-674-99328-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
• Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.