Eurystheus

[2.8.1] When Hercules had been translated to the gods, his sons fled from Eurystheus and came to Ceyx.

But when Eurystheus demanded their surrender and threatened war, they were afraid, and, quitting Trachis, fled through Greece. Being pursued, they came to Athens, and sitting down on the altar of Mercy, claimed protection.

Refusing to surrender them, the Athenians bore the brunt of war with Eurystheus, and slew his sons, Alexander, Iphimedon, Eurybius, Mentor and Perimedes. Eurystheus himself fled in a chariot, but was pursued and slain by Hyllus just as he was driving past the Scironian cliffs; and Hyllus cut off his head and gave it to Alcmena; and she gouged out his eyes with weaving-pins.234

[2.8.2] After Eurystheus had perished, the Heraclids came to attack Peloponnese and they captured all the cities.235 When a year had elapsed from their return, a plague visited the whole of Peloponnese; and an oracle declared that this happened on account of the Heraclids, because they had returned before the proper time. Hence they quitted Peloponnese and retired to Marathon and dwelt there.

Before they came out of Peloponnese, Tlepolemus had killed Licymnius inadvertently; for while he was beating a servant with his stick Licymnius ran in between; so he fled with not a few, and came to Rhodes, and dwelt there.237 But Hyllus married Iole according to his father’s commands, and sought to effect the return of the Heraclids. So he went to Delphi and inquired how they should return; and the god said that they should await the third crop before returning.

But Hyllus supposed that the third crop signified three years; and having waited that time he returned with his army238 . . . of Hercules to Peloponnese, when Tisamenus, son of Orestes, was reigning over the Peloponnesians.

In another battle the Peloponnesians were victorious, and Aristomachus240 was slain. But when the sons of Cleodaeus241 were grown to man’s estate, they inquired of the oracle concerning their return.

The god having given the same answer as before, Temenus blamed him, saying that when they had obeyed the oracle they had been unfortunate. But the god retorted that they were themselves to blame for their misfortunes, for they did not understand the oracles, seeing that by “the third crop” he meant, not a crop of the earth, but a crop of a generation, and that by the narrows he meant the broad-bellied sea on the right of the Isthmus.

On hearing that, Temenus made ready the army and built ships in Locris where the place is now named Naupactus from that.243 While the army was there, Aristodemus was killed by a thunderbolt,244 leaving twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, by Argia, daughter of Autesion.245

[2.8.3] And it chanced that a calamity also befell the army at Naupactus. For there appeared to them a soothsayer reciting oracles in a fine frenzy, whom they took for a magician sent by the Peloponnesians to be the ruin of the army. So Hippotes, son of Phylas, son of Antiochus, son of Hercules, threw a javelin at him, and hit and killed him.246 In consequence of that, the naval force perished with the destruction of the fleet, and the land force suffered from famine, and the army disbanded. When Temenus inquired of the oracle concerning this calamity, the god said that these things were done by the soothsayer247 and he ordered him to banish the slayer for ten years and to take for his guide the Three-Eyed One. So they banished Hippotes, and sought for the Three-Eyed One.

They chanced to light on Oxylus, son of Andraemon, a man sitting on a one-eyed horse (its other eye having been knocked out with an arrow); for he had fled to Elis on account of a murder, and was now returning from there to Aetolia after the lapse of a year.249 So guessing the purport of the oracle, they made him their guide. And having engaged the enemy they got the better of him both by land and sea, and slew Tisamenus, son of Orestes.250 Their allies, Pamphylus and Dymas, the sons of Aegimius, also fell in the fight.

[2.8.4] When they had made themselves masters of Peloponnese, they set up three altars of Paternal Zeus, and sacrificed upon them, and cast lots for the cities. So the first drawing was for Argos, the second for Lacedaemon, and the third for Messene.

They brought a pitcher of water, and resolved that each should cast in a lot. Now Temenus and the two sons of Aristodemus, Procles and Eurysthenes, threw stones; but Cresphontes, wishing to have Messene allotted to him, threw in a clod of earth. As the clod was dissolved in the water, it could not be but that the other two lots should turn up. The lot of Temenus having been drawn first, and that of the sons of Aristodemus second, Cresphontes got Messene.251

[2.8.5] And on the altars on which they sacrificed they found signs lying: for they who got Argos by the lot found a toad; those who got Lacedaemon found a serpent; and those who got Messene found a fox.252 As to these signs the seers said that those who found the toad had better stay in the city (seeing that the animal has no strength when it walks); that those who found the serpent would be terrible in attack, and that those who found the fox would be wily.

Now Temenus, passing over his sons Agelaus, Eurypylus, and Callias, favoured his daughter Hyrnetho and her husband Deiphontes; hence his sons hired some fellows to murder their father.253 On the perpetration of the murder the army decided that the kingdom belonged to Hyrnetho254 and Deiphontes. Cresphontes had not long reigned over Messene when he was murdered with two of his sons255; and Polyphontes, one of the true Heraclids, came to the throne and took to wife, against her will, Merope, the wife of the murdered man.256 But he too was slain. For Merope had a third son, called Aepytus, whom she gave to her own father to bring up. When he was come to manhood he secretly returned, killed Polyphontes, and recovered the kingdom of his fathers.257