Son of Eurysthenes, founder of the royal house of the
Agiadae (Pausanias iii. 2.1). His genealogy was traced
through Aristodemus, Aristomachus, Cleodaeus and Hyllus
to Heracles (Herodotus 7, 204), and he belongs rather
to mythology than to history. Tradition ascribed to him
the capture of the maritime town of Helos, which resisted
his attempt to curtail its guaranteed rights, and the
institution of the class of serfs called Helots.