Book 8
5.5
Hellanicus says that Eurysthenes and Procles regulated the form of government, but Ephorus reproaches him with not mentioning Lycurgus at all, and with ascribing the acts of the latter to persons who had no concern in them; to Lycurgus only is a temple erected, and sacrifices are annually performed in his honour, but to Eurysthenes and Procles, although they were the founders of Sparta, yet not even these honours were paid to them, that their descendants should bear the respective appellations of Eurysthenidae and Procleidae.From hence to the end of the section the text is corrupt.. See Groskurd for an attempt to amend the text of the last sentence, which is here not translated. [The descendants of Agis, however, the son of Eurysthenes, were called Agides, and the descendants of Eurypon, the son of Procles, were called Eurypontiadae. The former were legitimate princes; the others, having admitted strangers as settlers, reigned by their means; whence they were not regarded as original authors of the settlement, an honour usually conferred upon all founders of cities.]
5.6
As to the nature of the places in Laconia and Messenia, we may take the description of Euripides;This quotation, as also the one which follows, are from a tragedy of Euripides, now lost. Laconia has much land capable of tillage, but difficult to be worked, for it is hollow, surrounded by mountains, rugged, and difficult of access to an enemy. Messenia he describes in this manner: It bears excellent fruit; is watered by innumerable streams; it affords the finest pasture to herds and flocks; it is not subject to the blasts of winter, nor too much heated by the coursers of the sun; and a little farther on, speaking of the division of the country by the Heracleidae according to lot, the first was lord of the Lacaenian land, a bad soil, the second was Messene, whose excellence no language could express; and Tyrtaeus speaks of it in the same manner.
