Aristodemus
Ἀριστόδημος
(Ἀριστόδημος), a son of Aristomachus, and a descendant of Heracles, was married to Argeia, by whom he became the father of Eurysthenes and Procles. According to some traditions Aristodemus was killed at Naupactus by a flash of lightning, just as he was setting out on his expedition into Peloponnesus (Apollod. 2.8.2, &c.), or by an arrow of Apollo at Delphi because he had consulted Heracles about the return of the Heraclids instead of the Delphic oracle. (Paus. 3.1.5.) According to this tradition, Eurysthenes and Procles were the first Heraclid kings of Lacedaemon; but a Lacedaemonian tradition stated, that Aristodemus himself came to Sparta, was the first king of his race, and died a natural death. (Herod, 6.52; Xenoph. Agesil. 8.7.) Another Heraclid of this name, the grandfather of the former, is mentioned by Euripides. (Ap. Schol. ad Pind. Isth. 4.104.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.