A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

2. The eponymic hero of the phyle called the Aegeidae at Sparta, was a son of Oeolycus, and grandson of Theras, the founder of the colony in Thera. (Hdt. 4.149.) All the Aegeids were believed to be Cadmeans, who formed a settlement at Sparta previous to the Dorian conquest. There is only this difference in the accounts, that, according to some, Aegeus was the leader of the Cadmean colonists at Sparta, while, according to Herodotus, they received their name of Aegeids from the later Aegeus, the son of Oeolycus. (Pind. P. 5.101; Isth. 7.18, &c., with the Schol.) There was at Sparta a heroum of Aegeus. (Paus. 3.15.6; compare 4.7.3.)

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