Archidamus
I. (Ἀρχίδαμος), king of Sparta, 12th of the Eurypontids, son of Anaxidamus, contemporary with the Tegeatan war, which followed soon after the end of the second Messenian, in B. C. 668. (Paus. 3.7.6, comp. 3.5.) [A.H.C]
king of Sparta, 17th of the Eurypontids, son of Zeuxidamus, succeeded to the throne on the banishment of his grandfather Leotychides, B. C. 469. In the 4th or perhaps rather the 5th year of his reign, his kingdom was visited by the tremendous calamity of the great earthquake, by which all Laconia was shaken, and Sparta made a heap of ruins. On this occasion his presence of mind is said to have saved his people. Foreseeing the danger from the Helots, he summoned, by sounding an alarm, the scattered surviving Spartans, and collected them around him, apparently at a distance from the ruins, in a body sufficient to deter the assailants. To him, too, rather than to Nicomedes, the guardian of his colleague, Pleistöanax, (Pleistarchus was probably dead,) would be committed the conduct of the contest with the revolted Messenians, which occupies this and the following nine years. In the expeditions to Delphi and to Doris, and the hostilities with Athens down to the 30 years' truce, his name is not mentioned; though in the discussion at Sparta before the final dissolution of that truce he comes forward as one who has had experience of many wars. Of the Peloponnesian war itself we find the first 10 years sometimes styled the Archidamian war; the share, however, taken in it by Archidamus was no more than the command of the first two expeditions into Attica; in the 3rd year, of the investment of Plataea; and again of the third expedition in the 4th year, 428 B. C. In 427 Cleomenes commanded; in 426 Agis, son and now successor of Archidamus. His death must therefore be placed before the beginning of this, though probably after the beginning of that under Cleomenes; for had Agis already succeeded, he, most likely, and not Cleomenes, would have commanded; in the 42nd year, therefore, of his reign, B. C. 427. His views of this momentous struggle, as represented by Thucydides, seem to justify the character that historian gives him of intelligence and temperance. His just estimate of the comparative strength of the parties, and his reluctance to enter without preparation on a contest involving so much, deserve our admiration ; though in his actual conduct of it he may seem to have somewhat wasted Lacedaemon's moral superiority. The opening of the siege of Plataea displays something of the same deliberate character; the proposal to take the town and territory in trust, however we may question the probable result, seems to breathe his just and temperate spirit. He may at any rate be safely excluded from all responsibility for the cruel treatment of the besieged, on their surrender in the year of his death. We may regard him as the happiest instance of an accommodation of the Spartan character to altered circumstances, and his death as a misfortune to Sparta, the same in kind though not in degree as that of Pericles was to Athens, with whom he was connected by ties of hospitality and whom in some points he seems to have resembled. He left two sons and one daughter, Agis by his first wife, Lampito or Lampido, his father's half-sister; Agesilaus by a second, named Eupolia (apparently the woman of small stature whom the Ephors fined him for marrying), and Cynisca, the only woman, we are told, who carried off an Olympic victory. (Thuc. i. ii. iii.; Diod. 11.63; Paus. 3.7. §§ 9, 10; Plut. Cimon, 16, Ages. 1; Hdt. 6.71.) [A.H.C]
king of Sparta, 20th of the Eurypontids, was son of Agesilaus II. We first hear of him as interceding with his father in behalf of Sphodrias, to whose son Cleonymus he was attached, and who was thus saved, through the weak affection of Agesilaus, from the punishment which his unwarrantable invasion of Attica had deserved, B. C. 378. (Xen. Hell. 5.4. §§ 25_33 ; Diod. 15.29; Plut. Ages. 100.25; comp. Plut. Pel. 100.14.) In B. C. 371, he was sent, in consequence of the illness of Agesilaus (Xen. Hell. 5.4.58; Plut. Ages. 100.27), to succour the defeated Spartans at Leuctra; but Jason of Pherae had already mediated between them and the Thebans, and Archidanmus, meeting his countrymen on their return at Aegosthena in Megara, dismissed the allies, and led the Spartans home. (Xen. Hell. 6.4. §§ 17-26; comp. Diod. 15.54, 55; Wess. ad loc.; Thirlwall's Greece, vol. v. p. 78, note.) In 367, with the aid of the auxiliaries furnished by Dionysius I. of Syracuse, he defeated the Arcadians and Argives in what has been called the "Tearless Battle," from the statement in his despatches, that he had won it without losing a man (Xen. Hell. 7.1.28; Plut. Ages. 100.33; Polyaen. 1.45 ; Diod. 15.72); and to the next year, 366, must be taken assigned the "Archidamus" of Isocrates, written perhaps to be delivered by the prince in the Spartion senate, to encourage his country in her resolution of maintaining her claim to Messenia, when Corinth had made, with Sparta's consent, a separate peace with Thebes. (Xen. Hell. 7.4.9.) In 364, he was again sent against Arcadia, then at war with Elis (Xen. Hell. 7.4.20, &c.; Just. 6.5); and in 362, having been left at home to protect Sparta while Agesilaus went to join the allies at Mantineia, he baffled the attempt of Epaminondas on the city. (Xen. Hell. 7.5.9, &c.; Diod. 15.82, 83; Plut. Ages.100.34; Isocr.Ep.ad Arch. § 5.) He succeeded his father on the throne in 361. In 356, we find him privately furnishing Philomelus, the Phocian, with fifteen talents, to aid him in his resistance to the Amphictyonic decree and his seizure of Delphi, whence arose the sacred war. (Diod. 16.24; Just. 8.1; comp. Paus. 4.4 ; Theopomp. apud Paus. 3.10.) In 352, occurred the war of Sparta against Megalopolis with a view to the dissolution (διοικισμός) of that community ; and Archidamus was appointed to the command, and gained some successes, though the enterprise did not ultimately succeed. (Diod. 16.39; Paus. 8.27; Demosth. pro Megal. ; comp. Aristot. Pol. 5.10, ed. Bekk.) In the last year of the sacred war, 346, we find Archidamus marching into Phocis at the head of 1000 men. According to Diodorus (16.59), the Phocians had applied for aid to Sparta, but this seems questionable from what Aeschines (de Fals. Leg. p. 45) reports as the ad vice of the Phocian leaders to Archidamus, "to alarm himself about the dangers of Sparta rather than of Phocis." Demosthenes (de Fals. Leg. p.365) hints at a private understanding between Philip and the Spartans, and at some treachery of his towards them. Whether however on this account, or as being distrusted by Phalaecus (Aesch. de Fals. Leg. p. 46), or as finding it impossible to effect anything on behalf of the Phocians, Archidamus, on the arrival of Philip, withdrew his forces and returned home. In 338, he went to Italy to aid the Tarentines against the Lucanians, and there he fell in battle on the very day, according to Diodorus, of Philip's victory at Chacroneia. (Diod. 16.63, 88; Paus. 3.10; Strab. vi. p.280; Theopomp. apud Athen. xii. p. 536c. d.; Plut. Agis 100.3.) The Spartans erected a statue of him at Olympia, which is mentioned by Pansanias. (vi. ch. 4, 15.) [E.E]
king of Sparta, 23rd of the Eurypontids, was the son of Eudamidas I. and the grandson of Archidamus III. (Plut. Agis 3.) He was king in. 100.296, when he was defeated by Demetrius Poliorcetes. (Plut. Demetr. 35.)
king of Sparta, 27th of the Eurypontids, was the son of Eudamidas II., and the brother of Agis IV. On the murder of his brother Agis, in B. C. 240, Archidamus fled from Sparta, but obtained possession of the throne some time after the accession of Cleomenes, through the means of Aratus, who wished to weaken the power of the Ephors : it appears that also was privy to his recall. Archidamus was, however, slain almost immediately after his return to Sparta, by those who had killed his brother and who dreaded his vengeance. It isdoubtful whether Cleomenes was a party to the murder. (Plut. Cleom. 1, 5; comp. Plb. 5.37, 8.1.) Archidamus V. was the last king of the Eurypontid race. He left sons, who were alive at the death of Cleomenes in B. C. 220, but they were passed over, and the crown given to a stranger, Lycurgus. (Plb. 4.35; Clinton, F. H. ii. Append. 100.3.)
the Aetolian. [Archedemus, No. 3.]
(Ἀρχίδαμος), a Greek physician of whom no particulars are known, but who must have lived in the fourth or fifth century B. C., as Galen quotes one of his opinions (De Simpl. Medicam. Temper. ac Facult. 2.5, &c., vol. xi. p. 471, &c.), which was preserved by Diocles of Carystus.
A physician of the same name is mentioned by Pliny (H. N. Ind. Auct.). Works On Veterinary Surgery
A few fragments on veterinary surgery by a person named Archedemus are to be found in the "Veterinariae Medicinae Libri Duo." Editions
These were first published in Latin by J. Ruellius, Paris, 1530, fol., and afterwards in Greek by S. Grynaeus, Basil. 1537, 4to. [W.A.G]
(Ἀρχίδαμος). See Sparta.
- Olympic victor: Paus. 6.17.5
- Paus. 3.7.5, Paus. 4.15.3
- one of Leutychides' ancestors, son of Anaxandrides: Hdt. 8.131
- king of Sparta: Paus. 3.7.6
- king of Sparta: Hdt. 6.71
- ravages Attica: Paus. 1.29.6, Paus. 3.7.10
- captures Plataea: Paus. 3.7.10, Paus. 9.1.7
- king of Sparta, promotes allegiance with Phocians: Paus. 3.10.3
- saves the Delphians: Paus. 3.10.4
- fights for Tarentines and slain in Italy: Paus. 3.10.5
- not buried: Paus. 6.4.9
- statue at Olympia: Paus. 6.4.9, Paus. 6.15.7