3.2.1 Eurysthenes, the elder of the sons of Aristodemos, had, they say, a son Agis, after. whom the lineage of Eurysthenes is called the Agiadai. In his time, when Patreus the son of Preugenes was founding in Achaea a city which even at the present day is called Patrai from this Patreus, the Lacedaemonians took part in the settlement. They also joined in an expedition oversea to establish a colony. Gras the son of Ekhelas the son of Penthilos the son of Orestes was the leader, who was destined to occupy the land between Ionia and Mysia, called at the present day Aeolis; his ancestor Penthilos had even before this seized the island of Lesbos, which faces this part of the mainland.

3.2.2 When Ekhestratos, son of Agis, was king at Sparta, the Lacedaemonians removed all the Cynurians of military age, alleging as a reason that freebooters from the Cynurian territory were harrying Argolis, the Argives being their kinsmen, and that the Cynurians themselves openly made forays into the land. The Cynurians are said to be Argives by descent, and tradition has it that their founder was Cynurus, son of Perseus.

3.2.3 Not many years afterwards Labotas, son of Ekhestratos, became king in Sparta. This Labotas Herodotus, in his history of Croesus, says was in his childhood the ward of Lycurgus (Lykourgos) the lawgiver, but he calls him Leobotes and not Labotas. It was then that the Lacedaemonians first resolved to make war upon the Argives, bringing as charges against them that they were annexing the Cynurian territory which they themselves had captured, and were causing revolts among their subjects the Perioeci (Dwellers around). On this occasion neither of the belligerents, according to the account, achieved anything worthy of mention,

3.2.4 and the next kings of this house, Doryssus, son of Labotas, and Agesilaos, son of Doryssus, were soon both killed. Lycurgus (Lykourgos) too laid down their laws for the Lacedaemonians in the reign of Artesilaos; some say that he was taught how to do this by the Pythian priestess, others that he introduced Cretan institutions. The Cretans say that these laws of theirs were laid down by Minos, and that Minos was not without divine aid in his deliberations concerning them. Homer too, I think, refers in riddling words to the legislation of Minos in the following verses:

3.2.5 Of Lycurgus (Lykourgos) I shall make further mention later. Agesilaos had a son Arkhelaos. In his reign the Lacedaemonians took by force of arms Aigys, a city of the Perioeci, and sold the inhabitants into slavery, suspecting them of Arcadian sympathies. Kharilaos, the king of the other house, helped Arkhelaos to destroy Aigys, but the exploits he achieved when leading the Lacedaemonians by himself, these too I shall relate when my narrative comes to treat of those called the Eurypontidai.

3.2.6 Arkhelaos had a son Teleklos. In his reign the Lacedaemonians conquered in war and reduced Amyklai, Pharis, and Geranthrae, cities of the Perioeci, which were still in the possession of the Achaeans. The inhabitants of Pharis and Geranthrae, panic-stricken at the onslaught of the Dorians, made an agreement to retire from the Peloponnesus under a truce, but those of Amyklai were not driven out at the first assault, but only after a long and stubborn resistance, in which they distinguished themselves by glorious achievements. To this heroism the Dorians bore witness by raising a trophy against the Amyklaians, implying that their success was the most memorable exploit of that time. Not long after this Teleklos was murdered by Messenians in a sanctuary of Artemis. This sanctuary was built on the frontier of Laconia and Messenia, in a place called Limniai(Lakes).

3.2.7 After the death of Teleklos, Alkamenes his son succeeded to the throne, and the Lacedaemonians sent to Crete Kharmidas the son of Euthys, who was a distinguished Spartan, to put down the civil strife among the Cretans, to persuade them to abandon the weak, inland towns, and to help them to people instead those that were conveniently situated for the coasting voyage. They also laid waste Helos, an Achaean town on the coast, and won a battle against the Argives who came to give aid to the Helots.