[4]
When they had made themselves masters of Peloponnese, they set up three altars of Paternal Zeus, and sacrificed upon
them, and cast lots for the cities. So the first drawing was for Argos, the second for Lacedaemon, and the third for Messene. And they brought a pitcher of water, and resolved that each should
cast in a lot. Now Temenus and the two sons of Aristodemus, Procles and Eurysthenes, threw
stones; but Cresphontes, wishing to have Messene allotted to him, threw in a clod of earth. As the clod was dissolved
in the water, it could not be but that the other two lots should turn up. The lot of
Temenus having been drawn first, and that of the sons of Aristodemus second, Cresphontes
got
Messene.1
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1 As to the drawing of the lots, and the stratagem by which Cresphontes secured Messenia for himself, see Polyaenus, Strateg. i.6; Paus. 4.3.4ff. Sophocles alludes to the stratagem （Soph. Aj. 1283ff., with the Scholiast on Soph. Aj. 1285）.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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