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Pleistarchus the son of Leonidas, in answer to one who asked him for what reason they did not take their titles from the names of the first kings, said, ‘Because the first kings needed to be absolute monarchs, but those who followed them had no such need.’ 1
1 One of the two lines of the kings of Sparta was called ‘Agids’ (or ‘Agiads’) from Agis, the second of that line, and the other ‘Eurypontids’ from Eurypon, the third of that line. Cf. Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, chap. ii. (40 D); Strabo, viii. 366; Pausanias, iii. 7. 1. Presumably Plutarch means that the later Spartan kings did not wish to perpetuate the memory of any harshness, which would have been suggested by the names of the earlier absolute monarchs.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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