Sons of Heracles

They remember the services rendered by their own ancestors to the ancestors of the Thebans, for, when the sons of Heracles were dispossessed by the Peloponnesians of their paternal dominion, they restored them, overcoming in battle those who were trying to oppose the descendants of Heracles;

When Heracles had put off this life and from being mortal became a god, his sons at first went on divers wanderings and faced many perils because of the power of their enemies;

next, that Lacedaemon was theirs by right of gift, for when Tyndareus, having been driven from his throne, was restored to it by Heracles, after Castor and Polydeuces had vanished from among men, he gave the land to Heracles because of this act of kindness and also because of the kinship of Heracles and his own sons;

and lastly, they found that Messene was theirs as a prize taken in war, for Heracles, when he had been robbed of the cattle from Erytheia, by Neleus and all his sons except Nestor, had taken the country captive and slain the offenders, but had committed the city to Nestor’s charge, believing him to be prudent, because, although the youngest of his brethren, he had taken no part in their iniquity.

again, by the Peloponnesians, led by Eurystheus, who not only refused to make amends to Heracles for his ill-treatment of him but brought an army against our ancestors with the object of seizing by force the sons of Heracles, who had taken refuge with us.

And while that other deed was also noble, when you checked the insolence of Eurystheus and preserved the sons of Heracles, would it not surely be an even nobler one if you saved from perishing, not merely the founders, but the whole state as well?