Agis, an early Spartan king, is traditionally held to be the son of Eurysthenes (in legend, one of the twins who founded Sparta).

Because the Agiad line of kings is named after him, Agis is perhaps a historical figure.

The fourth-century BCE Greek historian Ephorus attributes to Agis the capture of the city of Helos in Laconia and the reduction of its people to helot (serf) status.

The state of Sparta, historically Lacedaemon, the eventual capital of the Laconia district of the southeastern Peloponnese, is reputedly founded in the ninth century BCE with a rigid oligarchic constitution.

Lycurgus, by tradition the founder of the constitution of Sparta, and the lawgiver who designs this city-state's unique social and military structure, lives (according to fifth century BCE Greek writer Herodotus) about 900, (but later writers, including the biographer Plutarch, date him to the early eighth century BCE.

Scholars have been unable to determine conclusively whether Lycurgus was a historical person and, if he did exist, which institutions should be attributed to him.

Herodotus claimed that the lawgiver belonged to Sparta's Agiad house, one of the two houses (the other being the Eurypontid) that held Sparta's dual kingship.

According to Herodotus, the Spartans of his day claimed that the institutions of Crete inspired Lycurgus' reforms.

The historian Xenophon, writing in the first half of the fourth century BCE, apparently believed that Lycurgus had founded Sparta's institutions soon after the Dorians invaded Laconia around 1000 BCE and reduced the native Achaean population to the status of serfs, or helots.

It was generally accepted by the middle of the fourth century BCE hat Lycurgus had belonged to the Eurypontid house and had been regent for the Eurypontid king Charillus.

On this basis, Hellenistic scholars dated him to the ninth century BCE.

The Greek biographer Plutarch in his Life of Lycurgus will piece together popular accounts of Lycurgus' career.

Plutarch will describe Lycurgus' journey to Egypt and claim that the reformer had introduced the poems of Homer to Sparta.