its origin, however, according to the ancient legends, in the following
singular occurrences:

At a very early period in the history of Sparta, when the people had
always been accustomed, like other states, to have one prince or
chieftain, a certain prince died, leaving his wife, whose name was
Argia, and two infant children, as his survivors. The children were
twins, and the father had died almost immediately after they were born.
Now the office of king was in a certain sense hereditary, and yet not
absolutely so; for the people were accustomed to assemble on the death
of the king, and determine who should be his successor, choosing always,
however, the oldest son of the former monarch, unless there was some
very extraordinary and imperious reason for not doing so. In this case
they decided, as usual, that the oldest son should be king.

But here a very serious difficulty arose, which was, to determine which
of the twins was the oldest son. They resembled each other so closely
that no stranger could distinguish one from the other at all. The mother
said that she could not distinguish them, and that she did not know
which was the first-born. This was not strictly true; for she did, in
fact, know, and only denied her power to decide the question because she
wished to have both of her children kings.

In this perplexity the Spartans sent to the oracle at Delphi to know
what they were to do. The oracle gave, as usual, an ambiguous and
unsatisfactory response. It directed the people to make both the
children kings, but to render the highest honors to the first-born. When
this answer was reported at Sparta, it only increased the difficulty;
for how were they to render peculiar honors to the first-born unless
they could ascertain which the first-born was?

In this dilemma, some person suggested to the magistrates that perhaps
Argia really knew which was the eldest child, and that if so, by
watching her, to see whether she washed and fed one, uniformly, before
the other, or gave it precedence in any other way, by which her latent
maternal instinct or partiality might appear, the question might
possibly be determined. This plan was accordingly adopted. The
magistrates contrived means to place a servant maid in the house to
watch the mother in the way proposed, and the result was that the true
order of birth was revealed. From that time forward, while they were
both considered as princes, the one now supposed to be the firs