Αἰγεύς. This is the Spartan version, but there were Aegidae at Thebes and Acragas as well as at Thera and Cyrene, all hereditary priests of Carnean Apollo. Pindar, who himself claimed to be one of them (Pyth. v. 75, but Studniczka, p. 73 f., disputes this explanation), makes them come with the Heraclidae from Thebes to Sparta (Isth. 7. 14 seq.).
φυλῇ is loosely used for φρατρίᾳ: but Gilbert (Gk. Const. Hist. pp. 5-6) thinks the Aegidae were really a ‘third separate community’ at Sparta.
The Erinys is the personified curse of a father or mother; cf. Soph. O. C. 1299 “τὴν σὴν Ἐρινύν” (of Oedipus). The curses here are those of Laius on Oedipus and of Oedipus on his two sons. Paus. iii. 15. 6 tells us there were shrines at Sparta to the heroes Cadmus, Oeolycus, and Aegeus. For the belief in a curse making a family die out cf. Sir H. Spelman's famous book on Sacrilege (1698).
