Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/268

Rh 2S6 PHEIDON. and silver coinage, and of a new scale of weights and measures, which, through his influence, became prevalent in the Peloponnesus, and ultimately throughout the greater portion of Greece. The scale in question was known by the name of the Aeginetan, and it is usually supposed, according to the statement of Ephorus, that the coinage of Pheidon was struck in Aegina ; but there seems good reason for believing, with Mr. Grote, that what Pheidon did was done in Argos, and nowhere else, — that "Pheidonian measures" probably did not come to bear the specific name of Aeginetan until there was another scale in vogue, the Euboic, from which to distinguish them, — and that both the epithets were probably derived, not from the place where the scale first originated, but from the people whose commercial activity tended to make them most generally known, — in the one case the Aeginetans, in the other case the inhabitants of Chalcis and Eretria. With respect to the date of Pheidon there is some considerable discrepancy of statement. Pau- sanias mentions the 8th Olympiad, or h. c. 748, as the period at which he presided at the Olympic games ; but the Parian marble, representing him as the eleventh from Hercules, places him in B. c. 895. Hence Larcher and others would understand Pausanias to be reckoning the Olympiads, not from Coroebus, but from Iphitus : but Pausanias and Ephorus tell us that the Olympiad which Pheidon celebrated was omitted in the Eleian register, and we know that there was no register of the Olym- piads at all before the Olympiad of Coroebus in B. c. 776. On the other hand, Herodotus, accord- ing to the common reading of the passage (vi. 127), calls Pheidon the father of Leocedes, one of the suitors of Agarista, the daughter of Cleisthenes of Sicyon ; and, as this would bring down the Argive tyrant to a period at least a hundred years later than the one assigned him by Pausanias, some critics have suspected a mutilation of the text of Herodotus, while others would alter that of Pau- sanias from the 8th to the 28th Olympiad, and others again suppose two kings of Argos of the name of Pheidon, and imagine Herodotus to have con- founded the later with the earlier. Of these views, that which ascribes incorrectness to the received reading of the passage in Herodotus is by far the most tenable. At any rate, the date of Pheidon is fixed on very valid grounds, which may be found in Clinton, to about the middle of the eighth cen- tury B. c. (Ephor. ap. Strab. viii. p. 358 ; Theopomp. ap. Diod. Fragm. B. vii. ; Arist. Pol. v. 10, ed. Bekk. ; Paus. vi. 22 ; Plut. Am. Narr. 2 ; Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. iv. 1212 ; Schol. ad Find. Olymp. xiii. 27 ; Poll. Onom. x. 179 ; Plin. H.N. vii. 56 ; Diog. Laert. viii. 14 ; Ael. V. II. xii. 10 ; Perizon. ad loc. ; Clint. F. H. vol. i. app. i. ; Larcher, ad Herod, vi. 127 ; MUller, Dor. i. 7. § 15 ; Herm. Pol. Ant. % Z'i ; Bockh, PM. Econ. of Alliens, b. i. ch. 4, b. iv. ch. 19 ; Thirlwall's Greece, vol. i. p. 358 ; Grote 's G^reece, part ii. ch. 4.) 2. An ancient Corinthian legislator, of uncertain date, who is said by Aristotle to have had in view an arrangement which provided for a fixed and un- changeable number of citizens, without attempting to equalize property (Arist. Pol. ii. 3, ed. Giittling ; Gottl. ad loc). The scholiast on Pindar {01 xiii. 20) appears to confound this Pheidon with the Argive tyrant, though MUller explains it by saying PHEMONOE. {Dor. i. 7. § 15) that the latter was sometimeg called a Corinthian, because Corinth lay in his do- minions. The words, however, of the scholiast, «l»eiSa>j' Tts dvfp KopivQios, will not admit of this charitable interpretation. We have no ground at all for identifying the king of Argos with the Co- rinthian legislator of Aristotle. 3. One of the thirty tyrants established at Athens in B.C. 404 (Xen. Hell. ii. 3. § 2). He was strongly opposed to Critias and his party in the government, and, therefore, after the battle of Munychia he was appointed one of the new Council of Ten, in the hope that he would bring about a reconciliation with the exiles in the Peiraeeus. But he showed no willingness at all for such a course, and we find him shortly after going to Sparta to ask for aid against the popular party. (Xen. Hell. ii. 4. §§ 23, 28 ; Lys. c. Emt. p. 125.) 4. An Athenian, who, if we may believe a story preserved in St. Jerome (c. Jovin. i. p. 186 ; comp. Schneid, ad Xen. Hell. ii. 3. § 2), was slain at a banquet by the thirty tyrants, who then obliged his daughters to dance naked before them on the floor that was stained with their father's blood. To avoid further and worse dishonour, the maidens drowned themselves. 5. A character in the 'linroTp6(po<i of the comic poet Mnesimachus. From the context of the frag- ment in which his name occurs, he seems to have been one of the Phylarchs, who superintended the cavalry of Athens (Mnesim. ap. Ath. ix. p. 402, f.; Meineke, Fragm. Com. Grace, vol. iii. pp. 568, 571). The name occurs also in the nol77cns of Antiphanes, but does not refer to any real person. (Antiph. ap. Ath. vi. p. 223, a.; Meineke, Fragm. Com. Grace, vol. iii. p. 106.) [E. E.] PHEME. [OssA.] PHE'MIUS i^H^ios). 1. The famous minstrel, was a son of Terpius, and entertained with his song the suitors in the house of Odysseus in Ithaca. (Horn. Od. i. 154, xxii. 330, &c. xvii. 263.) 2. One of the suitors of Helen. (Hygin. Fah. 81.) 3. The father of Aegeus, and accordingly the grand-father of Theseus, who is hence called 4>?7- lAov TTois. (Lycoph. 1 324, with the note of Tzetz.) 4. A son of Ampyx, and the mythical founder of the town of Phemiae in Arnaea. (Steph. Byz. s.v. ^r]iuLlai ; comp. Temon.) [L. S.] PHEMO'NOE {^mov6v% a mythical Greek poetess of the ante-Homeric period, was said to have been the daughter of Apollo, and his first priestess at Delphi, and the inventor of the hex- ameter verse (Paus. x. 5. § 7, 6. § 7 ; Strab. ix. p. 419 ; Plin. H.N. vii. 57 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, i. pp. 323,334 ; Schol ad Eurip. Orest. 1094 ; Eust. Prol. ad Iliad. ; and other authors cited by Fa- bricius). Some writers seem to have placed her at Delos instead of Delphi {Atil. Fort. p. 2690, Putsch ) ; and Servius identifies her with the Cu- maean Sybil {ad Virg. Aen. iii. 445). The tra- dition which ascribed to her the invention of the hexameter, was by no means uniform ; Pausanias, for example, as quoted above, calls her the first who used it, but in another passage (x. 12. § 10) he quotes an hexameter distich, which was ascribed to the Peleiads, who lived before Phemonoe : the traditions respecting the invention of the hexameter are collected by Fabricius (Bibl. Grace, vol. i. p. 207). There were poems which went under the name of Phemonoe, like the old religioug poems ^