Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/427

 The European Sky-god. 397

retain the sovereignty^'*'' ; indeed, according to the usual tradition, he and his successors were known as archons for life rather than kings.^'*^ The Medontidas in turn were followed by a series of archons who bore office for ten years only. But even this limited rule was no safeguard against moral degeneration and consequent physical incom- petence. A fragment of Heraclides Ponticus de rebus publicis^^'^ states that the Athenians "ceased to choose their kings from the descendants of Codrus because they appeared tohave become enervated through luxurious living," and adds that Hippomenes the Codrid, whom we know to have been one of the ten-year archons, ^^° was anxious to vindicate his character against this charge. Aristotle^^^ likewise asserts that the office of polemarch was instituted " owing to the fact that some of the kings have proved cowardly in warfare." Finally the kingship became an annual magistracy, tenable only by those who were bodily perfect, while the polemarch continued to discharge the military duties once undertaken by the king.^^^ It is not improbable, therefore, that the gradual restriction in the tenure of the Athenian kings was intimately bound up with the question of their physical competence.

However that may be, we have seen that among the Greeks in general two methods of ensuring a satisfactory succession were in vogue. On the one hand, the king as strongest man in the district was expected to challenge all comers to an athletic contest : if vanquished, he yielded his place to the victor, who reigned in his stead. On the other hand, the king might be forced to abdicate at the end of a fixed period, after enjoying his office say for one year, or

'" Siipra,^^. 375-

•^* Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, ii.,- 132 ff.

'*^ Heracl. Pont, de reb.publ., i. 3 Miiller.

'*^ Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, ii.,^ 130, 135.

'" Aristot. de rep. Ath. 3. 2.

"2 Supra, p. 375 f.