Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/323

 BACCHIAD.E AT CORIXTH. 307 Such was the celebrity of Bacchis, we are told, that those who uuccceded him took the name of Bacchiads in place of Aletiads or Herakleids. One year after the accession of Automenes, the family of the Bacchiads generally, amounting to 200 persons, determined to abolish royalty, to constitute themselves a standing oligarchy, and to elect out of their own number an annual Pry- tanis. Thus commenced the oligarchy of the Bacchiads, which lasted for ninety years, until it was subverted by Kypselus in G57 B. c. 1 Reckoning the thirty years previous to the begin- ning of the reign of Aletes, the chronologists thus provide an interval of 447 years between the Return of the Herakleids and the accession of Kypselus, and 357 years between the same period and the commencement of the Bacchiad oligarchy. The Bacchiad oligarchy is unquestionably historical ; the conquest of the Herakleids belongs to the legendary world ; while the inter- val between the two is filled up, as in so many other cases, by a mere barren genealogy. When we jump this vacant space, and place ourselves at the first opening of history, we find that, although ultimately Sparta came to hold the first place, not only in Peloponnesus, but in all Hellas, this was not the case at the earliest moment of which we have historical cognizance. Argos, and the neighboring towns connected with her by a bond of semi-religious, semi-political union, Sikyon, Phlius, Epidaurus, and Troszen, were at first of greater power and consideration than Sparta ; a fact which the legend of the Herakleids seems to recognize by making Te- which it was usual to account for by some legendary tale. Thus, no native of Elis ever entered himself as a competitor, or contended for the prize, at the Isthmian games. The legendary reason given for this was, that Herakles had waylaid and slain (at Kleonae) the two Molionid brothers, when they were proceeding to the Isthmian games as Theors or sacred envoys from the Eleian king Augeas. Redress was in vain demanded for this outrage, and Molione, mother of the slain envoys, imprecated a curse upon the Eleians generally if they should ever visit the Isthmian festival. This legend is the 6vov GKf/ipi?, explaining why no Eleian runner or wrestler was ever known to contend th .re (Pausan. ii. 15, 1 ; v. 2, 1-4. Ister, Fragment. 46, ed. Didot). 1 Diodor. Fragm. lib. vii. p. 14, with the note of Wesscling. Strabo (viii. p. 378) states the Ba-chiad oligarchy to hive lasted nearly two hundred years.