Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/330

 SH HISTORY OF GREECE payments, 1 which the Argeians, as chief administrators on behalf of the common god, took upon them to enforce against defaulters, and actually tried to enforce during the Peloponnesian war against Epidaurus. On another occasion, during the 66th Olympiad (B. c. 514), they imposed the large fine of 500 talents upon each of the two states Sikyon and ^Egina, for having lent ships to the Spartan king Kleomenes, wherewith he invaded the Argeian territory. The ^Sginetans set the claim at defiance, but the Sikyonians acknowledged its justice, and only demurred to its amount, professing themselves ready to pay 100 talents. 2 There can be no doubt that, at this later period, the ascendency of Argos over the members of her primitive confederacy had become practically inoperative ; but the tenor of the cases men- tioned shows that her claims were revivals of bygone privileges, which had once been effective and valuable. How valuable the privileges of Argos were, before the great rise of the Spartan power, how important an ascendency they conferred, in the hands of an energetic man, and how easily they admitted of being used in furtherance of ambitious views, is shown by the remarkable case of Pheidon, the Temenid. The few facts which we learn respecting this prince exhibit to us, for the first time, something like a real position of parties in the Peloponnesus, wherein the actual conflict of living historical men and cities, comes out in tolerable distinctness. Pheidon was designated by Ephorus as the tenth, and by Theopompus as the sixth, in lineal descent from Temenus. Respecting the date of his existence, opinions the most dis- crepant and irreconcilable have been delivered ; but there seems good reason for referring him to the period a little before and a little after the 8th Olympiad, between 770 B. c. and 730 1 Thucyd. v. 53. Kvptwrarot rov iepov i/aav ol 'ApyeZot. The word ei<T7rpaif, which the historian uses in regard to the claim of Aigos againsf Epidaurus, seems to imply a money-payment withheld : compare the offer- ings exacted by Athens from Epidanrns (Herod, v. 82). The peculiar and intimate connection between the Argeians, and Apollo, mth his surname of PythaCus, was dwelt upon by the Argeian poj'fcs* Telesilla (Pausan. ii. 36, 2).
 * Hcrodot. vi. 92. See 0. Miiller, History of the Dorians, ch. 7, 15.