Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/331

 PHEIDOX OF AEGOS. 310 B. c. 1 Of the preceding kings of Argos we hear little : one of them, Eratus, is said to have expelled the Dryopian inhabitants of Asine from their town on the Argolic peninsula, in conse- quence of their having cooperated with the Spartan king, Nikan- der, when he invaded the Argeian territory, seemingly during the generation preceding Pheidon ; there is another, Damokra- tidas, whose date cannot be positively determined, but he appears rather as subsequent than as anterior to Pheidon. 2 We are in- formed, however, that these anterior kings, even beginning with Medon, the grandson of Temenus, had been forced to sub- mit to great abridgment of their power and privileges, and that a form of government substantially popular, though nomi- nally regal, had been established. 3 Pheidon, breaking through 1 Ephor. Fragm. 15, ed. Marx; ap. Strabo, viii. p. 358; Theopompus, Fragm. 30, ed. Didot ; ap. Diodor. Fragm. lib. iv. The Parian Marble makes Pheidon the eleventh from Herakles, and places him B. c. 895 ; Herodotus, on the contrary (in a passage which affords con- siderable grounds for discussion), places him at a period which cannot be much higher than 600 B. c. (vi. 127.) Some authors suspect the text of Herodotus to be incorrect : at any rate, the real epoch of Pheidon is determined by the 8th Olympiad. Several critics suppose tuv Pheidons, each king of Argos, among others, 0. Miiller (Dorians, iii. 6, 10); but there is nothing to countenance this, except the impossibility of reconciling Herodotus with the other authorities. And Weissenborn. in a dissertation of some length, vindicates the emendation of Pausanias proposed by somo former critics, altering the 8th Olympiad, which now stands in the text of Pausanias, into the twenty-eighth, as the date of Pheidon's usurpation at the Olympic games. Weissenborn endeavors to show that Pheidon cannot have flourished earlier than 660 B. c. ; but his arguments do not appear to me very forcible, and certainly not sufficient to justify so grave an alteration in the number of Pausanias (Beitrage zur Griechischen Alterthumskunde, p. 18, Jena, 1844). Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellenic!, vol. i. App. 1, p. 249) places Pheidon between 783 and 744 B. c. ; also, Boeckh. ad Corp. Inscript No. 2374, p. 335, and Miiller, ^Eginctica, p. 63. 2 Pausan. ii. 36, 5 ; iv. 35, 2. 3 Pausan. ii. 19, 1. 'Apyetot 6e, UTE iariyopiav not TO alrovofiov dyoTui/rff K TrahaioTuTov, TO. r^f i^ovaiaf TUV ftaaikiuv if tXaxiGTov Tcporryayov, uf Mr/ftuvt T(J Kelaov Kal Toif cnroyovoif TO bvofia faup&ijvai TOV paaiteuf pov ov This passage has all the air of transferring back to the early government of Argos, feelings which were only true of the later. It is curious that, in this chapter, though devoted to the Argeian regal line and government, Pausa- nias takes no notice of Pheidon: he mentions him only with reference to the digputed Olympic ceremony.