Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/355

 DATE AND PARENTAGE OF LYKURGUS. 339 accepted as a fact. Lykurgus, on the hypothesis here mentioned, would stand about B. c. 880, a century before the recorded Olympiads. Eratosthenes and Apollodorus placed him " not a few years earlier than the first Olympiad." If they meant hereby the epoch commonly assigned as the Olympiad of Iphitus, their date would coincide pretty nearly with that of Herodotus : if, on the other hand, they meant the first recorded Olympiad (B. c. 77G), they would be found not much removed from the opinion of Aristotle. An unequivocal proof of the inextricable confusion in ancient times respecting the epoch of the great Spartan law- giver is indirectly afforded by Timceus, who supposed that there had existed two persons named Lykurgus, and that the acts of both had been ascribed to one. It is plain from hence that there was no certainty attainable, even in the third century before the Christian era, respecting the date or parentage of Lykurgus. Thucydides, without mentioning the name of Lykurgus, informs us that it was "400 years and somewhat more" anterior to the close of the Peloponnesian war, 1 when the Spartans emerged from their previous state of desperate internal disorder, and en- tered upon " their present polity." We may fairly presume that the formula of the Olympic truce was inscribed, together with the names of Iphitus and Lykurgus as the joint authors and proclaimers of it. Aristotle believed this to be genuine, and accepted it as an evidence of the fact which it professed to certify : and 0. Miiller is also disposed to admit it as genuine, that is, as contemporary with the times to which it professes to relate. I come to a different conclusion : that the quoit existed, I do not doubt ; but that the inscription upon it was actually set down in writing, in or near B. c. 880, would be at variance with the reasonable probabilities resulting from Grecian palaeography. Had this ancient and memorable instrument existed at Olympia in the days of Herodotus, he could hardly have assigned to Lykurgus the epoch which we now read in his writings. The assertions in Miiller's History of the Dorians (i. 7, 7), about Lykur- gus, Iphitus, and Kleosthenes " drawing up the fundamental law of the Olympic armistice," are unsupported by any sufficient evidence. In the later times of established majesty of the Olympic festival, the Eleians did undoubtedly exercise the power which he describes ; but to connect this with any deliberate regulation of Iphitus and Lykurgus, is in my judgment incor- rect. See the mention of a similar truce proclaimed throughout Triphylia by the Makistians as presidents of the common festival at the temple of tha Samian Poseidon (Strabo, viii. p. 343). 1 Thucvd. i. 18.