Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/435

 CHAROXDA5 THE LAWGIVER. 417 show that he too must have conceived the history of Sybaris IB a way different from that in which it is commonly represented He tells us that after much suffering in Magna Gracia, from the troubles which followed the expulsion of the Pythagoreans, the cities were induced by Achrcan mediation to come to an accom- modation, and even to establish something like a permanent league, with a common temple and sacrifices. Now the three cities which he specifies as having been the first to do this, are Kroton, Sybaris, and Kaulonia. 1 But according to the sequence of events and the fatal war, just described, between Kroton and Sybaris, the latter city must have been at that time in ruins ; little, if at all, inhabited. I cannot but infer from this statement of Polybius, that he followed different authorities respecting the early history of Magna Grascia in the beginning of the fifth century B. c. Indeed, the early history of these cities gives us little more than a few isolated facts and names. With regard to their legis- lators, Zaleukus and Charondas, nothing is made out except their existence, and even that fact some ancient critics contested. Of Zaleukus, whom chronologists place in G64 B.C., I have already spoken ; the date of Charondas cannot be assigned, but we may perhaps presume that it was at some time betweor 600-500 B.C. He was a citizen of middling station, born in the Chalkidic colony of Katana in Sicily, 2 and he framed laws not only for his own city, but for the other Chalkidic cities in Sicily 1 Polyb. ii, 39. Heyne thinks that the agreement here mentioned by Po- lybius took place Olymp. 80, 3 ; or, indeed, after the repopulation of the Sybaritan territory by the foundation of Tliurii (Opuscula, vol. ii; Pro- lus. x, p. 189). But there seems great difficulty in imagining that the state of violent commotion which, according to Polybius, was only ap- peased by this agreement can possibly have lasted so long as half a cen- tury ; the received date of the overthrow of the Pythagoreans being about 504 B.C. lhan the foundation of Thurii, in which, I think, he is undoubtedly right : but without determining the date more exactly (Opuscul. vol. ii; Prolus. be, p. 160), Charondas must certainly have been earlier than Anaxilas of Rhegium and the great Sicilian despots ; which will place him higher than 500 B.C. : but I do not know that any more precise mark of t me can b found. VOL. IT. 27OC.
 * Aristot. Politic, ii, 9, 6 ; 5v, 9. 10. Heyne puts Charondas much earlier