Volume 1
Herodotus : the fourth, fifth, and sixth books / With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps by Reginald Walter Macan.
- Herodotus
- Date:
- 1895
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Herodotus : the fourth, fifth, and sixth books / With introduction, notes, appendices, indices, maps by Reginald Walter Macan. Source: Wellcome Collection.
510/528 (page 382)
 11. A€wkt|8t]s. Miiller, Dorier, 104, identities with Laked<as a pro- vertjially effeminate Temenid of Argos (Plutarch, Mor. 89) and penultimate king; cp. Pausan. 2. 19, 2. irais The appearance of a son of Pheidon among the suitors has been objected to on three grounds: (1) as an anachronism. Pheidon’s date has been put approximately from one to two centuries before Kleisthenes, the Olympiad referred to below being taken for the 8th = 748 B.O., or the 28th = 668 B.c. Though some of the suitors were older than others (c. 128), none can have been so old as this ! (2) The anti- Argive policy of Kleisthenes makes a suitor from ^rg'os out of place (cp. 5. 67 supra). (3) A Dorian suitor spoils the otherwise non-Dorian complexion of the list. Even if the anachronism were avoidable the argument remains against believing that a son of the Dorian despot of Argos was among the suitors of Agariste ; but neither ana- chronism nor improbability proves the unauthenticity of the passage. Van Herwerden drops irats with RSV ( = /3). ^e^Scovos 8^ Tov TO, [xexpa iroii]- o-avTos rEeX-oirovviio-toicri. Pheidon, ‘ who introduced a system of measures in the Peloponnesus,’ was despot of Argos and extended his power to Olympia, can be none other than the greatest of the Temenid kings. It is to be observed that Hdt. ascribes to Phei- don only the ‘ measures ’ ; Ephoros was the first to make him author of the ‘Aiginetan’ coinage. Cp. Busolt, Gr. G. i. 143. Rawlinson admits a blunder on Hdt.’s part, but accepts the theory of there having been two Pheidons, a theory invented to avoid the anachron- ism (by Muller, Aigineticorum Liber, p. 60). But at that rate we shall want three or four Pheidons : see following note. Beloch, Gr. Gesch. i. 216 n. (1893), suggests that the introduction of ‘ measures ’ may have been ascribed to Pheidon, because there was in Argos a measure called a pheidon, Pollux, 10. 179 (ed. Bekker, p. 448). Is it not much more probable that the measure was named after the man ? The plan of dropping the passage ^elSojvos 5^ kt\. to save Ildt. from ana- ■“ chronism is a product of criticism in ■ extremis; better at once rewrite the passage, a.Trd 5^ II. tov ’Apyelov t. ttois A. <-^eL8uvos 8^ awdyovos tov kt\. But this too is desperate and unnecessary. If anything goes out, we must get rid of the whole passage from the first 4>el- 8(i}vos down to 7ra?y /cal and read dir6 8^ Ue\oirovvri(Tov 'AfiLavTos kt\., not in order that we may save Hdt. from anachronism, but that we may reduce the suitors to a dozen, and be rid of the Dorian. But what reason can be shown for curing Hdt. of parapragmat- ism (cp. 5. 45), or where would the process begin and end ? 13. avr6s TOV kv ’OXv[«rI-|] dyuva ?0TiK€. The determination of the Olym- piad of Pheidon is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating problems in Greek chronology. Neither the evidence nor the argument can be here fully ex- hibited. It must suffice to say that (i) if the text of Hdt. be genuine, and the statement correct, Pheidon would have to be regarded as contemporary with Kleisthenes of Sikyon. His Olympiad would then fall into the sixth century. (Busolt has shown indeed that if Pheidon expelled the Eleian Agono- thetae, as Hdt. asserts, the Olympiad of Pheidon would fall subsequently to 01. 72 = 572 B.C., Gr. Gesch. i.2 612 n.) Some recent authorities (Trieber, Beloch) have declared for this date, and Beloch even brings Pheidon to the throne 585 B.c. (Busolt, 1. c.). This date practically rests upon the authority of Hdt. and in this connexion that authority is almost worthless. One historical agreement might be adduced in its favour. If Pheidon belonged to the sixth century he might have been the first to coin money in Greece proper (so Ridgway, Origin of Currency, p. 215): but the evidence that Pheidon coined money is also practically worth- less : {a) The Marmor Parium, which however dates Pheidon, and therefore his coinage, 895 B.c. ; (//) (Ephoros apvd) Strab. 376, who was probably the author of the combination originally. A combination is not necessarily wrong, but against this one, the motives for](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24872416_0001_0510.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
