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Ἰταλίης: cf. v. 43 n.

εἶς ἀνήρ intensifies the superlative; cf. Aesch. Pers. 327. Anecdotes of the luxury of Smindyrides are given (from Timaeus) by Athenaeus, p. 273 b c, 541 b. He is said not to have seen the sun rise or set for twenty years, and to have been attended by 1,000 fowlers and 1,000 cooks. According to Seneca (de Ir. ii. 25) he complained of crumpled rose-leaves on his couch, and declared that to see a man hard at work in the field made him feel tired.

Σιρίτης: on Siris see viii. 62. 2 n.


Τιτόρμου. In Aelian, V. H. xii. 22, Titormus is said to have conquered Milo in a trial of strength, a story which would bring his date down to circ. 520 B. C. In such stories anachronisms are common (cf. I. vi. 27. 2, 125 n., 291 n.).


Λεωκήδης: identified by Müller with Lakedas, an effeminate king of Argos, twelfth in descent from Temenus (Paus. ii. 19. 2).

Lehmann supposes H. confused two Pheidons (Hermes, xxxv. 648 f.; Klio ii. 336; cf. v. 113 n.).

Φείδωνος. The date here assigned to Pheidon, viz. the age of Cleisthenes (circ. 600-570), though accepted by Beloch (i. 282; Rh. Mus. xlv. 595) and Trieber, and supported by the statement that he expelled the Elean Agonothetae, apparently after 572 B. C. (cf. Busolt, i. 604 and 612), can hardly be maintained. If, indeed, Pheidon first coined money (Ephorus in Strabo 358, Marm. Par.) in Greece proper, he would belong to the seventh century according to the numismatists, but the statement is an unhistorical amplification of H. (τὰ μέτρα) and inconsistent with the dates explicitly or implicitly assigned to Pheidon by Ephorus and the Parian marble.

On the other hand, Ephorus making Pheidon the tenth descendant of Temenus (Strab. l. c.; cf. Paus. ii. 19. 2) would appear to place him circ. 800-770 B. C. (Busolt, i. 613), or a generation later (Abbott, Exc. vi to Bk. VI). The yet earlier dates for Pheidon seem due to his connexion with the royal line of Macedon. Caranus, the founder of the dynasty (unknown till the fourth century), is declared to be brother of Pheidon, and seventh in descent from Temenus (Theopomp. Fr. 30, F. H. G. i. 283), and eleventh from Heracles. This made the Macedonian dynasty older than the Median, then believed to have succeeded the Assyrian in 884 (Ctesias), and placed Pheidon in the same generation as Lycurgus, circ. 900-870 (Marm. Par. 894 B. C.). Finally, when Lycurgus, on account of the disk of Iphitus, was brought down to the first Olympiad (776 B. C.), Caranus and Pheidon too were moved down. Pheidon's accession was fixed in 798 (Jerome; cf. Eusebius and Syncellus), and his Olympiad (the 8th) fifty years later, as the crown and consummation of a long and prosperous reign (748 B. C.) (Paus. vi. 22. 2). This date is accepted by Grote (ii. 315), Duncker (ii. 67), Holm (i. 215), and Abbott (l. c.).

Pausanias, however, makes Pheidon celebrate the Olympia in conjunction with the men of Pisa. Now Strabo (355) distinctly places the presidency of the Pisatans after the 26th Olympiad, though quite aware of Ephorus' views on Pheidon (p. 358). Africanus also knows no break in the official (Elean) list of Olympiads till the 28th, which was held by the Pisatans. Hence Falconer and Weissenborn would emend the text of Pausanias (28th for 8th), and so date Pheidon in 668 B. C. Whether the emendation be justifiable or not, the date is most suitable (Curtius, Busolt, l. c., Macan, Bury, p. 860). Pheidon would thus be placed between the two Messenian wars at the time of the great Argive victory over the Spartans at Hysiae (Paus. ii. 24. 7). This date would also make it possible for him to have spread abroad the use of the Φειδώνεια μέτρα (used at Athens before Solon, Ath. Pol. ch. 10), or rather perhaps of the Aeginetan system of weights and measures. Lastly, the anachronism here is more intelligible if the 28th Olympiad be accepted. In a legend Solon and Croesus may well meet, but hardly Croesus and Lycurgus. Wells (op. cit. pp. 54-62) argues strongly for placing Pheidon in the eighth century B. C. rather than in the seventh, and P. Gardner (op. cit. pp. 111-13) inclines to the earlier date.

In any case the anti-Dorian and anti-Argive policy of Cleisthenes (cf. v. 67) makes the presence of a son or descendant of the Dorian despot of Argos among the suitors of Agariste improbable. It is noticeable that the list of suitors contains no representative of the Samos, Chalcis, Croton, Corinth league, for which cf. v. 99 n.

Ἀζήν: i. e. of Azania, a district comprising Western and North Western Arcadia. Paeus is in the north-west, Trapezus in the south-west near Mount Lycaeus.

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  • Commentary references from this page (4):
    • Aeschylus, Persians, 327
    • Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.19.2
    • Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.24.7
    • Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.22.2
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