Our earliest account of the one tyrant of Argos is found in Herodotus and runs as follows: “and from the Peloponnesus came Leokedes the son of Pheidon the tyrant of the Argives, that Pheidon who created for the Peloponnesians their measures and behaved quite the most outrageously of all the Greeks, who having removed the Eleian directors of the games himself directed the games at Olympia^[792].” Pheidon belonged to the royal house of Temenos^[793], and appears to have succeeded to a hereditary throne in the ordinary way. Nevertheless he is deliberately classed by Aristotle as a typical tyrant^[794].

Some years ago I suggested that it was Pheidon’s “invention” of measures rather than his outrageous behaviour or his warlike achievements that caused him to be regarded as a different kind of ruler from his forefathers—as a tyrant instead of a king^[795].

Herodotus speaks of him simply as the man who made their measures for the Peloponnesians. But Ephorus and later writers declare that Pheidon invented a system of weights as well as measures, and, most important of all, that silver was first coined by him in Aegina^[796]. The reign of Pheidon probably covered the first third of the seventh century. Thus in Greece Proper as in Asia Minor there is evidence for ascribing the earliest coins to the earliest tyrant. "Pheidon the European counterpart of Gyges." If there is any weight in the Argive evidence, then the accounts mutually confirm one another, and it becomes distinctly improbable that the association of coinage and tyranny was a mere accident.

Unfortunately the evidence as regards Pheidon is all very much disputed. The greater part of this chapter will therefore be devoted to examining its credibility and endeavouring to show that the doubts that have been cast upon it are not well founded, that on the most probable showing the reign of Pheidon opened the epoch known as the age of the tyrants, that Pheidon lived just about the time when the first coins were struck in Aegina, and that the institution of the Aeginetan weight system was the direct result of an Argive occupation of the island.

One or two points may be assumed to start with as generally admitted. The Aeginetan “tortoises” (fig. 20) were the first coins struck in European Greece^[797], and they were first struck fairly early in the seventh century^[798]. The points that have been most disputed are the date of Pheidon and his connexion with Aegina and the Aeginetan coinage. "Evidence for the date of Pheidon:" It is the date that is the real centre of the controversy, and it will be best to deal with it first and to begin by briefly recalling the evidence and arguments.

(i) The later genealogies^[799] which make Pheidon seventh from Temenos and eleventh from Heracles and thus put him early in the ninth century have been shown by Busolt^[800] to be due to fourth century tamperings with the pedigree of the royal house of Macedon. In ascribing the foundation of the Macedonian dynasty to a certain Karanos, who according to Theopompus was a son of Pheidon, according to Satyrus a son of Pheidon’s father^[801], they were influenced by the incurable Greek belief in symmetry which required the Macedonian royal family to be as old as that of its great rivals the Medes which latter, following Ktesias, they dated from 884 B.C.^[802].

(ii) The genealogy that makes Pheidon tenth from Temenos and thus puts him about the middle of the eighth century can be traced back only to Ephorus^[803]. In other words, as already pointed out by Bury^[804], its credibility depends in great measure on that of the writer who is also our earliest authority for the statement that Pheidon coined in Aegina^[805].

(iii) Yet a third statement as to Pheidon’s family is that of Herodotus^[806]. According to Herodotus Leokedes son of Pheidon was one of the suitors of Agariste at Sicyon early in the sixth century. The statement occurs in a plainly romantic setting, and must not be pressed too far. It may however be fairly claimed as an argument against a date as early as 750. Even admitting the possibility that pa?? (son) in the singular may be loosely used for ?p?????? (descendant)^[807], yet it remains highly unlikely that Herodotus would have mentioned Pheidon at all in connexion with Leokedes if he regarded them as separated by over 150 years^[808].

Lehmann-Haupt^[809], who, in spite of all the difficulties just summarized, dates Pheidon eighth Olympiad (748 B.C.)^[810], imagines an obscure Pheidon, father of Leokedes, and formulates as a characteristic of Herodotus the practice of assigning the deeds of famous men to obscure namesakes. Besides Pheidon he quotes only Philokypros, tyrant of Soli and friend of Solon, whom he proceeds, in direct contradiction of Herodotus^[811], to differentiate from the father of the Aristokypros who fell during the Ionic revolt. His view is discredited by the one illustration that he quotes in its support. Solon’s young friend need not have been born before 608 B.C., and the son of a man born in that year might well be alive in 498 B.C. Even if Herodotus is mistaken on this point, his mistake would only illustrate the comparatively narrow margin of error to which his anachronisms on matters of this kind are limited.

There is yet another group of statements bearing on Pheidon’s pedigree. Pausanias says that the last king of Argos was Meltas son of Lakedes^[812]. The latter is equated by Beloch^[813] with the Leokedes of Herodotus^[814]. Meltas is said by Pausanias to have been tenth in descent from Medon, grandson of Temenos. Pheidon, as has been noted already, is described by Strabo as tenth in descent from Temenos himself. Thus Strabo, Pausanias, and Herodotus might be taken as mutually confirming one another, if we accept Herodotus literally, and make Pheidon father of Leokedes and consequently grandfather of Meltas. As there was still a king of Argos in 484 B.C.^[815], and there is nothing to show that the office did not continue well after that date, Beloch’s argument brings Pheidon well down into the sixth century. But as it allows only twelve generations from the Dorian invasion under Temenos to the indeterminate date after 480 B.C. when kingship was completely abolished, it only helps to emphasize the fact that Argive royal pedigrees are not a safe guide for determining Pheidon’s date^[816].

The assertion of Pausanias^[817], that Pheidon interfered with the eighth celebration of the Olympian games, is not to be reconciled with a seventh century date. But serious doubts have been thrown on Pausanias’ dating, which may very possibly have been influenced by the Macedonian genealogies, in which case it is no confirmation of the date arrived at by reckoning Pheidon tenth from Temenos. The arguments for emending eighth to twenty-eighth are weighty^[818]. Pausanias’ exact statement is that “at the eighth Olympian festival the Pisatans called in Pheidon... and celebrated the games along with Pheidon^[819].” But Strabo declares it to be “more probable (????t??? t?? p?ste??) that from the first Olympiad till the twenty-sixth the presidency both of the temple and the games was held by the Eleians^[820].” Julius Africanus likewise knows nothing of any disturbance at the eighth Olympiad, but records one at the twenty-eighth.

The difficulties in accepting the twenty-eighth Olympiad, as set forth by Unger^[821], are not very impressive. He argues that at the twenty-eighth Olympiad the Eleians had arms^[822], whereas Pheidon made his attack “when the Eleians were without arms^[823],” and that, as the Pisatans celebrated the twenty-seventh Olympiad, Pheidon in the twenty-eighth would have displaced not the Eleians, but the Pisatans. But when Strabo says that the Eleians were without arms, he or his source may mean that their Dymaean war left them unequipped for home defence. Assume that this was so and that they were preoccupied with their Dymaean war both in 672 B.C. and in 668 B.C., and the whole situation is explained easily. At the twenty-seventh celebration the Pisatans unaided might secure the presidency by a surprise attack. It would be at the next festival, when the Eleians were forewarned, that the Pisatans would need Pheidon’s help to displace them at Olympia. Weaker still is Unger’s argument that a notice about Pheidon may have fallen out in Eusebius under Olymp. VIII, as one has in the same chronicle about the emperor Caligula.

We may indeed with Mahaffy^[824] and Busolt^[825] doubt whether these early parts of the Olympian victor lists are contemporary records. But it is easy to be unduly sceptical. Mahaffy, for instance, is inclined to argue that the Olympian lists cannot have existed in the fifth century because they are not then used for purposes of dating. He assumes that Hippias who made his edition of the list in 370 B.C. can have had little more evidence at his disposal than Pausanias, who lived over five hundred years later. Plutarch^[826], whom he quotes as discrediting the list, merely expresses an opinion which is no more final than that of Mahaffy himself. If our chronological data are untrustworthy, we are thrown back on Pheidon’s achievements for determining his date, a position long ago maintained by C. Mueller^[827]. Regarded as a fact of indeterminate date Pheidon’s interference at Olympia is more likely to have been remembered if it was not made so early as the close of the eighth century, when the festival had not yet attained its subsequent reputation^[828].

The evidence as to Pheidon’s date is therefore quite compatible with the statement that makes him the first to strike coins in Aegina. For if it be allowed that he may have lived in the first half of the seventh century, there would be nothing unique in his having his mint away from his capital in an outlying but commercially important part of his dominion. Ridgeway and Svoronos have already compared the Romans, who struck their first coins in Campania^[829], and the Ptolemies who coined very largely in Cyprus^[830].

But had Pheidon anything to do with Aegina and its coinage? Against the statements of Ephorus and later writers must be set the silence of Herodotus, who makes no reference either to coins or to Aegina in his account of Pheidon. This omission, combined with the diversity of views as to Pheidon’s date, has led to a general distrust of Ephorus, so much so that the majority of the most competent authorities are either agnostics^[831] or utter unbelievers^[832].

Herodotus’ silence is not by itself a serious argument for rejecting the additions of the later historians. It should be remembered that his whole account of Pheidon in VI. 127 extends to barely four lines. He can hardly be expected to state at all completely even the main facts about so important a personality in so short a space. To assert, as has been done recently^[833], that Herodotus knew nothing about a coinage issued by Pheidon is to beg the question.

To the fifth century Greek, for whom Herodotus wrote, the origin of the system of weights on which the Aeginetan coins were struck may have been of greater interest than the remoter question of an invention which they doubtless all took for granted. Peloponnesian weights and measures stood for the lack of standardization in all matters metrical from which Herodotus and his hearers must have suffered daily.

There is no need to pursue these criticisms in further detail. They start with various assumptions as to Pheidon’s date. Some of them would be found to be mutually destructive. Nearly all of them overestimate the difficulties raised by the apparent lack of confirmation of Ephorus in earlier writers. It is by no means certain that his statements about Pheidon’s connexion with the Aeginetan coinage must be a fanciful expansion of Herodotus VI. 127. There are in fact two lines of evidence that point in quite the opposite direction. One of them rests on notices about the Argive Heraeum supplemented by recent finds on the site; the other is based on a new interpretation of a passage in the fifth book of Herodotus. It will be necessary to examine in some detail the evidence from these two sources.

In the famous temple of Hera, the Argive Heraeum, that lies between Argos and Mycenae, there was preserved a dedication that was said to have been made by Pheidon in commemoration of his coinage. The notice is preserved only in the mediaeval Etymologicum Magnum. It runs: “Pheidon the Argive was the first of all men to strike a coinage in Aegina, and on account of this coinage he called in the spits (?e??s???) and dedicated them to the Hera of Argos.” There is nothing suspicious in this notice. The word drachma means a handful, and according to Plutarch a drachma is a handful of obols (spits or nails), which in early times were used as money^[834]. In modern times nails are said to have served as a coinage in both Scotland and France^[835]. Plenty of evidence is to be found in antiquity for offerings of disused objects to the gods^[836]. The ultimate source for the statement of the Etymologicum Magnum may well be the official guide at the Heraeum itself. Temple traditions are not always above suspicion. All the same the indications of a Pheidon tradition preserved in the Argive Heraeum are valuable, because they show a source from which Ephorus might very well have supplemented Herodotus far older and more valuable than his own imagination.

This however does not end the evidence of the Argive Heraeum. Some thirty years ago the site was excavated by the American School of Archaeology at Athens. Among the finds was a bundle of iron spits or rods about four feet long (fig. 21) which Svoronos^[837] has plausibly associated with the ?e??s??? of the Etymologicum Magnum.

The Americans ascribed the foundation of the Heraeum to the Mycenaean period, so that the dedication of the spits could be put anywhere in the three centuries that form the limit of controversy as to Pheidon’s date. But more recently this dating has been shown to be mistaken by the Germans who excavated Tiryns. Whole series of miniature vessels which the Argive Heraeum excavators had regarded as Mycenaean were shown by the Tiryns excavators to be seventh century or later, and when one of them, Frickenhaus, visited the Argive Heraeum, he found fragments of Geometric and proto-Corinthian pottery in positions which proved the sherds to be older than the temple foundations. From this fact he argues conclusively that the abundant series of dedications at the Heraeum begin in the seventh century. Pheidon’s ?e??s??? cannot therefore go further back than that^[838]. The Mycenaean objects from the Argive Heraeum site must all come from a small secular settlement that preceded the temple. The latter becomes possibly contemporary with Pheidon himself.

This is a fact of possible significance. It suggests that the Heraeum may have been the religious centre of Pheidon’s imperial policy, a sort of religious federal capital carefully placed away from the chief cities of the Argolid much as the federal capital of Australia has been placed away from the capitals of the various Australian states. It looks indeed as though the analogy may have been closer still, and that Pheidon was the builder of his federal capital. If so his date was some time, probably early, in the seventh century.

This ends the evidence of the Heraeum and brings me to the most important section of my argument. We have just seen how little need there is to mistrust Ephorus simply because he does not exactly reproduce Herodotus. All the same the earlier writer is of course by far the more reliable. The account of Pheidon’s coinage in Aegina would gain enormously in credibility if any evidence for it could be found in the pages of Herodotus. Modern writers without exception have taken it for granted that no such evidence is to be found. In this I believe them to have been mistaken. There is a passage in the fifth book which, though it does not mention Pheidon’s name, I believe to describe the conquest by him of Aegina and the institution as a result of that conquest of the weight standard on which the earliest Aeginetan coins were struck. If my explanation has not been anticipated, there is no reason for surprise. The passage contains references to pottery, ships, dress, and jewellery, and my interpretation of it is based on archaeological evidence much of which has only quite recently become available.

In the passage of the fifth book which we are now to examine Herodotus^[839] is explaining the origin of the hatred that existed between Athens and Aegina in 500 B.C. Aegina had once been subject to Epidaurus^[840]. Then the Aeginetans, having built triremes and made themselves masters of the sea^[841], revolted. Through their revolt they got embroiled with the Athenians, who had at that time very close relations with Epidaurus. At the suggestion of the Epidaurians, the Athenians sailed against Aegina. The Aeginetans appealed to Argos, and with the help of an Argive force that crossed undetected from Epidaurus, utterly defeated the Athenians in a land battle on the island. The various measures^[842] taken in common by the Aeginetans and the Argives immediately after the war suggest that Aegina, when she had revolted from Epidaurus, became in some sort a confederate, or possibly a subject, of Argos^[843]. We may assume too that Argos secured some sort of control over Epidaurus in the course of the war. Otherwise it is inconceivable that an Argive force should have set out from Epidaurus with the double purpose of aiding Epidaurus’ revolted subjects and attacking those very Athenians, whose expedition against the island had been suggested by the Epidaurians themselves^[844]. The crushing defeat that the Athenians sustained may have been due to the collapse of her Epidaurian allies.

One further point about Herodotus’ narrative should be noticed. There is nothing in it to suggest that at the time when the Aeginetans revolted from the Epidaurians, either of them was dependent on Argos. The narrative points rather to a previous confederation or dominion in which the chief cities were Epidaurus, Aegina, and not Argos but Athens. Are there any indications as to when all this occurred?

The reference is to a time considerably^[845] previous to 500 B.C. Macan thinks that the most probable date for the expedition to Aegina is somewhere in the lifetime of Solon or Peisistratus^[846]. "generally ascribed to the first half of the sixth century," He points to various circumstances that certainly might well have led to a collision between Athens and Aegina during that period^[847]. All the same it is difficult to accept a date within those limits. The Aeginetans are not likely^[848] to have been dependent on Epidaurus after it was conquered by Periander, about 600 B.C.^[849] If therefore the revolt from Epidaurus and the Athenian invasion are incidents in one and the same struggle, both must go into the seventh century. Macan prefers to assume a long interval between these two events. But Herodotus gives no hint of one. On the contrary, his narrative hangs excellently together as a description of successive and correlated incidents in a single struggle. Not only so, but even if the invasion be separated from the revolt, it is difficult to believe that it occurred after 590. So crushing a defeat for the Athenians, who themselves admitted that only one of their number got back to Attica^[850], could hardly have taken place in the time of Solon or Peisistratus without being associated with their names. After all, a fair amount is known about sixth century Athens. There are no traces of any such overwhelming disaster, or of the inevitable set back that would have followed it. The relations of Athens to Argos during the period seem to have been friendly rather than the reverse. Peisistratus had Argive mercenaries, not to speak of an Argive wife^[851]. Argive support of Peisistratus is of course quite consistent with hostility to the government that Peisistratus overthrew. It has indeed been suggested^[852] that the Aeginetan expedition took place while Peisistratus was in exile. But, apart from the entire absence of evidence, and all the other difficulties involved by a sixth century date, this suggestion means that Peisistratus sought a bodyguard and wife in the most unpopular quarter imaginable, hardly a probable proceeding on the part of a ruler so tactful and popular as Peisistratus must have been.

A date late in the seventh century is rendered unlikely by what is known of Procles of Epidaurus^[853], the father-in-law of Periander, who ruled Epidaurus during the last part of the seventh century^[854], apparently as a dependent of the Corinthian tyrant, by whom he was eventually deposed. C. Mueller indeed^[855] claims Aegina for Procles, but only on the more than dubious evidence of a more than dubious story of Plutarch’s, which tells how Procles once used an “Aeginetan stranger” to get rid of the corpse of a man whom he had murdered for his money^[856].

On the whole the narrative seems to fall best into the first half of the seventh century. That is the time that best suits the naval situation during the war, and the effect that it is said to have had upon costume, ornament, and pottery. As the archaeological evidence for all these points is based largely on the evidence of the pottery, it will be best to take the pottery first.

In the temple of Damia and Auxesia on Aegina it became the practice (????) after the war “to introduce into the temple neither anything else Attic nor pottery, but to drink there henceforth only out of native jars^[857].” Herodotus mentions this embargo on Attic pottery only as applied to the one temple on Aegina^[858]. But he states that it was observed by Argives as well as by Aeginetans, which points to the possibility that the practice prevailed in Argos as well as Aegina. Macan goes as far as to suggest that it is an “understatement and pseudo-explanation of a measure or custom for the protection of native ware from Attic competition^[859].” The other measures recorded in this connexion, the changes in Attic dress and in Peloponnesian brooches, support Macan’s suggestion. But in the matter of dating he follows earlier writers who, using very inadequate material, came to conclusions which can now be shown to be improbable. They date this embargo in the middle of the sixth century. But in Aegina at any rate Attic pottery continued to be imported throughout the second half of the sixth century, while in Argos, where the evidence is less decisive and abundant, there is no sign of a cessation of Attic imports about 550 B.C. On the other hand both in Argos and Aegina there does appear to be an abrupt cessation of Attic imports early in the seventh century. As, further, the general history of Greek pottery shows that an Argive-Aeginetan embargo on Attic pottery would have had a strong commercial motive early in the seventh century and none in the middle of the sixth, there is a strong presumption that the date of the embargo was not the middle of the sixth century but somewhere about the beginning of the seventh. To examine the archaeological evidence here in detail would take us too far from our main enquiry. It will be found presented in full in an appendix^[860].

The war was a great disaster for Athenian naval power. Now the period of greatest eclipse for Athens from this point of view was the seventh century. Throughout it there is no indication whatever of naval activity at Athens, except a possible war against Mitylene. Even that must be put at the earliest close on the year 600 B.C., and is to be regarded as announcing the beginning of the new epoch of activity in the sixth century^[861]; and against it must be set the failure in the struggle with Megara for Salamis^[862]. This had not been the naval position of Athens earlier. During the dark ages she appears to have been a considerable naval power. A tradition preserved by Plutarch makes Athens succeed Crete in the command of the sea^[863]: naval power is implied in Theseus’ expedition to Crete; a poem of Bacchylides^[864], which is illustrated by a vase painting of Euphronios^[865], tells how Theseus went to the depths of the sea to fetch up the ring of Minos, and the story has been brought by S. Reinach into connexion with rings such as those of Polycrates and the doges of Venice, and explained as symbolizing the winning by Theseus of the sea which had been previously the bride of Minos^[866].

The date of these events must not be pressed. The period of this sea-power is plainly the dark age that followed the breaking up of the Cretan and Mycenaean civilization. It is the period of the pottery known as Geometric, and the Athenian Geometric, the Dipylon ware, again and again shows pictures of ships. Thirty-nine examples are quoted by Torr^[867], enough, as pointed out by Helbig^[868], to prove the important rÔle played by the Athenian navy in the life of Athens of that age. The Dipylon ships, as remarked twenty years ago by Helbig^[869], show that already in the eighth century Athens was preparing to found her power on her navy. It requires some such catastrophic explanation as has just been offered to account for her complete set back in the seventh.

One result in Athens of the reverse in Aegina, so Herodotus declares, was a revolution in the dress of the Athenian women, who gave up the Doric costume, which was made of wool and fastened with pins, and adopted in its place the Ionic, which consisted of sewn garments made of linen. The passage is a locus classicus among writers on Greek dress, and it must be at once admitted that nearly all of them accept a date late in the first half of the sixth century^[870]. So late a date seems to me to be untenable. It can be reconciled neither with the statements of Thucydides on the subject of Athenian dress^[871], nor with the evidence of extant monuments^[872]. The sumptuary laws on women’s dress passed by Solon in 594 B.C.^[873] were plainly directed against the Ionian costume. They show that it must have reached Athens by about 600 B.C. and offer no evidence that it had not done so considerably earlier. Bury dates the introduction of Ionian dress into Athens “c. 650 (?)^[874].”

Among the Aeginetans and Argives as a result of their victory over Athens a change was introduced in what Herodotus calls the “measure” (?t???) of Aeginetan and Argive brooches (pe???a?). Herodotus states that this change affected both the dedications at the temple of Damia and Auxesia^[875], and also the general manufacture and use. The way he tells the story explains why he goes beyond the temple when speaking of the pins, but does not do so in the case of the pottery. The exclusion of Attic pottery from the Aeginetan temple, or rather the exclusive use for temple purposes of local ware, was in Herodotus’ days a ritualistic survival. The large brooches on the other hand had continued in general use. “Now the women of Argos and Aegina even to my own days wore brooches of increased size.” Very possibly Herodotus had himself noticed them. It is the account of this change in the “measure” of the Aeginetan and Argive brooches that confirms the connexion of Pheidon with the origin of the Aeginetan coinage.

The new practice was in Herodotus’ own words: “to make the brooches half as big again as the then established measure.” It is probably significant that, both before and after the change, the brooches have a standard “measure.” The tendency of articles of jewellery in early periods to be of a fixed weight is a familiar one. Numerous instances are quoted in Ridgeway’s Origin of Metallic Currency^[876]. Not only so, but these fixed weights are repeatedly found corresponding with or anticipating the coin standards of the places they belong to.

It may be objected that the word ?t??? does not mean weight. This is so when it is contrasted with sta???^[877]; but it appears to have been used also in a more comprehensive sense^[878]. The Athenian et??????^[879] must have inspected weights as well as measures. ?t??? is presumably applied to both, and to a fifth century Greek there would be no question of its referring to anything but weight when applied to jewellery^[880].

The change introduced by the Argives and Aeginetans after driving the Athenians from Aegina was to make the “measure” of their brooches half as big again as what it had previously been. Now this is approximately the relationship in weight of the earliest Aeginetan drachmae to the earliest drachmae struck on the Euboeic standard. Later, in Herodotus’ own times, the relative weights were four to three. But the earliest Aeginetan drachmae weighed a little more than those of later issues^[881]. On the other hand, as stated by Percy Gardner^[882] in discussing Solon’s “augmentation” of the Athenian coins, the earliest Attic or rather Euboeic drachma^[883] weighed less than those of post-Solonian times. The weight of the Aeginetan drachma as determined from the early didrachms quoted above (p. 171, n. 6) is just over six grammes, as compared with the 5·85 grammes of later issues, while that of the earliest Attic Euboeic drachma as determined from the coins of p. 171, n. 8 is just over four grammes, as compared with the 4·26 grammes of later issues^[884].

Thus the original Aeginetan drachma seems to have been just half as heavy again as the earliest Attic^[885]. This ratio is accepted by Ridgeway^[886], who regards it as invented to make ten silver pieces worth one gold when gold was fifteen times as precious as silver, while later, when silver rose to be worth 3/40 of its weight in gold, the silver pieces were slightly diminished in weight, in order that ten of them might still be the equivalent of one of gold^[887].

Let us now return to the one passage of Herodotus, in which he refers by name to the Argive tyrant.

In that passage he speaks of Pheidon as “the man who made their measures for the Peloponnesians^[888].” The force of the definite article that precedes the Greek ?t?a has not always been sufficiently stressed. More than one recent writer begins his discussion of the passage by translating t? ?t?a “a system of measures.” The subsequent argument has naturally suffered. t? ?t?a can be no other measures than those associated with the Peloponnesus in Herodotus’ own days, namely those of the famous Aeginetan standard, employed in particular for the coinage of the island^[889]. Other scholars have regarded the statement that Pheidon struck the first coins in Aegina as merely an amplification by later writers of these very words. They argue that “the measures” plainly meant the Aeginetan standard, and so suggested the famous Aeginetan coinage. This latter view assumes of course that the amplifications of Ephorus are not to be found in Herodotus himself. But what are the facts? The establishment of Aeginetan measures in the Peloponnesus are alluded to by Herodotus not only in the passage about the Argive tyrant in Book VI but also very possibly in the passage in Book V that describes the early Argive expedition to Aegina. In this latter passage the measures are said to have been the result of the expedition. Both expedition and tyrant are probably to be dated early in the seventh century. That is also the date to which numismatists generally assign the first drachmae struck in Aegina, struck too on a standard that, like that of our brooches, was half again as great as that previously in use.

It is hard to avoid the inference that when the fourth century writers say that Pheidon coined in Aegina, they are faithfully reporting a genuine tradition.

It has indeed been maintained that the whole Herodotean account of the early relations of Argos, Aegina, and Athens is unhistorical^[890]. The arguments brought forward to support this destructive view are: (i) that the episode is timeless and its timelessness must be due to its unhistorical character, (ii) that it must be unhistorical because it cannot, as alleged by Herodotus, have been the cause of the war of 487 B.C., which must have been due to the natural rivalry of the two neighbouring states. As regards the first of these two arguments, the preceding pages have, it is hoped, shown that the episode is not timeless: as regards the second, it is enough to point out that it assumes that war cannot breed war, that no war can be due to two causes, and that an incident cannot be historical if it is alleged as leading to results that it cannot have in fact produced. The fact that arguments such as these were accepted for publication in a periodical of high repute less than a generation back shows how much the whole world of scholarship was infected by the spirit of uncritical scepticism that has left its mark in some quarters on that of the present age.

Others again like Wilamowitz^[891] regard the narrative of Herodotus V. 82–88 as simply a reflexion backwards of the state of affairs existing in 487 B.C.^[892], when Athens attacked Aegina, and the Aeginetans “called to their aid the same people as before, the Argives^[893].” They argue that (i) the story is our only evidence for hatred between Athens and Aegina much before 506 B.C., (ii) the Argive-Aeginetan brooches as compared with the broochless Athenian costume^[894], the embargo on Attic pottery at the Aeginetan temple, and the posture of the kneeling statues (pleading before the Athenian invaders) may all have been referred in Herodotus’ days to the existing hatred and recent wars between Athens and Aegina, (iii) Herodotus puts back the Athenian disaster into the timeless period because the miracle and the change of costume required an early date, and the story does not fit the war of 487 B.C., since the famous Sophanes^[895], who fought in it, lived till 464. Herodotus, they say, gives no account of a disaster to the Athenian fleet in 487 because he had used it up for this early reflexion.

Of these points (i) is answered by the whole of this chapter, (ii) and (iii) fall with (i), besides which (ii) contains many improbabilities, e.g. that the pottery in an Aeginetan temple should without historic reason have suggested to any fifth century Greek an early war with Athens, while (iii) assumes an Athenian disaster in 487 B.C., whereas Thucydides declares that Athens was successful in that war^[896].

There is nothing suspicious in the Aeginetans having twice in two hundred years attained some sort of thalassocracy, and having on both occasions come as a result into collision with Athens. It is perfectly natural for the Aeginetans on a second occasion to appeal to allies who had previously helped them so effectively and with such profit to themselves. Macan^[897] observes that the Herodotean account of the feud between Athens and Aegina is remarkably uninfluenced by contemporary politics and interests. He suggests^[898] dating the subjection of Aegina to Epidaurus to the reign of Pheidon, and the revolt of the island from Epidaurus to the time of Pheidon’s fall. But why in that case does the account speak of a revolt from Epidaurus, if it was really a revolt from the famous Argive tyranny? The whole narrative finds a more appropriate setting if regarded as one chapter in the history of Pheidon himself.

Only, why in this case is the name of Pheidon nowhere mentioned? It is one thing to omit details in a biography four lines in length. It is quite another to omit so prominent a name in a narrative that runs to seven whole chapters. But the omission, though at first sight surprising, is capable of explanation. The Herodotean story appears to have been derived from the temple of Damia and Auxesia^[899]. It was told Herodotus not in connexion with any royal monument, but to explain certain offerings of pottery and jewellery that he saw in the temple. Not a single personal name occurs in the whole narrative, and there is no particular reason why there should. There may actually have been motives for not introducing them. The account of the events given to Herodotus in the Aeginetan temple of Damia and Auxesia would naturally not emphasize the part played by the Argive tyrant. The Athenian version, to which also Herodotus alludes, would have still better reason for trying to forget the name of Pheidon. If my whole interpretation of these events is not entirely wrong, Pheidon dealt the Athenians what was probably the most crushing blow they had ever received down to the days when Herodotus wrote his history. The personal name may be omitted from the same motive that made the Athenians speak of the Aeginetan drachma as the “fat” drachma, which they are said to have done, “refusing to call it Aeginetan out of hatred of the Aeginetans^[900].” Sparta again had taken sides against Pheidon at Olympia^[901], and would have had no interest in perpetuating the name of the man who had almost barred their way to the hegemony of the Peloponnese.

Ephorus’ account of Pheidon’s conquests and inventions is derived neither from Attic nor from Aeginetan sources. As seen already^[902] the source of his statement about Pheidon coining in Aegina was most probably the Argive Heraeum. Herodotus claims to use Argive sources, but for him the war is primarily a matter between the Athenians and the Aeginetans, whose subsequent hatred of one another it is intended to explain. Thus we appear to have three rival or even hostile traditions confirming one another, so that the variety of sources adds in a real way to the credibility of the resultant narrative.

The notices about the coinage are not the only evidence for associating Pheidon with Aegina. According to Ephorus “he completely recovered the lot of Temenos, which had previously been split into several parts^[903].” Temenos appears in the genealogies as great great grandson of Heracles, and founder of the Dorian dynasty at Argos^[904]. He and his sons and his son-in-law between them are represented as securing the greater part of the North-east Peloponnese. Aegina fell to his son-in-law Deiophontes, who went to the island from Epidaurus^[905].

The operations described in Herodotus V. 82–88, by which the Argives crossed from Epidaurus and drove the Athenians out of Aegina and put an end to the Epidaurians being tributary to Athens^[906], are almost beyond doubt to be identified with the recovery by Argos of the portion of the lot of Temenos that had been secured by Deiophontes.

It is true that this account of the recovery of the lot of Temenos is first certainly met with in Strabo, whose authority is only the fourth century Ephorus. But there are hints that Ephorus is here to be trusted. There is the evidence of Herodotus that from an unspecified earlier date down to about 550 B.C. the Argives had possessed the whole east coast of the Peloponnesus and “the island of Cythera and the rest of the islands^[907].” The most likely period for Argos to have acquired this territory is the reign of Pheidon. Pheidon according to Strabo^[908] “had deprived the Spartans of the hegemony of the Peloponnese,” and it is the Spartans who shortly before Croesus asked for their help, had wrested from the Argives “Cythera and the rest of the islands.” About 668 B.C., i.e. probably in Pheidon’s reign, the Argives had beaten the Spartans in the battle of Hysiae, which decided the possession of the strip of coast land south of the Argolid^[909].

Aegina is not mentioned in these proceedings, but C. Mueller may be right in including it among “the rest of the islands^[910].” The Hysiae campaign is roughly contemporary with the second Messenian war, in which Argos took part against the Spartans^[911], and of which indeed it may have been an incident. Now in that war the Samians took part by sea against the Argives^[912], and it is natural to connect this action of theirs with their repeated attacks on Aegina in the days of the Samian King Amphikrates, at some period indefinitely before the reign of Polycrates. The Samians were certainly a naval power in the first half of the seventh century. The four triremes built for them in 704 B.C. marked for Thucydides an epoch in naval history^[913]. About 668 B.C. Kolaios the Samian made his famous voyage beyond the Straits of Gibraltar to the Spanish seaport of Tartessus, a voyage that implies much previous naval enterprise on the Samians’ part. The rivalry with Aegina was probably commercial. Kolaios and his crew returned from the “silver rooted streams” of the Tartessus river^[914], having “made the greatest profits from cargoes of all Greeks of whom we have accurate information, excepting Sostratos the Aeginetan: for it is impossible for anyone else to rival him^[915].” Samian attacks on Aegina are thus particularly likely to have happened about the time of the second Messenian war.

A century ago C. Mueller^[916] argued that some event or other connecting Samos with Aegina must have been closely connected with the revolt of Aegina from Epidaurus, since the revolt was described in the History of Samos of the Samian historian Duris (born about 340 B.C.)^[917]. From this he proceeds to advocate a date for the revolt not very long before the war between Samos and Aegina of 520 B.C. Arguments based on the laws of digression observed by a writer whose works are known to us only in a few fragments need to be used with caution. If Duris is any indication whatever for the date of the revolt, he leaves an open choice between the time of the war of 520 B.C. and that of the days of King Amphikrates; and as between these two the evidence shows that the earlier is probable while the latter is almost impossible.

As independent evidence these hints would be of scarcely any value. As confirmation of a definite but disputable statement their value is considerable.

The recovery of ancestral domains is a favourite euphemism among military conquerors for their policy of annexation. The chronology, both relative and absolute, of Strabo’s summary of Pheidon’s career has every appearance of authenticity. Pheidon first recovers the lot of Temenos, then “invents” his measures and coinage, and after that attempts to expand eastwards and southwards to secure the whole inheritance of Heracles, or in other words aims at the suzerainty of the whole Peloponnese, and to that end celebrates the Olympian games. This last event is probably to be dated 668 B.C. The coinage must be put indefinitely earlier in his reign, a perfectly reasonable date on numismatic and historical grounds, and the recovery of the lot of Temenos a few years earlier still.

The date thus reached is confirmed by the histories of the two other leading cities of this part of the Peloponnese, Sicyon and Corinth.

Sicyon formed part of the lot of Temenos, and was held by his son Phalkes^[918]. About 670 B.C. the city fell under the tyranny of the able and powerful family of Orthagoras, whose policy was marked by extreme hostility to Argos^[919]. Pheidon plainly can have had no footing in Sicyon during the rule of the Orthagorids. But the unusual stability and popularity of the tyranny at Sicyon have often been explained, not without reason, as due to its popular anti-Dorian policy. During the second Messenian war, which Pausanias dates 686–668 B.C.^[920], so that the rise of Orthagoras coincides with its conclusion, the Sicyonians appear to have acted in close co-operation with the Argives^[921]. The position and policy of the Sicyonian tyrants becomes particularly comprehensible if they had risen to power as leaders of a racial uprising that put an end in the city to a Dorian ascendancy that dated originally from the days of Temenos^[922] and had been revived by Pheidon^[923].

Whether Corinth formed part of the lot of Temenos is uncertain. Probably it did. Strabo and Ptolemy exclude the city from the Argolid^[924]. But on the other hand Homer speaks of it as being “in a corner of horse rearing Argos^[925],” and Pausanias states that “the district of Corinth is part of Argolis^[926],” and that he believes it to have been so in Homeric times^[927]. The conflicting statements of these excellent authorities are best reconciled by supposing them to be referring to different periods. If this is so, and if, as well might be, all the domains of Homeric Argos passed to its first Dorian lord, then Corinth formed part of the lot of Temenos. A Temenid Corinth is perhaps implied in Apollodorus^[928], where Temenos, the two sons of Aristodemus, and Kresphontes “when they had conquered the Peloponnese, set up three altars of Zeus Patroos and sacrificed on them and drew lots for the cities. The first lot was Argos, the second Sparta, the third Messene.”

For connexions between Pheidon and Corinth we have only a story told by Plutarch and a Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius^[929] of which the salient points are that (a) Pheidon tries to annex Corinth; (b) the Bacchiads and Archias are the pro-Argive party; (c) the fall of the Bacchiads (which led to the rise of the tyrant Cypselus) meant the overthrow of Argive influence.

So far the story is all of a piece, and supports the view that the simultaneous establishment of Cypselus in Corinth and Orthagoras in Sicyon may have been part cause and part result of the fall of Pheidon and the breaking up again of the lot of Temenos. Such a suggestion harmonizes well with the friendship that existed between the Corinthian and Sicyon tyrants^[930].

There are however chronological difficulties in this interpretation of the Pheidon Archias story. In the story (i) the fall of the Bacchiads is made contemporary with the foundation of Syracuse, i.e. it must presumably be dated about 734 B.C.^[931]; (ii) Pheidon is put some time before this event, his contemporary Habron being grandfather of Archias’ favourite Actaeon: the Marmor Parium enters Pheidon before Archias.

In a highly romantic narrative like that of Archias and Actaeon the last thing to be looked for is a reliable and exact chronology. Impossible dates may mean impossible statements; but on the other hand they may mean merely a confusion of facts of different dates, or again, the facts may be coherent, and the dates just simply wrong.

In the present case, except for the relative dating of Archias and Pheidon, the historic background is perfectly coherent, if the events are put early in the seventh century. To accept the 750 date for Pheidon sets him right in relation to Archias, but leaves the rest of the story in the air. There is indeed always the refuge of assuming a double banishment of the Bacchiads. But the idea of a double banishment, traces of which might easily be discovered by the reduplicating school of historians, is deservedly suspect, and may have arisen from a double dating due to double dating of Pheidon. If there really were two banishments, the story better suits the second.

Neither Plutarch nor the Scholiast on Apollonius gives any absolute dates; and those of the Parian Marble, which does, are impossible. The Marble dates Pheidon 895 B.C. and Archias 758. Pheidon is also indeed made contemporary with an Athenian who according to Castor held the office of king from 864 to 846 B.C.^[932] From 846 to 758 is a possible, though improbably long interval between Pheidon and Archias, if as the story tells us, the latter had as favourite the grandson of one of Pheidon’s contemporaries; but even so the dating is so unsatisfactory, that the latest editor of the Parian Marble^[933] has suggested transposing Archias and Pheidon. But, apart from other difficulties, the resultant early date for Archias is altogether against the evidence. There is no need to put him back into the ninth century merely because it is not unlikely that Greeks at that period were already making their way to Sicily. The antedating of Pheidon has already been accounted for, and he appears to have taken back Archias with him part of the way.

The date of Archias is a problem any way. But it is not difficult to suggest a possible chronology. Pheidon’s fall^[934] was probably rapid (a proof of his hubris). His rise was probably slow. Being a hereditary monarch, he may well have ruled for fifty years, from about 715 to 665 B.C. It was early in his career that he began to carry out his designs on Corinth. Archias, who had founded Syracuse in 734, gave him support. We are told no details, but the alliances of the period of the second Messenian war and the naval struggle in the Saronic Gulf must have supplied abundant motives and inducements. Bacchiad government under Argive protection continued till Pheidon fell, which meant also the fall of the Bacchiads themselves. They withdrew to the far west. Demaratus penetrated as far as Tarquinii. Large numbers doubtless settled at Syracuse. The order of events just outlined coincides entirely with the extant narratives, except in the one matter of Syracuse, and there the divergence is very comprehensible. The founder of Syracuse had supported Pheidon. Pheidon’s fall had led to a great influx of pro-Argive Corinthians into Syracuse, and threw Archias back entirely onto his Sicilian colony. If this is what really happened, it would not be surprising if the fall of Pheidon came to be regarded as having led to the original foundation of Syracuse.

The chief doubt however as to the historical truth of the Argive tyrant’s interference in Corinth is caused by certain references to a Corinthian Pheidon, described by Aristotle as “one of the earliest lawgivers^[935].” When an Argive Pheidon is reported as making his appearance in Corinthian history, is it a mistake due to the confusing of two separate personalities? If two existed, they were unquestionably confused. A Pindar Scholiast says that “a certain Pheidon, a man of Corinth, invented measures and weights^[936].”

But there is an alternative possibility. The Corinthian Pheidon may be only one aspect of the Argive: this is suggested by the Pindar Scholiast later in the same ode, where he says that “the Pheidon who first struck their measures (???a? t? ?t???) for the Corinthians was an Argive^[937].” Too much stress must not be laid on such very confused statements^[938]. At best they can only corroborate other and better evidence. This however is not altogether lacking. When Karanos, the kinsman of Pheidon, went to Macedonia and occupied Edessa and the lands of the Argeadae^[939], Bacchiads from Corinth settled near by among the Lynkestai^[940].

A lawgiver who was “one of the earliest” can have arisen in Corinth only before the establishment of the tyranny in 657 B.C. On the other hand lawgivers seem to have been mainly a seventh century phenomenon in Greece, and the most natural time for one to have been appointed in Corinth is when the Bacchiad nobility was losing its ascendancy, a process which may be imagined as beginning early in the seventh century or at the end of the eighth. Plutarch describes Pheidon’s designs on Corinth as formed at the beginning of his career. Everything points to the Argive tyrant having had a long reign. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that the rival factions in Corinth invited to act as their lawgiver a young sovereign of unusual ability who ruled a city of great traditions but not at the time particularly powerful^[941]. I have already suggested the course taken by events in Corinth after Pheidon had once secured a position in the city. One passage remains to be quoted that makes it still more probable both that the Corinthian lawgiver was the Argive tyrant, and that events in Corinth took something like the course that I have suggested. According to Nicholas of Damascus^[942] Pheidon out of friendship went to the help of the Corinthians during a civil war: an attack was made by his supporters, and he was killed^[943]. An intimate connexion from the beginning of his career with the great trading and manufacturing city of the Isthmus would go far to explain the commercial and financial inventiveness that was the distinguishing feature of this royal tyrant^[944].