CHAPTER IV.
There is also another tradition about Oxylus, that he suspected the sons of Aristomachus of an unwillingness to give him the kingdom of Elis, as it was fertile and well cultivated everywhere, and this was why he led the Dorians through Arcadia and not through Elis. And when Oxylus hastened to take the kingdom of Elis without contention Dius would not permit him, but challenged him not to a contention with all their forces, but to a single combat between two soldiers one from each side. And both agreed to this. And the men selected for this single combat were Degmenus a bowman of Elis, and Pyræchmes on the Ætolian side a famous slinger. And as Pyræchmes was victorious Oxylus got the kingdom, and he allowed the ancient Epeans to remain there, but introduced Ætolians as colonists with them, and gave them also a share in the land. And to Dius he gave various honours, and observed the rights of all the heroes according to old precedents, and introduced sacrificial offerings to Augeas which have continued to our day. It is said that he also persuaded the men in the villages, who were at no great distance from the walls, to come into the city, and thus increased the population of Elis and made it more powerful in other respects. And an oracle came to him from Delphi to associate with him as colonist a descendant of Pelops, and he made diligent search, and discovered Agorius the son of Damasius, the son of Penthilus, the son of Orestes, and invited him from Helice in Achaia and with him a few Achæans. And they say Oxylus had a wife called Pieria, but they record nothing further about her. And the sons of Oxylus were they say Ætolus and Laias. And Ætolus dying in his father’s lifetime, his parents buried him and erected a sepulchre to him by the gate, which leads to Olympia and the temple of Zeus. And they buried him there in accordance with the oracle, which said that his dead body was to be neither in nor out of the city. And annually still the master of the gymnasium offers victims to Ætolus.
Oxylus was succeeded in the kingdom by his son Laias. I could not find that his sons reigned, so I purposely pass them over, for it has not been my desire in this narrative to descend to private personages. But some time afterwards Iphitus, who was of the same family as Oxylus, and a contemporary of Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian legislator, revived the contest at Olympia, and renewed the public gathering there, and established a truce as long as the games lasted. Why the meetings at Olympia had been discontinued I shall narrate when I come to Olympia. And as Greece at this time was nearly ruined by civil wars and by the pestilence, Iphitus bethought him to ask of the god at Delphi a remission from these ills. And they say he was ordered by the Pythian Priestess to join the people of Elis in restoring the Olympian games. Iphitus also persuaded the people of Elis to sacrifice to Hercules, for before this they had an idea that Hercules was hostile to them. And the inscription at Olympia says that Iphitus was the son of Hæmon, but most of the Greeks say he was the son of Praxonides and not of Hæmon. But the ancient records of the people of Elis trace him up to a father of the same name as himself viz. Iphitus.
The people of Elis took part in the Trojan war, and also in the battles against the Persians when they invaded Greece. And to pass over their frequent disputes with the people of Pisa and the Arcadians in respect to the re-establishment of the games at Olympia, they joined the Lacedæmonians not without reluctance in invading Attica, and not long after they fought against the Lacedæmonians, having formed an alliance with the Mantineans the Argives and the Athenians. And on the occasion of Agis making an incursion into Elis, when Xenias played the traitor, the people of Elis were victorious at Olympia, and routed the Lacedæmonians, and drove them from the precincts of the temple: and some time afterwards the war came to an end on the conditions which I have mentioned before in my account of the Lacedæmonians. And when Philip, the son of Amyntas, could not keep his hands off Greece, the people of Elis, worn out with intestine factions, joined the Macedonians, but not to the point of fighting against the Greeks at Chæronea. But they participated in the attack of Philip upon the Lacedæmonians by reason of their ancient hatred to them. But after the death of Alexander they joined the Greeks in fighting against Antipater and the Macedonians.