[515] See Herodot. vii. 148. The Argeians say to the Lacedæmonians, in reference to the chief command of the Greeks—καίτοι κατά γε τὸ δίκαιον γίνεσθαι τὴν ἡγεμονίην ἑωύτων, etc. Schweighäuser and others explain the point by reference to the command of Agamemnôn; but this is at best only a part of the foundation of their claim: they had a more recent historical reality to plead also: compare Strabo, viii. p. 376.
[516] Ἡμῶν κτισάντων (so runs the accusation of the Theban orators against the captive Platæans, before their Lacedæmonian judges, Thucyd. iii. 61.) Πλάταιαν ὕστερον τῆς ἄλλης Βοιωτίας—οὐκ ἠξίουν αὐτοὶ, ὥσπερ ἐτάχθη τὸ πρῶτον, ἡγεμονεύεσθαι ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν, ἔξω δὲ τῶν ἄλλων Βοιωτῶν παραβαίνοντες τὰ πάτρια, ἐπειδὴ προσηναγκάζοντο, προσεχώρησαν πρὸς Ἀθηναίους καὶ μετ᾽ αὐτῶν πολλὰ ἡμᾶς ἔβλαπτον.
[517] Respecting Pheidôn, king of Argos, Ephorus said,—τὴν λῆξιν ὅλην ἀνέλαβε τὴν Τημένου διεσπασμένην εἰς πλείω μέρη (ap. Strabo. viii. p. 358).
[518] The worship of Apollo Pythaëus, adopted from Argos both at Hermionê and Asinê, shows the connection between them and Argos (Pausan. ii. 35, 2; ii. 36, 5): but Pausanias can hardly be justified in saying that the Argeians actually Dorized Hermionê: it was Dryopian in the time of Herodotus, and seemingly for a long time afterwards (Herodot. viii. 43). The Hermionian Inscription, No. 1193, in Boeckh’s Collection, recognizes their old Dryopian connection with Asinê in Laconia: that town had once been neighbor of Hermionê, but was destroyed by the Argeians, and the inhabitants received a new home from the Spartans. The dialect of the Hermionians (probably that of the Dryopians generally) was Doric. See Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricâ, pp. 2-12.
[519] Thucyd. v. 53. Κυριώτατοι τοῦ ἱεροῦ ἦσαν οἱ Ἀργεῖοι. The word εἴσπραξις, which the historian uses in regard to the claim of Argos against Epidaurus, seems to imply a money-payment withheld: compare the offerings exacted by Athens from Epidaurus (Herod. v. 82).
The peculiar and intimate connection between the Argeians, and Apollo, with his surname of Pythaëus, was dwelt upon by the Argeian poetess Telesilla (Pausan. ii. 36, 2).
[520] Herodot. vi. 92. See O. Müller, History of the Dorians, ch. 7, 13.
[521] Ephor. Fragm. 15, ed. Marx; ap. Strabo, viii. p. 358; Theopompus, Fragm. 30, ed. Didot; ap. Diodor. Fragm. lib. iv.
The Parian Marble makes Pheidôn the eleventh from Hêraklês, and places him B. C. 895; Herodotus, on the contrary (in a passage which affords considerable grounds for discussion), places him at a period which cannot be much higher than 600 B. C. (vi. 127.) Some authors suspect the text of Herodotus to be incorrect: at any rate, the real epoch of Pheidôn is determined by the 8th Olympiad. Several critics suppose two Pheidôns, each king of Argos,—among others, O. Müller (Dorians, iii. 6, 10); but there is nothing to countenance this, except the impossibility of reconciling Herodotus with the other authorities. And Weissenborn, in a dissertation of some length, vindicates the emendation of Pausanias proposed by some former critics,—altering the 8th Olympiad, which now stands in the text of Pausanias, into the twenty-eighth, as the date of Pheidôn’s usurpation at the Olympic games. Weissenborn endeavors to show that Pheidôn cannot have flourished earlier than 660 B. C.; but his arguments do not appear to me very forcible, and certainly not sufficient to justify so grave an alteration in the number of Pausanias (Beiträge zur Griechischen Alterthumskunde, p. 18, Jena, 1844). Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. App. 1, p. 249) places Pheidôn between 783 and 744 B. C.; also, Boeckh. ad Corp. Inscript. No. 2374, p. 335, and Müller, Æginetica, p. 63.
[522] Pausan. ii. 36, 5; iv. 35, 2.