[69] Consult the Prolegomena to Welcker’s edition of Theognis; also, those of Schneidewin (Delectus Elegiac. Poetar. pp. 46-55)
The Prolegomena of Welcker are particularly valuable and full of instruction. He illustrates at great length the tendency common to Theognis, with other early Greek poets, to apply the words good and bad, not with reference to any ethical standard, but to wealth as contrasted with poverty,—nobility with low birth,—strength with weakness,—conservative and oligarchical politics as opposed to innovation (sect. 10-18). The ethical meaning of these words is not absolutely unknown, yet rare, in Theognis: it gradually grew up at Athens, and became popularized by the Socratic school of philosophers as well as by the orators. But the early or political meaning always remained, and the fluctuation between the two has been productive of frequent misunderstanding. Constant attention is necessary when we read the expressions οἱ ἀγαθοὶ, ἐσθλοὶ, βέλτιστοι, καλοκἀγαθοὶ, χρηστοὶ, etc., or on the other hand, οἱ κακοὶ, δειλοὶ, etc., to examine whether the context is such as to give to them the ethical or the political meaning. Welcker seems to go a step too far, when he says that the latter sense “fell into desuetude, through the influence of the Socratic philosophy.” (Proleg. sect. 11, p. xxv.) The two meanings both remained extant at the same time, as we see by Aristotle (Polit. iv, 8, 2),—σχεδὸν γὰρ παρὰ τοῖς πλείστοις οἱ εὔποροι, τῶν καλῶν κἀγαθῶν δοκοῦσι κατέχειν χώραν. A careful distinction is sometimes found in Plato and Thucydides, who talk of the oligarchs as “the persons called super-excellent,”—τοὺς καλοὺς κἀγαθοὺς ὀνομαζομένους (Thucyd. viii, 48),—ὑπὸ τῶν πλουσίων τε καὶ καλῶν κἀγαθῶν λεγομένων ἐν τῇ πόλει (Plato, Rep. viii, p. 569).
The same double sense is to be found equally prevalent in the Latin language: “Bonique et mali cives appellati, non ob merita in rempublicam, omnibus pariter corruptis: sed uti quisque locupletissimus, et injuriâ validior, quia præsentia defendebat, pro bono habebatur.” (Sallust, Hist. Fragment. lib. i, p. 935, Cort.) And again, Cicero (De Republ. i, 34): “Hoc errore vulgi cum rempublicam opes paucorum, non virtutes, tenere cœperunt, nomen illi principes optimatium mordicus tenent, re autem carent eo nomine.” In Cicero’s Oration pro Sextio (c. 45) the two meanings are intentionally confounded together, when he gives his definition of optimus quisque. Welcker (Proleg. s. 12) produces several other examples of the like equivocal meaning. Nor are there wanting instances of the same use of language in the laws and customs of the early Germans,—boni homines, probi homines, Rachinburgi, Gudemänner. See Savigny, Geschichte des Römisch. Rechts im Mittelalter, vol. i, p. 184; vol. ii, p. xxii.
[70] Herod. vi. 128.
[71] Justin. ii, 7.
[72] Pausan. i, 3, 2; Suidas, Ἱππομένης; Diogenian. Centur. Proverb. iii, 1. Ἀσεβέστερον Ἱππομένους.
[73] See Boeckh on the Parian Marble, in Corp. Inscrip. Græc. part 12, sect. 6, pp. 307, 310, 332.
From the beginning of the reign of Medôn son of Kodrus, to the first annual archon Kreôn, the Parian Marble computes 407 years, Eusebius 387.
[74] Philochorus ap. Strabo, ix, p. 396. See Schömann, Antiq. J. P. Græc. b. v, sect. 2-5.
[75] Strabo, ix, p. 392. Philochorus and Andrôn extended the kingdom of Nisus from the isthmus of Corinth as far as the Pythium (near Œnoê) and Eleusis (Str. ib.); but there were many different tales.