[91] Herodot. iv, 160. Plutarch (De Virtutibus Mulier. p. 261) and Polyænus (viii, 41) give various details of this stratagem on the part of Eryxô; Learchus being in love with her. Plutarch also states that Learchus maintained himself as despot for some time by the aid of Egyptian troops from Amasis, and committed great cruelties. His story has too much the air of a romance to be transcribed into the text, nor do I know from what authority it is taken.
[92] Herodot. iv, 161. Τῷ βασιλέϊ Βάττῳ τεμένεα ἐξελὼν καὶ ἱρωσύνας, τὰ ἄλλα πάντα τὰ πρότερον εἶχον οἱ βασιλεῖς ἐς μέσον τῷ δήμῳ ἔθηκε.
I construe the word τεμένεα as meaning all the domains, doubtless large, which had belonged to the Battiad princes; contrary to Thrige (Historia Cyrênês, ch. 38, p. 150), who restricts the expression to revenues derived from sacred property. The reference of Wesseling to Hesych.—Βάττου σίλφιον—is of no avail for illustrating this passage.
The supposition of O. Müller, that the preceding king had made himself despotic by means of Egyptian soldiers, appears to me neither probable in itself, nor admissible upon the simple authority of Plutarch’s romantic story, when we take into consideration the silence of Herodotus. Nor is Müller correct in affirming that Demônax “restored the supremacy of the community:” that legislator superseded the old kingly political privileges, and framed a new constitution (see O. Müller, History of Dorians, b. iii, ch. 9. s. 13.)
[93] Both O. Müller (Dor. b. iii, 4, 5), and Thrige (Hist. Cyren. c. 38, p. 148), speak of Demônax as having abolished the old tribes and created new ones. I do not conceive the change in this manner. Demônax did not abolish any tribes, but distributed for the first time the inhabitants into tribes. It is possible indeed that, before his time, the Theræans of Kyrênê may have been divided among themselves into distinct tribes; but the other inhabitants, having emigrated from a great number of different places, had never before been thrown into tribes at all. Some formal enactment or regulation was necessary for this purpose, to define and sanction that religious, social, and political communion, which went to make up the idea of the Tribe. It is not to be assumed, as a matter of course, that there must necessarily have been tribes anterior to Demônax, among a population so miscellaneous in its origin.
[94] Hesychius, Τριακάτιοι; Eustath. ad Hom. Odyss. p. 303; Herakleidês Pontic. De Polit. c. 4.
[95] Herodot. iv, 163. Ἐπὶ μὲν τέσσερας Βάττους, καὶ Ἀρκεσιλέως τέσσερας, διδοῖ ὑμῖν Λοξίης βασιλεύειν Κυρήνης· πλέον μέντοι τούτου οὐδὲ πειρᾶσθαι παραινέει.
[96] Herodot. iv, 163-164.
[97] Herodot. iii, 13; iv, 165-166.
[98] Polyænus (Strateg. vii, 28) gives a narrative in many respects different from this of Herodotus.