Problems in Greek history

by J. P. Mahaffy

But neither Grote, nor E. Curtius, nor even Sir George Cox, has analysed the evidence for the authenticity of the older portion of this register. I cannot find in Clinton's Fasti, where it might well be expected, any such inquiry. In Mure's History of Greek Literature (iv. 77-90), a work far less esteemed than it deserves, and here only, do we find any statement of the evidence. The negative conclusions reached by Mure have made no impression on the learned world, and are now well-nigh forgotten. I will take up the question where he left it, and add some positive evidence to corroborate his argument—that the list of victors at Olympiads handed down to us by Eusebius is, at least in its earlier part, an

artificially constructed list, resting on occasional and fragmentary monumental records, and therefore of no value as a scientific chronology. I will also endeavour to determine when the victors began to be regularly recorded, and when the extant list was manufactured. Such an inquiry must be of great importance in measuring the amount of credence to be given to the dates of events referred to the eighth and the first half of the seventh centuries B.C.—for example, Thucydides' dates for the western colonies of the Hellenes.

Let us first sketch the tradition about the Register as we find it implied in Diodorus, Strabo, the fragments of Timæus, and other late historians. We find especially in Pausanias a considerable amount of detail, and an outline of the general history of the feast as then accepted. All admitted, and indeed asserted, a mythical origin for the games. The declarations of Pindar and other old poets were express, that Herakles had founded them, that Pelops and other mythical heroes had won victories at them—and victories of various kinds, including chariot races. Another account ascribed their foundation to Oxylus (Paus. v. 8, 5). But a long gap was admitted between these mythical glories and the revival of the games by his descendant Iphitus, king of Elis. 'This Iphitus,' says Pausanias (v. 4, 6), 'the epigram at Olympia declares to be the son of Hæmon, but most of the Greeks to be the son of Praxonides, and not of Hæmon; the old documents (ἀρχαῖα γράμματα) of the Eleians, however, referred[219:1] Iphitus to a father of the same name.' Iphitus, in connection with the Spartan Lycurgus, re-established the games, but (as was asserted)

only as a contest in the short race (στάδιον), and in this first historical Olympiad Corœbus won, as was stated in an epigram on his tomb, situated on the borders of Elis and Arcadia (Paus. viii. 26, 4). A quoit on which Lycurgus' name was engraved, was at Elis, says Plutarch, in the days of Aristotle. The 'discus of Iphitus,' says Pausanias (v. 20, 1), 'has the truce which the Eleians announce for the Olympiad, not inscribed in straight lines, but the letters run round the discus in a circular form[220:1].' He alludes to the list again and again: e.g. (v. 8, 6) 'ever since there is a continuous record of the Olympiads (ἐξ oὗ το συνεχὲς ταῖς μνήμαις ἐΠὶ ταῖς Ὀλ. ἐστί); prizes for running were first established, and the Eleian Corœbus won.'

Pausanias proceeds in this passage to give an account of the successive additions of other competitions to the sprint race, 'according as they remembered them,' that is, according as they recollected or found out that they had been practised in mythical days. In the 14th Ol. the δίαυλος, or double course, was instituted, and Hypenus the Pisæan won, and next after him Acanthus. In the 18th they remembered the pentathlon and the wrestling match, in which Lampis and Eurybatus respectively won, both Lacedæmonians. In the 23rd came boxing, and Onomastus of Smyrna, which then already counted as Ionian, won. In the 25th the first chariot race was won by the Theban Pagondas. In the 33rd came the pancration, and the monument of the first victor, Lygdamis, was at Syracuse. . . . . The boys' contests were based on no old tradition, but the Eleians

established them of their own good pleasure. The boys' wrestling match was accordingly instituted in the 37th Ol.

I need not here pursue the account further, but will return to this passage in connection with the other arrangements of the feast.

We find that other authorities, such as Polemo, quoted by the Scholiast on Pindar (Ol. v.), agree with Pausanias as to some of these details. Strabo quotes from Ephorus the double foundation, by Oxylus and again by Iphitus. So does Phlegon, a freedman of Hadrian, who wrote a work on the Olympian festival, and gave a list of victors, probably from the same source as Eusebius' list. Phlegon notes indeed the difficulty of making Lycurgus and Iphitus contemporary with Corœbus in 776 B.C., and fixes the date of Iphitus twenty-eight Olympiads earlier (at 887 B.C.). But he introduces an Iphitus again in the 6th registered Ol., inquiring about the crowning of victors, and states that Daïcles of Messene was first crowned with wild olive at the 7th contest. The only other point of interest in Phlegon's fragments is the full catalogue of the 177th Ol. (frag. 12 in Müller's Frag. Hist. iv. 606), which gives the winners in seventeen events; some of them thrice successful in the competitions.

We may therefore take it for granted that the account of Pausanias, which now passes current in all the German and English works on Greek athletics, was, in the main, that established or adopted by Timæus or by Aristotle, the latter of whom is often alleged to have first given the Olympiads their prominent position as the basis of Greek chronology. But whether he adopted the list as genuine from the beginning or not, his isolated remark about the

quoit with Lycurgus' name is not sufficient to inform us[222:1]. Indeed we have only negative evidence concerning his opinion and no direct information.