[58:1] The arguments of Busolt (G. G. i. 86) which I had intended to discuss, will be antiquated by the appearance of his 2nd edition, which is now in the press, and which discusses the prehistoric conditions by the light of evidence which has accrued since the first publication of his important work. But for the printers' strike (November, 1891) I should probably have been able to quote his revised and amended views. Holm's appears to me a reasonable view. After stating that Apollodorus (ii. 7), Diodorus (4, 33), Plato (Legg. iii. 6, 7), and Isocrates (Archidam. 119) are all at variance, he adds (i. 181): 'One of these is just as historical as the other; the current traditions are not better than the accounts of Plato and of Isocrates; they are all mere tales (Sagen) which can neither be proved or refuted.' Here we have the attitude of Grote, pure and simple, but applied to a quasi-historical period.
[59:1] Will it be believed that E. Curtius paraphrases this remark (ἀπ᾽ οὐδενὸς ὁρμώμενον ἀναγκαίου πρὸς πίστιν) by 'zuerst wissenschaftlich bearbeitet von Hippias'?
[59:2] It is an axiom, to which I shall revert, that all sceptics have their credulous side; and so we find that Mr. Evelyn Abbott, a learned and able man, who will not accept anything as real fact from the Homeric poems, takes with childish faith the list in Eusebius, and tells us that there we can read the names of the actual victors from 776 B.C. to 221 A.D.! (History of Greece, i. 246.) And he adds, with charming naïveté, that the alleged fact of one thousand years' record of foot-races 'would be incredible if it were not true. But it is true,' etc. That a critical historian should tell us these things dogmatically, without touching upon any of the difficulties involved, can only be accounted for by the theory that he was following some authority he respected, such as Duncker, without thinking the matter out for himself.
[60:1] I notice that older scholars, such as Newton, in his Chronology, and Mitford, show quite a wholesome scepticism concerning Pheidon's date, which they are disposed to bring down even lower than Curtius proposes.
[60:2] E. g. Duncker, Abbott, Duruy, Busolt (i. 140) with the recent literature cited, Holm (i. 256).
[61:1] The reader may consult a long list of tracts on the credibility of Ephorus, and the accuracy with which our extant Greek authors cited him, with the general conclusions to be inferred, in Busolt (i. 97 and elsewhere) or Holm (i. 11-15).
[62:1] Though the Return of the Heracleids was placed by Eratosthenes in 1104 B.C., older authorities, just as competent, placed it later. Thus Isocrates, in three of his orations, delivered 366-342 B.C., repeats that the Dorians had now been four hundred years in Peloponnesus. Applying this round number, we obtain 1066-1042 for the Return of the Heracleids. The tenth generation, according to Greek counting, down from this date for Temenus, would give us 760-730 B.C. This may be the very computation by which the dates of Archias and Pheidon were fixed. Duncker (i. 139) thinks the Dorians cannot have come before 1000 B.C. If he reasoned like a Greek, and held Pheidon to be the tenth Temenid, he would straightway put him below 700 B.C.
[64:1] The last has given a summary of the arguments in his History, pp. 224, 241, and in the Rhein. Museum for 1885, pp. 461 seq.
[64:2] That Hippys of Rhegium lived during the Persian Wars, and wrote Σικελικα, is stated by Suidas only and without any evidence.
[65:1] Arch. i. 12.