As we have seen (p. 146), Aristotle believed that “Pheidon of Argos and others established themselves as tyrants from a pre-existing kingship” (Pol. 5.8.4). Our earliest reference to Pheidon comes in Herodotus’ enumeration of the suitors of Agariste, daughter of the Sicyonian tyrant Cleisthenes, where the Argive ruler is said to have introduced a system of measures and to have usurped the administration of the Olympic Games (Document I.1). Straightaway, this information is at variance with that provided by Aristotle regarding the period in which Pheidon is supposed to have lived. Cleisthenes of Sicyon was the maternal grandfather of Cleisthenes of Athens (Herodotus 5.67.1; 6.131), who held the archonship in 525/4 and instituted sweeping reforms after 508 (pp. 238-43). The elder Cleisthenes must have lived, then, in the early sixth century - the wedding of Agariste is conventionally placed in the 570s - which would make Pheidon a rough contemporary. Aristotle, on the other hand, maintains that the tyrannies that arose from monarchies predated those tyrants, such as Cypselus, who came to power by championing the demos (Pol. 5.8.3), which would place Pheidon before the middle of the seventh century.
Our most detailed information for Pheidon derives from Ephorus, cited by Strabo (Document I.2). Like Herodotus, Ephorus notes that Pheidon forcibly celebrated the Olympic Games, though this is part of a broader pattern of violence by which Pheidon attacked cities that had supposedly once been captured by his ancestor Heracles and celebrated other contests that were thought to have been instituted by the hero. Like Herodotus, Ephorus credits Pheidon with establishing a system of measures, though he also adds that he introduced new weight standards and minted coins from silver and other metals. But Ephorus
A History of the Archaic Greek World: ca. 1200-479 BCE, Second Edition. Jonathan M. Hall. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
World History
