The date of the Argive tyrant Pheidon has been generally discussed without asking about what was the reason of different ancients datings. The failure to understand it has led to rather voluntary selection among the dates as well as unwarranted constructions. The present paper is an attempt to give a complex explanation of all the dates put forward by the ancients, except the statement of Herodotos that placed Pheidon to the early 6th century BC. It is suggested that all other dates were based on two synchronisations. First, Pheidon was considered roughly as a contemporary of the end of Corinthian kingship, the foundation of Syracuse, the outbreak of the first Messenian war and the epic poet Eumelos. This synchronisation was based on the story about the death of Corinthian Aktaion and on the account of Ephoros, who had dated some of these instances, including Pheidon, to the 10th generation from the Herakleid invasion. It was the reason of the date in Pausanias (Ol. 8 in 748 BC). And second, Pheidon was synchronised with Spartan lawgiver Lykourgos. On this assumption were based the datings in Theopompos, Marmor Parium, Eusebios and Isidorus.

SummaryThe article discusses the development of ethnic and political identities, and the related traditions concerning the past, in Archaic and Classical Elis and Pisa. It shows that the earliest signs of Pisatan identity can be traced to the sixth century BC, and that the Eleans of the valley of Peneios on the one hand, and the people dwelling in the valley of Alpheios (i.e. the Pisatans) and the so-called Triphylia farther south on the other, nourished distinct traditions about their heroic past, which reflect distinct ethnic identities. Instead of assuming that the Pisatans as a group was intentionally constructed and its ‚history‘ invented during the political disturbances of the fourth century BC, we must accept that the Eleans and the Pisatans had since an early period developed and mutually re-negotiated the traditions confirming their identities and promoting their interests in the changing historical conditions.

Pheidon was a king (basileus) or tyrant of Argos in the Archaic period (eighth to sixth century bce ).

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