Greece. Tradition makes its population a very mixed one: “It was called Oenone,” says Strabo, “in ancient times, and it was settled by Argives, Kretans, Epidaurians, and Dorians15.” According to a fragment of Ephorus, to be referred to presently, it was owing to the barren nature of the soil that the natives turned to trade.
All Greek tradition is unanimous in representing Pheidon of Argos as the first to coin money in Hellas Proper, and to have done so at Aegina. Much obscurity enshrouds the history and the date of Pheidon, owing to the conflicting accounts of the historians. For our immediate purpose it would be quite sufficient to state simply that he cannot have lived later than 600 B.C., but in consequence of some prevailing doctrines with regard to the history of Greek weights being based on inferences (probably quite unwarrantable) which have been drawn from the statements given about this despot, we must take a more elaborate survey of the sources.
Pausanias16, writing about 174 A.D. says that the Pisaeans in the eight Olympiad (747 B.C.) brought to their aid Pheidon of Argos, who of all despots in Hellas waxed most insolent, and that along with him they celebrated the festival. But now comes the testimony of Herodotus17, who was writing circ. 440 B.C., and who tells us (VI. 127) that when Cleisthenes the despot of Sicyon held the svayamvara for his daughter Agariste; amongst the suitors who came from all parts of Hellas, was “Leocedes, son of Pheidon, the despot of the Argives, Pheidon, who had made their measures for the Peloponnesians, and had of all Greeks waxed to the greatest pitch of violence, he who expelled the Elean presidents of the games and himself held the festival.” There cannot be the slightest doubt that both Pausanias and Herodotus refer to the same tyrant, but the dates are irreconcileable. As Cleisthenes, the Athenian law-giver, was the son of Agariste, her wooing cannot have been much earlier than 560 B.C., and consequently Pheidon must have reigned at Argos shortly before 600 B.C.