Weissenborn (followed by Ernst Curtius) has sought to cut the Gordian knot by emending the text of Pausanias, thus reading 28th instead of 8th Olympiad, which would make Pheidon help the Pisaeans in the year 668 B.C. But even this drastic remedy is hardly sufficient to meet the requirements of the statement of Herodotus.
Our earliest authority for the tradition that Pheidon coined at Aegina is a passage of Ephorus preserved by Strabo (VIII. 376)18: “Ephorus says that in Aegina silver was first struck by Pheidon; for it had become an emporium, inasmuch as its population, owing to the barrenness of the land, engaged in maritime trade; whence trumpery goods are called Aeginean ware.” According to another passage of Strabo, which may be likewise from Ephorus, as it comes at the end of a long statement, the first part of which Strabo expressly declares is taken from that writer: (“They say) that Pheidon of Argos, who was tenth in descent from Temenus, and who surpassed his contemporaries in his power, whence he recovered the whole of the inheritance of Temenus, which had been rent into several parts, and that he invented the measures which are called Pheidonian and weights and stamped currency, both the other kind and that of silver.” It must be carefully observed that this is the only ancient passage which says a word about the invention of weights by Pheidon. If this statement can be taken as trustworthy we might very well conclude that Pheidon was the person who introduced the decimal principle and made 10 silver pieces instead of 15 equivalent to the gold stater. If however this is an addition of Strabo19, who wrote about A.D. 1-21, and whose account of Greece Proper is the most defective portion of his great work, we cannot let this passage weigh against that already given from Herodotus, who is perfectly silent as regards the invention of weights. Furthermore there is the fact that Strabo does not venture to describe the weights as called Pheidonian, but carefully limits that appellation to the measures as we find also to be the case with Pollux, when he is describing various kinds of vessels: “and likewise a Pheidon would be a kind of vessel for holding oil, deriving its name from the Pheidonian measures respecting which