Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/49

KLEISTHKNKS DESPOT OF SIKYON. 33 age must be placed between GOO-5GO B. c., but can hardly be determined accurately.) some facts are reported to us highly curious, but of a nature not altogether easy to follow or verifv. We learn from the narrative of Herodotus that the tribe to which Kleisthenes l himself (and of course his progenitors Orthagoras and the other Orthagorida? also) belonged, was dis tirict from the three Dorian tribes, who have been already named in my previous chapter respecting the Lykurgean constitution at Sparta, the Hylleis, Pamphyli, and Dymanes. We also learn that these tribes were common to the Sikyonians and the Argei- ans; and Kleisthenes, being in a state of bitter hostility with Argos, tried in several ways to abolish the points of community between the two. Sikyon originally Dorized by settlers from Argos, was included in the "lot of Temenus," or among the towns of the Argeian confederacy : the coherence of this confed- eracy had become weaker and weaker, partly without doubt through the influence of the predecessors of Kleisthenes; but the Argeians may perhaps have tried to revive it, thus placing themselves in a state of war with the latter, and inducing him to disconnect, palpably and violently, Sikyon from Argos. There were two anchors by which the connection held, first, legendary and religious sympathy ; next, the civil rites and denomination.; current among the Sikyonian Dorians : both of them were torn up by Kleisthenes. He changed the names both of the thre : Dorian tribes, and of that non-Dorian tribe to which he himself belonged : the last he called by the complimentary title of ar- chelai (commanders of the people) ; the first three he styled by the insulting names of hyata?, oneatas, and chcereatas, from the three Greek words signifying a boar, an ass, and a little pig. The extreme bitterness of this insult can only be appreciated when we fancy to ourselves the reverence with which the tribes Greece." (Hist. Gr. ch. x, p. 483, 2d ed.) Yet. if ve examine the chronol- ogy of the case, we shall see that the 33d Olympiad (648 B. c.) must have been earlier even than the first discovery of Tartessus by the Greeks, before the accidental voyage of the Samian merchant Kolaeits first made the region known to them, and more than half a century (at least) earlier than the commerce of the Phocoeans with Arganthonius. Compare Herod, ir 152; i, 163, 167. 1 Herodot. v. 67. voi,. in. 2 3o&