Note 570 — Chapter VI · LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA.

Phlegôn also adds Kleosthenês of Pisa (De Olympiis ap. Meursii Opp. vii. p. 128). It appears that there existed a quoit at Olympia, upon which the formula of the Olympic truce was inscribed, together with the names of Iphitus and Lykurgus as the joint authors and proclaimers of it. Aristotle believed this to be genuine, and accepted it as an evidence of the fact which it professed to certify: and O. Müller is also disposed to admit it as genuine,—that is, as contemporary with the times to which it professes to relate. I come to a different conclusion: that the quoit existed, I do not doubt; but that the inscription upon it was actually set down in writing, in or near B. C. 880, would be at variance with the reasonable probabilities resulting from Grecian palæography. Had this ancient and memorable instrument existed at Olympia in the days of Herodotus, he could hardly have assigned to Lykurgus the epoch which we now read in his writings.

The assertions in Müller’s History of the Dorians (i. 7, 7), about Lykurgus, Iphitus, and Kleosthenês “drawing up the fundamental law of the Olympic armistice,” are unsupported by any sufficient evidence. In the later times of established majesty of the Olympic festival, the Eleians did undoubtedly exercise the power which he describes; but to connect this with any deliberate regulation of Iphitus and Lykurgus, is in my judgment incorrect. See the mention of a similar truce proclaimed throughout Triphylia by the Makistians as presidents of the common festival at the temple of the Samian Poseidon (Strabo, viii. p. 343).