Note 41 — Chapter IX · CORINTH, SIKYON, AND MEGARA. — AGE OF THE GRECIAN DESPOTS.

Pausan. vi, 19, 2. The Eleians informed Pausanias that the brass in these alcoves came from Tartessus (the south-western coast of Spain from the Strait of Gibraltar to the territory beyond Cadiz): he declines to guarantee the statement. But O. Müller treats it as a certainty: “Two apartments inlaid with Tartessian brass, and adorned with Doric and Ionic columns. Both the architectural orders employed in this building, and the Tartessian brass, which the Phocæans had then brought to Greece in large quantities from the hospitable king Arganthonius, attest the intercourse of Myrôn with the Asiatics.” (Dorians, i, 8, 2.) So also Dr. Thirlwall states the fact: “Copper of Tartessus, which had not long been introduced into Greece.” (Hist. Gr. ch. x, p. 483, 2d ed.) Yet, if we examine the chronology 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 Kôlaeus first made the region known to them, and more than half a century (at least) earlier than the commerce of the Phocæans with Arganthonius. Compare Herod. iv. 152; i, 163, 167.