Note 62 — Chapter IX · CORINTH, SIKYON, AND MEGARA. — AGE OF THE GRECIAN DESPOTS.

Plutarch, De Herodot. Malign. c. 21, p. 859. If Herodotus had known or believed that the dynasty of the Kypselids at Corinth was put down by Sparta, he could not have failed to make allusion to the fact, in the long harangue which he ascribes to the Corinthian Sosiklês (v, 92). Whoever reads that speech, will perceive that the inference from silence to ignorance is in this case almost irresistible.

O. Müller ascribes to Periander a policy intentionally anti-Dorian,—“prompted by the wish of utterly eradicating the peculiarities of the Doric race. For this reason he abolished the public tables, and prohibited the ancient education.” (O. Müller, Dorians, iii, 8, 3.)

But it cannot be shown that any public tables (συσσίτια), or any peculiar education, analogous to those of Sparta, ever existed at Corinth. If nothing more be meant by these συσσίτια than public banquets on particular festive occasions (see Welcker, Prolegom. ad Theognid. c. 20, p. xxxvii), these are noway peculiar to Dorian cities. Nor does Theognis, v, 270, bear out Welcker in affirming “syssitiorum vetus institutum” at Megara.