Note 92 — Chapter XXVII · KYRENE AND BARKA. — HESPERIDES.
Reading edition
Herodot. iv, 161. Τῷ βασιλέϊ Βάττῳ τεμένεα ἐξελὼν καὶ ἱρωσύνας, τὰ ἄλλα πάντα τὰ πρότερον εἶχον οἱ βασιλεῖς ἐς μέσον τῷ δήμῳ ἔθηκε.
I construe the word τεμένεα as meaning all the domains, doubtless large, which had belonged to the Battiad princes; contrary to Thrige (Historia Cyrênês, ch. 38, p. 150), who restricts the expression to revenues derived from sacred property. The reference of Wesseling to Hesych.—Βάττου σίλφιον—is of no avail for illustrating this passage.
The supposition of O. Müller, that the preceding king had made himself despotic by means of Egyptian soldiers, appears to me neither probable in itself, nor admissible upon the simple authority of Plutarch’s romantic story, when we take into consideration the silence of Herodotus. Nor is Müller correct in affirming that Demônax “restored the supremacy of the community:” that legislator superseded the old kingly political privileges, and framed a new constitution (see O. Müller, History of Dorians, b. iii, ch. 9. s. 13.)