Pheidon

Pheidon (Greek: Φείδων) was a king of Argos, Greece in the 7th century BC. At that time, the monarch was nominal with almost no genuine power. Pheidon seized the throne from the reigning aristocracy. He is considered in the tradition of other tyrants, like Gyges of Lydia, as an outsider to the ruling caste in some ways even though a fragment of the Parian Chronicle confirms him to have been a noble and places him as eleventh in line from Heracles. Scholarship has called Pheidon's 'reign' a tyranny based on Aristotle's definition in politics. Pheidon is said to have lost his life in a faction fight at Corinth, where the monarchy had recently been overthrown.

According to tradition he flourished during the first half of the 7th century BC. He was a vigorous and energetic ruler and greatly increased the power of Argos. He gra

During his probable reign, the battle of Hysiae (in 669/8 BC) was fought in which the Argives defeated the Spartans. This is also about the time period that hoplite warfare was becoming current, particularly in Argos. It is probable that he was the originator of hoplite phalanx.

Aristotle, in "Politics", claims that he made changes to land reforms “family plots and the number of citizens should be kept equal, even if the citizens had all started with plots of unequal size.” He also claims that Pheidon started off as a king (basileus) and ended up a tyrant (tyrannos). The balance between these two types of ancient 'kingship' seem to have vague boundaries.

The affair of the games has an important bearing on his date. Pausanias (vi. 22, 2) definitely states that Pheidon presided at the festival in the 8th Olympiad (i.e. in 748 BC), but in the list of the suitors of Agariste, daughter of Cleisthenes of Sicyon, given by Herodotus, there occurs the name of Leokedes or Lakedas, son of Pheidon of Argos. According to this, Pheidon must have flourished during the early part of the 6th century BC. It has therefore been assumed that Herodotus confused two Pheidons, both kings of Argos. The suggested substitution in the text of Pausanias of the 28th for the 8th Olympiad (i.e. 668 instead of 748) would not bring it into agreement with Herodotus, for even then, Pheidon's son could not have been a suitor in 570 for the hand of Agariste.

...
Wikipedia