Phidon

• a descendant of Hercules, to whom is attributed the invention of weights and measures, Plin. 7, 56, 57, § 198.

(Φείδων). (1) The son of Aristodamidas, and king of Argos. He restored the supremacy of Argos over Cleonae, Phlius, Sicyon, Epidaurus, Troezen, and Aegina, and aimed at extending his dominions over the greater part of the Peloponnesus. The Pisans invited him (B.C. 748) to aid them in excluding the Eleans from their usurped presidency at the Olympic Games, and to celebrate them jointly with themselves. The invitation quite fell in with the ambitious pretensions of Phidon, who succeeded in dispossessing the Eleans and celebrating the games along with the Pisans; but the Eleans not long after defeated him, with the aid of Sparta, and recovered their privilege. Thus apparently fell the power of Phidon; but as to the details of the struggle we have no information. The most memorable act of Phidon was his introduction of copper and silver coinage, and a new scale of weights and measures, which, through his influence, became prevalent in the Peloponnesus, and ultimately throughout the greater portion of Greece. The scale in question was known by the name of the Aeginetan, and it is usually supposed that the coinage of Phidon was struck in Aegina; but there seems good reason for believing that what Phidon did was done in Argos, and nowhere else—that “Phidonian measures” probably did not come to bear the specific name of Aeginetan until there was another scale in vogue, the Euboic, from which to distinguish them—and that both the epithets were derived, not from the place where the scale first originated, but from the people whose commercial activity tended to make them most generally known—in the one case the Aeginetans, in the other case the inhabitants of Chalcis and Eretria.

(2) An ancient Corinthian legislator of uncertain date.

• holds Olympic games jointly with Pisans: Paus. 6.22.2
• father of Leocedes: Hdt. 6.127