Having taken a view of the Doric settlements without Peloponnesus, we now return to the history of that peninsula, which we will divide into two periods, namely, before and after the 40th Olympiad, or the year 620 B.C.
§ 1. Sources of the early history of Peloponnesus. § 2. Quoit of Iphitus, Registers of Victors at the Olympic and Carnean Games, Registers at Sicyon and Argos. § 3. Registers of the Spartan Kings. § 4. Spartan Rhetras, Land-marks. § 5. Lyric Poets, Oral Tradition, and Political Institutions. § 6. Mythical character of Lycurgus. § 7. Lycurgus founder of the sacred armistice of Olympia. § § 8. and 9. Messenian wars: sources of the history of them. § 10. First Messenian war. § 11. Second Messenian war. § 12. Influence in Arcadia obtained by the Spartans. § 13. Limited ascendancy of Argos in Argolis. § 14. Disputes between Argos and Sparta. § 15. Pheidon of Argos. § 16. Further struggles between Argos and Sparta.
1. Before we begin to collect and arrange the accounts extant concerning the early history of Peloponnesus, it will be first necessary to ascertain what are our sources of information respecting the events of this period. For the epic poets, who carried on an uninterrupted series of traditions on the events of the mythical ages, and have thus thrown over this dark period some faint glimmerings which may in many places be condensed into a distinct and useful light, only touch on a few points of the period whose history we are about to examine. On the other hand, indeed, the art of writing was during this time introduced among the Greeks through their intercourse with Asia; but that a long time elapsed before it came into general use, is evident from the almost surprising imperfection of those written documents which have been preserved to us of a date anterior to the 60th Olympiad, in comparison with the great perfection of the works of Grecian art. For this reason, writing was long regarded in Greece as a foreign craft, and letters were considered (for example in the Tean curses) as Phœnician symbols. Nevertheless, these few and scanty registers are the first materials for real history and chronology now extant. As such, the following have been made known to us from Peloponnesus.