Pheidon I (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: Φείδων'A) was a king of Argos in the 8th century BC, and seems to have been a son of

Temenus In Greek mythology, Temenus (, ''Tḗmenos'') was a son of Aristomachus and brother of Cresphontes and Aristodemus. Temenus was a great-great-grandson of Heracles and helped lead the fifth and final attack on Mycenae in the Peloponnese. He ...

, a great-great-grandson of

Heracles Heracles ( ; ), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a Divinity, divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of ZeusApollodorus1.9.16/ref> and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through ...

. He is often confused with another king of Argos also named Pheidon, who was probably one of his descendants.

Biography

He ascended the throne after defeating his brothers, most notably the future ancestor of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

Caranus of Macedon Caranus or Karanos () was the first king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia according to later traditions. According to Herodotus, however, the first king was Perdiccas I. Caranus is first reported by Theopompus and is the mythical foun ...

who after being defeated, left to found his own kingdom, in what is now known as

Macedon Macedonia ( ; , ), also called Macedon ( ), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, which later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal ...

. This is perhaps the Pheidon that assisted the Pisatans to expel the Eleian superintendents of the Olympian Games and presided at the festival himself. The Eleians, however, refused to recognize the Olympiad or to include it in the register, and shortly afterwards, with the aid of the

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

ns, who are said to have looked upon Pheidon as having ousted them from the headship of Greece, defeated Pheidon and were reinstated in the possession of

Pisatis Pisa () is a village situated to the east of Olympia, Greece, located on the northwest side of the Peloponnesus peninsula. Currently it is not politically independent but it is a community of the municipality of Ancient Olympia, in the regional ...

and their former privileges. 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)

References

{{reflist 8th-century BC Greek people