ABSTRACT
Ephoros' placement of Pheidon in the tenth generation after Temenos allows us to date him only in relation to mythical figures and events and is thus highly unreliable as historical evidence. The assumption that only one convention existed for numbering Olympiads has led historians to believe that the Olympiad numbers for Peloponnesian events of the archaic period found in the text of Pausanias and other ancient authors can refer to only one moment in time. The interpretation of the testimonies in the ancient texts for events involving Pantaleon the son of Omphalion and his two sons offered the supports a consistent narrative of late Archaic and early Classical Eleian political history. Civil strife among the 'official' Eleians may soon have led to the defeat of the pro-Spartan, oligarchic party which had banished the generals, opening the way to achieving an amicable settlement with the group led by the Omphalionids.
