When Was Megalopolis Founded?

Abstract

Pausanias' date (371) for the foundation/synoikism of the federal Arkadian capital, Megalopolis, is preferable to Diodorus' (368). But the process was spread over several years, beginning soon after the Battle of Leuktra. Diodorus' source here was not Ephorus but the ‘chronographic source’ from which Diodorus derived other material about city-foundations, synoikisms etc. The ‘battle’, after which Diodorus says the city was founded, may in the chronographer have been Leuktra itself rather than the ‘Tearless Battle’ of 368. There are no good military or political objections to the suggested dating, which avoids the need to postulate two Arcadian federalists called Proxenos, both active and prominent at much the same time.

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