He is also remembered for forcibly taking control of the presidency over the Olympic games (usually dated to 668 BCE) and creating or standardizing weights and measures which were then used throughout the Peloponnese and called Pheidonian after him.
Herodotus does not provide a date for this event, but assertions by the later authors Eusebius and Pausanias have been used to argue that in 668 BCE control of the Olympic festival (traditionally the privilege of the Eleans) was taken over by the Pisatans.
The most widespread view among historians is that Pheidon helped the Pisatans take over the Olympic festival in 668 and thus date him to the first half of the 7th century BCE.
[4] Additionally, the 7th-century dating appears to be contradicted by another report by Herodotus that a son of Pheidon was among the suitors of Agariste, daughter of the Sicyonian tyrant Cleisthenes, who lived in the 6th century.
[10] In Richard Tomlinson's view, it is possible that Argos at this time joined an anti-Spartan coalition with other Peloponnesian states in reaction to the Spartan conquest of Messenia.
This is connected with a claim made by Nicolaus of Damascus (1st century BCE) that Pheidon was killed in Corinth while intervening in civil conflict there.
Historian Raphael Sealey writes that it is not unlikely that Pheidon exerted Argive influence in the northeastern Peloponnese, but the evidence for connecting him with events in Corinth, Megara, and Aegina is not strong.
The Byzantine author Syncellus cites a genealogy which traces the ancestry of the kings of Macedon to another son of Pheidon called Caranos.
According to Sealey, this was likely a result of his "ostentatious display of power" when he seized the presidency of the Olympic games, which reminded people of his contemporary, King Gyges of Lydia.