The coming of the Dorians brought order into the Peloponnese, but only after a long and bitter struggle. The settling of Oxylus and his Aetolians in Elis checked the stream of migration from the north-west, and the power of the Dorians prevented further aggression from other quarters. Meanwhile such of the earlier inhabitants as clung to their independence were driven into the mountains of Arcadia and Achaea, or into Messenia. In the south-west the civilization, of which we have a glorified picture in Nestor’s kingdom, lasted perhaps till the final conquest of the country by the Spartans; in the mountains the inhabitants developed into a race of hardy mountaineers and shepherds, fond of sport and war, clinging tenaciously to their ancient customs and manner of government, but playing no part in the history of Greece save as mercenaries in the pay of more progressive states.
In the long struggle that preceded the final settlement even Olympia was involved. The Eleans—as we may call the newcomers from Aetolia—strove hard to wrest from the Pisatans the control of the sanctuary; but the latter doggedly maintained their rights, which had been recently vindicated by the building of the Heraeum, and religious feeling was on their side. Still, the prestige of the festival suffered to such an extent that the games, it is said, were neglected and forgotten. At length, weary of incessant strife and a pestilence that followed it, the contending factions, on the advice, according to one story, of the Delphic oracle, resolved to re-establish the Olympic games as a means of restoring goodwill and unity to the land. This work was ascribed to Iphitus, king of Elis, a descendant of Oxylus, to Cleosthenes, king of Pisa, and to Lycurgus of Sparta. The ordinance regulating the festival was engraved on a diskos preserved in the temple of Hera down to the time of Pausanias, on which the names of Iphitus and Lycurgus were still legible in the days of Aristotle.[50] The antiquity of the diskos is unquestionable, but it may well be doubted if it was contemporary with the event described. More probably it dated from the seventh century, when Sparta, as we shall see, took an active part in the games. The introduction of Sparta and Lycurgus at this early date is certainly suspicious. Be this as it may, the organization of the festival by Iphitus and Cleosthenes may be regarded as the first definite historical fact in its history.