Her two-edged sword in murder. May God grant, with love
Like this, that Cypris come upon my enemies!
One maiden only shall love soften and forbid
To slay her love-mate. Nay, her purpose she shall blunt
And of twain choices offered she shall rather choose
To bear the name of coward than of murderess.
From her in Argos shall be bred a royal line.”
Lynceus is saved, under cover of night, by Hypermnestra, and escaping, as Pausanias tells us, by the Diras gate, he signals back to her his safety by means of a beacon light on Mount Lyrcea, and she replies by another from Larisa. On this Larisa mountain, rising above the plain, there is lavished as a setting for the picturesque ancient and mediæval ruins a colour scheme of green, rich reds and brown that delights the artist’s eye.
Argos itself, continuously inhabited through the centuries, offers few reminders of antiquity except the steep seats of the theatre. The beautiful wolf head on the extant Argive drachmas reminds us of the Wolf Agora of Sophocles and of the Wolf Apollo dedicated by Danaus when he had ungratefully snapped away the kingdom from his Pelasgian host. We are glad to leave to Pausanias the description of the sights of historic Argos and to follow Amymone, one of the Danaids, as she goes down the plain of “thirsty Argos,” water-jar on head, to fetch water at Lerna. She went to the fountain once too often, if we may trust the legend. Lucian describes how Poseidon, inflamed by Triton’s account of her beauty, too impetuous to wait for his royal team, had thrown himself hastily on the fastest dolphin available and had come riding up the bay. Amymone, as she is carried off, cries out: “Fellow, where are you carrying me off to? You’re a kidnapper sent after us, I suppose, by uncle Ægyptus. I’ll call my father!” (Triton) “Hush, Amymone, it’s Poseidon.” (Amymone) “What Poseidon are you talking of? Fellow, why do you drag me and force me into the sea? I’ll choke, poor me, as I go down!” Poseidon comforts her by telling her that she shall escape, as his bride, not only her daily five-mile walk as a water-carrier in Argos but her sisters’ futile task in Hades of carrying water in a sieve. He promises her also a fountain, called by her name. This promise was kept; by leaving the railroad at Myli, the second station below Argos, we can still see the fountain. Here Heracles, her sister’s descendant, slew the Lernæan hydra.
If we coast down the west side of the bay we come to Cynuria, whose autochthonous inhabitants would seem to have belonged, like their Arcadian neighbours, to the pre-Dorian “Pelasgic” stock. Herodotus gives a dramatic account of one of the contests for the possession of this territory between Spartans and Argives, in the sixth century, which might serve as a pendant for the Roman story of the Horatii and the Curiatii. Three hundred Spartans and three hundred Argives, chosen as champions, engaged while the main armies withdrew. Two Argives only survived, and they, thinking the Spartans all dead, ran off home to announce the victory. One half-dead Spartan, however, Othryades, was able to write with his blood his name upon a trophy which he erected of Argive armour. Each side claimed the victory, with the result that the full armies engaged and the Spartans conquered. Othryades, however, ashamed to survive his comrades, killed himself on the field.