According to Plutarch, the first name of the mount of the citadel was Argion.[116] It is significant that it is never mentioned by ancient authors under the appellation of "acropolis." Sophocles (Electra) calls it δῶμα Πελοπιδῶν or 'residence of the Pelopids,' also οὐράνια τείχη, 'heavenly walls.' Euripides[117] also calls it, "stone Cyclopean heavenly walls," and further[118] "Cyclopean heavenly walls," and this must refer to the hugeness of the walls and towers. Strabo[119] justly observes that, on account of the close vicinity of Argos and Mycenæ, the tragic poets have made a confusion regarding their names, continually substituting the one for the other. But this is to be excused, because in antiquity travelling was both difficult and very unsafe. Besides, people were not archæologists, and though every one took the very deepest interest in the ancient history of Greece, no one cared to submit to the trouble and hardship, or to incur the danger, of visiting even the places which had been the scene of his country's most glorious actions. This could not possibly be better proved than by the fact that no ancient author mentions the reconstruction of Mycenæ after its capture and destruction in 468 B.C.
MYCENÆ AND ARGOS.
Homer himself is seemingly guilty of making a confusion regarding the names of Argos and Mycenæ, because he puts into the mouth of Agamemnon the words concerning Chryseis:
"Her I release not, till her youth be fled;
Within my walls, in Argos, far from home,
Her lot is cast, domestic cares to ply,
And share a master's bed...."—LORD DERBY.[120]
But by the name Argos Homer understands here the Argolid territory and perhaps the whole Peloponnesus; a sense of which another passage can leave no doubt:[121]
"O'er all the Argive coast and neighbouring isles to reign."