A PECULIAR interest attaches to Argolis, whether we regard it from a historical or an archæological point of view. Its legendary history carries us back to a period long anterior to the Siege of Troy—according to some chronologists to the year 1860 B.C.—while the excavations at Mycenæ and Tiryns have brought to light innumerable relics of the Homeric or, rather, of a pre-Homeric age, and have confirmed the tradition of a pre-historic connection between Argolis and Egypt.
In the Argolic peninsula, which was at one time the chief seat of civilisation in Greece, there were a number of cities of great antiquity. The oldest of these was Argos, which lay (like the modern town of 10,000 inhabitants) in the south-west of the plain, about four and a half miles from the coast. In its immediate neighbourhood is the Larissa, or acropolis, a conical hill nearly 1000 feet high, which is now crowned with a mediæval citadel.
The oldest name associated with the place is Inachus. It is still borne by the chief river, and its application to a mythical personage is probably due to the agency of the river in the formation of the land by its alluvial deposits. A later tradition tells of the arrival of a family of immigrants from Egypt, the daughters of one Danaus, who exerted such an influence on the life of the community that their descendants share with the Argives the honour of being frequently mentioned in the pages of Homer as the chief representatives of Greece. The story of the enforced marriage of the Danaids with their fifty cousins, the sons of Ægyptus, whose heads they cut off on the bridal night, seems to have had its origin in some new system of irrigation at the expense of the mountain springs and torrents which flow into the plain. For their crime the Danaids are said to have been condemned to pour water, in Hades, into leaky vessels—to which we may see something analogous at the present day in the labours of the women employed to water the fields of “thirsty Argos.” The next great name that meets us is that of Perseus, who gained immortal fame by bringing home the head of Medusa, which turned all who looked upon it into stone. With the help of the Lycian Cyclopes Perseus was believed to have built the fortifications of Tiryns and Mycenæ, and his son of the same name was credited by Herodotus with being the founder of the royal dynasty of Persia.
As we approach the historic age, the figure of Adrastus comes prominently into view. His fame was chiefly derived from the famous Siege of Thebes, which he undertook for the purpose of restoring his son-in-law Polyneices to the throne of his father Œdipus. After his death Adrastus became an object of worship in Argos and the cities which owned its suzerainty. We have an illustration of the close connection which then subsisted between religion and politics in the fact that when Cleisthenes, the “Tyrant” of Sicyon, wished to assert his independence of Argos, he applied to Thebes for an image of Melanippus, the ancient and powerful foe of Adrastus, so that, being introduced into the citadel of Sicyon, he might put the other hero-god to flight. The same ruler also paid a tribute to the influence of poetry when he forbade Homer to be recited in Sicyon, because the great bard said too much about the glory of Argos.
The most noted ruler of Argos in historic times was Pheidon (c. 750 B.C.), whose dominion extended over Sicyon, Phlius, Trœzen, Epidaurus, and Ægina. He left his mark on the Peloponnesus by introducing coinage in electrum and silver, and a new system of weights and measures, apparently borrowed from the Phœnicians, which received the name of Æginetan from its chief commercial centre, in the same way as the system in vogue among the Ionian Greeks received the name of Eubœic. According to Herodotus the Argolic territory at one time included all the eastern coast, down to Cape Malea. But the Spartans gradually encroached upon it, till their country became the premier state of Greece, of which we have one of the earliest indications in the fact that it was to Sparta Crœsus made his appeal for support in 547 B.C.
