Now there are here three ways in which the words may be used so as to convey their joint sense, which I assume to be that of Greece entire: viz.
1. That each word should cover a part, the two parts together making up the whole, i.e. that the words should be used distributively.
2. That each should cover the whole, and that the words should be used cumulatively.
3. That one of the words should apply to a part of Greece only, and should be overlapped as it were by the other, that other meaning the whole.
Now as Ἀχαίïς uniformly means all Greece in eight passages where it stands alone, this will naturally govern its sense in the two passages, where it is joined copulatively with Ἄργος. We shall also hereafter see the local use of the Ἀχαιοὶ so diffused, that it would hardly be possible to suppose any other meaning. Thus, then, we have one point fixed, from which to operate upon others.
But what does the Ἄργος ἱππόβοτον mean?
It is demonstrable that in Homer the word Ἄργος has several meanings.
1. It is a city, as in Il. iv. 51,
ἤτοι ἐμοὶ τρεῖς μὲν πολὺ φίλταται εἰσὶ πόληες
Ἄργος τε, Σπάρτη τε, καὶ εὐρυάγυια Μυκήνη.
τὰς διαπέρσαι κ.τ.λ.