2. It is a limited territory, probably such as was afterwards the State of Argolis. For when Telemachus is quitting Sparta, Theoclymenus joins him[648], φεύγων ἐξ Ἄργεος. And again, when Melampus quitted Pylos, he came to Argos:
ὁ δ’ ἄλλων ἵκετο δῆμον
Ἄργος ἐς ἱππόβοτον[649].
The first proves that Sparta was not included in the geographical name Ἄργος: the second proves the same of Pylos: and this too is the Ἄργος ἱππόβοτον.
The same phrase is used in Od. iii. 263, of Ægisthus, who endeavours to corrupt Clytemnestra,
μυχῷ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο.
Here Mycenæ is plainly meant by the μυχὸς, and the Ἄργος ἱππόβοτον is Argolis, or something like it.
This district, including Mycenæ, was the head quarter of the Greek power. Now we find that the whole dominion of Priam was named Τροίη, while including many cities and much territory, and the name Τροίη was also sometimes applied to the capital, of which the proper name was Ilion. So Venezia at the present day means both a city and a territory, even though the city is outside the territory; the only distinction lying in the use or non-use of the article. Therefore it was sufficiently natural, that the Trojan herald should name the whole from the most excellent part, and so identify them: and on the other hand, it would not be otherwise than natural, were he to name the most excellent part, and likewise to name the whole, without verbally distinguishing them.
So that in Il. iii. 75, 258, the phrase Ἄργος ἐς ἱππόβοτον, according to what has preceded, may either mean,
1. The part of the Peloponnesus containing Argos and Mycenæ as its head quarter, (and then the line must be interpreted in the third of the modes above pointed out; as we might now say, ‘we visited Rome and Italy.’)