Argos

“ It is bounded by ranges of varied and picturesque mountains, rising in successive distances, and by the fine gulf of Argos. It wants indeed the olive-grove of the plain of Athens, but its greater extent, greater fertility, and more broken and varied boundary, give it the decided preference in natural beauty. The older antiquities of Argos consist only of a few fragments of Cyclopean walls, 299the stones of which are artificially fitted together. Of Roman times there are some remains of temples, or baths, of an aqueduct, and of a theatre. ”

“ But the objects which give Argos its main interest in the eyes of the historical inquirer, the objects which bear witness to the existence of Argos in the days of its greatness, lie outside the modern town. One, the chief of all, proclaims its presence from afar. The akropolis of Argos, the famous Larissa, the soaring height crowned by the stronghold which from a primæval fortress grew into a modern castle, is an akropolis in quite another sense than the lowlier hill of Tiryns, or even than that of Athens. ”

“ From the akropolis one may look down on the enclosure which holds the rifled tombs, on the space beyond—the site of the wide streets of Mykênê—which holds the treasuries, and so on to destroying Argos and to Tiryns, the fellow-sufferer in overthrow. There is no other spot where we are carried so deep into unrecorded ages, and where unrecorded ages tell their tale so clearly. ”

“ The tourists had all vanished. Now he overlooked the sea, where the "Golden Fleece" had dwindled to a small, black boat, riding at anchor in the Nauplian Bay; nearer was the town, with the vague menace of its Venetian fortress; but, crowding out these trivial incursions, was the great plain that rolled in from the coast-line to the spurs of the bare hills where he was perched. Argos rose from its bosom like an island—a strong place, steep and armed; far away was prehistoric Tiryns; and here beneath him, Mycenae, where Agamemnon and the Argive kings had ruled. ”

“ About three miles from Argos we quit the highway and strike westward towards the hills through a beautiful avenue of fine silver poplars, plane-trees, and oleanders. It soon brings us to the springs.
The spot is very picturesque. A rugged mountain here descends in precipices of yellowish limestone to the plain, and at its foot a body of clear sparkling water comes rushing impetuously in several streams from the rocks, partly issuing from a low cavern, partly welling up from the ground. Under the rocks the water forms a pellucid but shallow pool, where water-plants of a vivid green grow thickly ”

“ There was also in Argos a statue of Jupiter, which had three eyes, one of which was in the middle of the forehead. It is not impossible but this statue [Pg 65] may, one day, be found among the ruins under the soil.
Argos was consecrated to Juno [40] ; it was subject to different forms of government; its people were brave; they cultivated the arts, but neglected the sciences. Their memory may well be cherished; for they were, both in precept and in practice, the kindest and most humane of all the citizens of Greece [41] . ”

“ The Argolid contains more than a dozen places prominent in Greek literature and in history. Among the northern mountains were Phlius, Cleonæ, and Nemea; overlooking or on the Argive Gulf were Mycenæ, the Heræum, Argos and the Larisa acropolis, Midea, Tiryns, Nauplia, and Lerna; on the eastern coast of Akte, the old name for the promontory that with other parts merged its name in that of Argos, were Epidaurus, Troezen, and Calauria, with Hermione on the south coast; and on the west side of the gulf was the narrow strip of land, Cynuria, bone of contention between Sparta and the Wolf of Argos. ”

“ Argos is a rather large place, but decidedly unattractive save for its many little gardens. Nearly every house had them, and from our high seats in the respectable but superannuated depot carriage we were able to look into the depths of many such, to marvel at their riot of roses and greenery. As for the houses, they were little and not over-clean. The populace, however, was exceeding friendly, sitting en masse along the highway, the young women blithely saluting and the children bombarding us with nosegays in the hope of leptà. ”

“ Nor do we learn that Heracles of the mighty heart disregarded the eager summons of Aeson’s son. But when he heard a report of the heroes’ gathering and had reached Lyrceian Argos from Arcadia by the road along which he carried the boar alive that fed in the thickets of Lampeia, near the vast Erymanthian swamp, the boar bound with chains he put down from his huge shoulders at the entrance to the market-place of Mycenae; and himself of his own will set out against the purpose of Eurystheus; and with him went Hylas, a brave comrade, in the flower of youth, to bear his arrows and to guard his bow. ”

“ Pausanias bears witness that Argos once had her subterranean chamber like those of Mykênê, and doubtless following the same construction. At Tiryns and Mykênê the series goes no further; the destroying hand of Argos decreed that it should go no further. The long life of Argos allowed every form to stand there side by side, from the gallery and the treasury to the Roman bath and the Byzantine church. Yet it is not in Argos itself that the series can be really studied. In the life of cities nothing preserves like early overthrow, nothing destroys like continuous life. ”

“ The southern part of this chain ends in a plain, at the opening of which, and near the pass just alluded to, was situated Mycenæ, and in a wider part of it the city of Argos. The nature of this anciently cultivated plain is very remarkable; it was, as is evident, gradually formed by the torrents which constantly filled up the bay between the mountains; and hence it was originally little else than fen and morass.267 Inachus, “the stream,” and Melia, the daughter of Oceanus, “the damp valley” (where ash-trees, μελίαι, grow) , were called the parents of the ancient Argives ”

“ Over Argos towers a steep hill, known as a “larisa” or acropolis, from the top of which we could imagine a wonderful view over the whole kingdom of the Argives and over the mountains as well, not to mention the Gulf of Nauplia; but as time was speeding on toward the dusk and we were still far from Nauplia, we had to be content with the imagination alone, and with the news that a little monastery about halfway up the hillside had been set on fire on the Easter Sunday previous by too enthusiastic celebrants, who had been over-free with the inevitable rockets and Roman candles. ”

“ In contemporary history Argos seems chiefly to live on the memory of earlier days when she did hold such a place. And it is one of Mr. Grote’s services to those parts of Grecian history which lie rather out of the range of his main strength that he has brought out clearly that there was a time when Argos did hold the first place in Peloponnêsos. In the Iliad she is one of the three cities which Hêrê best loved, but which she could endure to see overthrown as the price of seeing the overthrow of hated Ilios. Argos there ranks with Sparta and Mykênê. ”

“ When the sacrifice was over, her two sons fell asleep in the very temple, and there died in a soft and peaceful slumber. In honour of their piety, the people of Argos consecrated statues to them in the temple of Delphos.
"If Athens," says Dr. Clarke, "by arts, by military talents, and by costly solemnities, became [Pg 62] one of the eyes of Greece, there was in the humanity of Argos, and in the good feeling displayed by its inhabitants, a distinction which comes nearer to the heart. Something characteristic of the people may be observed even in a name given to one of their divinities ”

“ Nowhere else do the remains of a time at once so famous and so distant stand up with such full life before our eyes. There is in truth no spot like it on earth.
Mykênê to Corinth.
Mykênê and Tiryns have taught us a lesson in the history of those Greek cities which perished in days which we are used to look on as still ancient. Argos has given us one type of the Greek city which has lived on through all changes down to our own times. Corinth, a city hardly less famous than Argos, from some points of views even more famous, has had yet another destiny. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is bounded on every side by chains of grey mountains; at the end of the plain, about two leagues inland, [Pg 63] we perceive a mound, with some fortified walls on its summit, and which protects, by its shade, a small town in ruins—this is Argos. Close by is the tomb of Agamemnon."
The antiquities of Argos, once so numerous, may now be comprised within a very short list. Those seen by Pausanias were the temples of Apollo, of Fortuna, of Jupiter, and of Minerva; sepulchres and cenotaphs; a theatre, a forum, a gymnasium, a stadium, a subterranean edifice, &c., formed of earth. ”

“ The Argives are the only Greeks I know of who were divided into three kingdoms. For in the reign of Anaxagoras, the son of Argos, the son of Megapenthes, a madness came on the women, they went from their homes and wandered up and down the country, till Melampus the son of Amythaon cured them of that complaint, on condition that he and his brother Bias should share alike with Anaxagoras. ”

“ The date is unknown.
The city of Danaos and of his fifty bright-throned daughters, Argos the home of Hera, meet abode of gods, sing Graces! for by excellencies innumerable it is made glorious in the deeds of valiant men. ”

“ Important Greek festivals, celebrated in honour of Hera in all the towns of Greece. At Argos, every fifth year, an immense body of young men in armour formed a procession, preceded by a Hecatomb of oxen, to the great temple of Hera, between Argos and Mycenæ, where the oxen were slaughtered, and their flesh distributed to the citizens. ”

“ ARGOS. ARGOLIS. ARGIVES. "No district of Greece contains so dense a succession of powerful citadels in a narrow space as Argolis [the eastern peninsular projection of the Peloponnesus] . Lofty Larissa, apparently designed by nature as the centre of the district, is succeeded by Mycenæ, deep in the recess of the land; at the foot of the mountain lies Midea, at the brink of the sea-coast Tiryns; and lastly, at a farther distance of half an hour's march, Nauplia, with its harbour. ”

“ With all its pride in its mythical glory, Argos never produced any great man after Pheidon—unless we give it credit for its remote connection with Alexander the Great, who claimed to be descended from an Argive exile who settled in Macedonia. Argos had the opportunity more than once of becoming the head of a league against Sparta, and at one time it had a strong military force in its “Thousand,” a highly trained and well-equipped regiment composed of young men belonging to its best families ”

“ At that time the Argives, in order to increase their own numbers, dispeopled nearly all the large cities in the surrounding country, and transplanted the inhabitants to Argos;745 particularly Tiryns, Mycenæ, Hyseæ, Orneæ, and Midea.746 Tiryns and Mycenæ were in the time of the Persian war free, and even independent communities, which followed the command of Sparta without the consent of Argos ”

“ By dividing his force, and taking the mountain road with his own division, Agis got into the plain of Argos in the rear of the Argeian position at Nemea. He anticipated that when the Argeians saw him devastating their properties near the city, they would forthwith quit the advantageous ground near Nemea, to come and attack him in the plain: the Bœotian division would thus find the road by Nemea and the Trêtus open, and would be able to march without resistance into the plain of Argos, where their numerous cavalry would act with effect against the Argeians engaged in attacking Agis. ”

“ Strangers, however, who explore the countries of the Peloponnesus, do not go in search of these newly risen cities, where a few stones only remind them of the glories of the past, but are attracted by the ancient monuments of art. In that respect Argolis is one of the richest provinces of Greece. Near to Argos the seats of an amphitheatre are cut into the steep flanks of the hill of Larissa. Between Argos and Nauplia a small rock rises in the middle of the plain, which is surmounted by the ancient Acropolis of Tiryns, the Cyclopean walls of which are more than fifty feet in thickness. ”

“ In Argos, city of Achia far more famous for its kings of past time than great in itself, there was once a nobleman called Nicostratus, to whom, when already neighbouring on old age, fortune awarded a lady of great family to wife, whose name was Lydia and who was no less high-spirited than fair. ”

“ The plain of Argos, and the sea at that side, are hidden by the mountains. But without going into detail, this much may be said, that if a man wants to realize the features of these coasts, which he has long studied on maps, half an hour's walk about the top of this rock will give him a geographical insight which no years of study could attain. ”

“ In his capacity of general, with a picked force of men, he had been sent across the Peloponnesos, more for the sake of encouraging allies than to engage an enemy. He visited Argos, and there the prop and stay of Argos, the author of the treaty with them, and the victor at the recent games, was hailed by almost all as a hero and a deliverer. ”

“ But now the Corinthians, since Argos has been assigned to their territory — for this is the less invidious way of expressing it — by the sovereign city, [4] have grown insolent in ill-doing and are compelling the Argives to pay them tribute; it is seven years, as I am told, since they began this innovation, and they were not abashed by the immunity of Delphi or of the Eleans, [5] which was granted to them so that they might administer their sacred games. For there are, as we know, four very important and splendid games in Greece ”