Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/59

B. vin. c. vi. 7, 8. ARGOLIS. 5 1 7. The greater part of the city of the Argives is situated in a plain. It has a citadel called Larisa, a hill moderately for- tified, and upon it a temple of Jupiter. Near it flows the Ina- chus, a torrent river ; its source is in Lyrceium [the Arcadian mountain near Cynuria]. We have said before that the fabulous stories about its sources are the inventions of poets ; it is a fiction also that Argos is without water " but the gods made Argos a land without water." Now the ground consists of hollows, it is intersected by rivers, and is full of marshes and lakes ; the city also has a copious supply of water from many wells, which rises near the surface. They attribute the mistake to this verse, " and I shall return disgraced to Argos (^TroXvSiipiov) the very thirsty." l This word is used for 7ro.vTr66r)Toi>, or " much longed after," or without the S for TroXvtyiov, equivalent to the expression 7rov<f>6opov in Sophocles, " this house of the Pelopidse abounding in slaughter," 2 [for Trpota^cu and btycu and ti^ao-Ocu, denote some injury or destruction ; " at present he is making the attempt, and he will soon-destroy (tytrat) the sons of the Achsei ;" 3 and again, lest " she should injure (icr^y) her beautiful skin ;" 4 and, " has prematurely sent down, irpoia^fv, to Ades." 5 ] 6 Besides, he does not mean the city Argos, for it was not thither that he was about to return, but he meant Pelopon- nesus, which, certainly, is not a thirsty land. With respect to the letter S, they introduce the conjunction by the figure hyperbaton, and make an elision of the vowel, so that the verse would run thus, Kai KEV kkkj^lffTOQ 7TOV <5* tylOV "ApyOf IKOlfirjV, that is, iroXviiptov "Apyoo-Se tXoipriv, instead of, EIQ " ApyoQ. 8. The Inachus 7 is one of the rivers, which flows through the Argive territory ; there is also another in Argia, the 1 II. iv. 171. 2 Sophocles, El. 10. 3 II. ii. 193. 4 Od. ii. 376. 5 II. i. 3. 6 Probably an interpolation. Meineke. 7 The Planitza. E 2