Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/61

B. vni. c. vi. 10. ARGOLIS. 53 and, " the middle of Argos ;' M and, "to rule over many islands, and the whole of Argos." 2 Argos, among modern writers, denotes a plain, but not once in Homer. It seems rather a Macedonian and Thessalian use of the word. 10. After the descendants of Danaus had succeeded to the sovereignty at Argos, and the Amythaonidae, who came from Pisatis and Triphylia, were intermixed with them by mar- riages, it is not surprising that, being allied to one another, they at first divided the country into two kingdoms, in such a manner that the two cities, the intended capitals, Argos and Mycenge, were not distant from each other more than 50 stadia, and that the Heraaum at Mycenae should be a temple common to both. In this temple were the statues the workmanship of Polycletus. In display of art they surpassed all others, but in magnitude and cost they were inferior to those of Pheidias. At first Argos was the most powerful of the two cities. Af- terwards Mycenae received a great increase of inhabitants in consequence of the migration thither of the Pelopidae. For when everything had fallen under the power of the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon, the elder, assumed the sovereign authority, and by good fortune and valour annexed to his possessions a large tract of country. He also added the Laconian to the Mycenaean district. 3 Menelaus had Laconia, and Agamemnon Mycenae, and the country as far as Corinth, and Sicyon, and the terri- tory which was then said to be the country of lones and .^Egialians, and afterwards of Achaei. After the Trojan war, when the dominion of Agamemnon was at an end, the declension of Mycenae ensued, and particularly after the return of the Heracleidae. 4 For when these people got possession of Peloponnesus, they expelled its former mas- ters, so that they who had Argos possessed Mycenae likewise, as composing one body. In subsequent times Mycenae was razed by the Argives, so that at present not even a trace is to be discovered of the city of the Mycenaeans. 5 1 Od. i. 344. 2 II. ii. 108. 3 About 1283, B. c. 4 About 1190, B. c. 5 Not strictly correct, as in the time of Pausanias, who lived about 150 years after Strabo, a large portion of the walls surrounding Mycenae still existed. Even in modern times traces are still to be found.