Geography

​Danaus is said to have founded the acropolis of the Argives, who is thought to have so far surpassed those who ruled in these places before him that, according to Euripides: ‘Those named Pelasgiotes before, he made it the law that they be called Danaans throughout Greece.’ And there is also his tomb in the middle of the marketplace of the Argives; and it is called Plinthus. And I think that, just as with ‘Argives’, the fame of this city caused both ‘Pelasgiotes’ and ‘Danaans’—and indeed the other Greeks—to be called after it; and likewise ‘Iasidae’ and ‘Iasian Argos’. And the younger writers speak of ‘Apia’ and ‘Apidones’; but Homer does not speak of ‘Apidones’, but rather of ‘apia’ as the distant land. And that he means the Peloponnese by ‘Argos’ can be gathered also from these: ‘Argive Helen’ and ‘There is a city Ephyra in the corner of Argos’ and ‘mid-Argos’ and ‘To rule over many islands and all Argos.’ And ‘Argos’ is also called the plain by the younger writers, but not even once in Homer; and they think that this is especially Macedonian and Thessalian.

​When the descendants of Danaus succeeded to the dynasty in Argos, and the Amythaonidae, who had set out from Pisatis and Triphylia, intermingled with them, one would not wonder if, being kinsmen, they thus divided the territory into two kingdoms at first, so that the two ruling cities in them were established near each other, at a distance of less than fifty stadia, namely Argos and Mycenae, and the Heraeum, near Mycenae, was a common temple for both, in which are the wooden images of Polyclitus, in artistry the most beautiful of all, but in costliness and size inferior to those of Pheidias. At first, then, Argos was more powerful, but then Mycenae received a greater increase because of the migration of the Pelopidae to it; for when all power devolved upon the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon, being the elder, took over the authority, and through both fortune and merit acquired much of the country in addition to what was already there, and indeed added the Argive territory to the Mycenaean. Menelaus indeed held the Laconian territory, but Agamemnon received Mycenae and the places as far as Corinth and Sicyon and the land then called that of the Ionians and Aegialeans, but later of the Achaeans. But after the Trojan War, when the empire of Agamemnon was dissolved, Mycenae was humbled, and especially after the return of the Heracleidae. For when these latter occupied the Peloponnese, they expelled the former rulers, so that those who held Argos also held Mycenae, which was merged into one; and in later times it was razed by the Argives, so that now not even a trace of the city of the Mycenaeans is to be found. And where Mycenae has suffered such things, one ought not to wonder even if some of those cataloged under Argos are now vanished. The catalog indeed runs thus: ‘And those who held Argos and walled Tiryns, Hermione and Asine, which lie along the gulf, Troezen and Eionae and vine-clad Epidaurus, and those who held Aegina and Mases, youths of the Achaeans.’ Of these, then, Argos has been spoken of, but we must speak of the others.

​Proetus indeed seems to have used Tiryns as a base and to have fortified it by means of the Cyclopes, who were seven in number and were called ‘Gasterocheires’ because they were nourished by their trade, and came on summons from Lycia; and perhaps the caverns near Nauplia and the works in them are named after them. And the acropolis is Licymna, named after Licymnius, and is about twelve stadia distant from Nauplia; and both that place and the neighboring Midea are deserted, Midea being different from the Boeotian one; for the latter is ‘Mideia’ like ‘pronoia’, but this one is ‘Midea’ like ‘Tegea’. Bordering on this is Prosymna, which has a temple of Hera; but the Argives desolated most of them because they were disobedient. And of the inhabitants, some went away from Tiryns to Epidaurus, and others from Asine to the place called Halieis, and others from Nauplia (this is a village of the Argive territory near Nauplia) were relocated by the Lacedaemonians to Messenia, where there is also the small town of the same name as the Argive Asine. For the Lacedaemonians, says Theopompus, having acquired much of the territory of others, settled there whomsoever of the fugitives they might receive; and those from Nauplia withdrew thither.