divided into six parts, as in later times, but in a different manner.
The two principal parts are the kingdoms of the Atreids, that of Mycenae
and that of Sparta: then follows the country of Diomedes and Sthenelus;
the country of the Arcadians, that of the Epeans, and lastly that of
the kings of Pylos of the house of the Nelids. The distribution of the
countries is as follows:—
1st. The kingdom of Menelaus comprises the whole of Laconia, probably
extending very far into Messene; it is possible that some verses of the
Catalogue are lost, or that several towns were not mentioned at all.
2. The realm of Agamemnon, besides its capital of Mycenae with its
territory, comprises Corinth, Sicyon and the whole of northern Achaia.
3. The dominion of the Persids, Diomedes and Sthenelus, embraces Argos,
Tiryns and the Acte, together with Aegina.
4. Arcadia has the same boundaries as afterwards, except that Triphylia
does not belong to it.
5. The kingdom of Nestor consists of western Messene, Triphylia, and the
south of Elis as far as the Alpheus.
6. The country of the Epeans in the north of Elis.
The later province of Argolis thus contained the kingdom of Diomedes and
a portion of that of Agamemnon; the kingdom of the Epeans afterwards
becomes Elis, but includes a part of the Pylian kingdom.
The historical importance which we can attach to this division is
extremely small. We might indulge in speculations about the causes which
may have led the author of the Catalogue to make this division, and there
is much that might seem to recommend such speculations. It would not be
difficult to show that this Catalogue was composed at Sparta and belonged
to what is called the Lycurgian recension, because it assigns favourable
boundaries to Sparta and unfavourable ones to Argos, but this would
certainly be an abuse of historical speculation.
With the Homeric division, we may compare another ante-Doric division
of which traces have come down to us;[10] it differs greatly from the
Homeric, and in all essential points agrees with that which became
established in consequence of the Doric migration. Aegialos, afterwards
called Achaia, is described as the country of the Ionians with its twelve
towns; the remainder of the empire of Agamemnon and that of Diomedes
already form one whole; Triphylia is separated from the Pylian kingdom
of the Nelids and added to Arcadia, and the remainder of the kingdom of
Nestor is united with that of Menelaus.
In regard to the division of Argolis Proper there are some difficulties.
Homer says:—
Οἳ δ’ Ἄργος τ’ εἶχον Τίρυνθά τε τειχιόεσσαν.
The ancients are of opinion that Diomedes and Sthenelus ruled at Argos,
and that Argos along with Tiryns was their capital. The historical
explanations in the Scholiasts and Eustathius are extremely poor;
still, however, among what are called the Little Scholia, we find Argos
in this line explained to mean Peloponnesus, and this opens quite a
different view from that commonly entertained. It is inconceivable that
Argos and Mycenae, the two capitals of two kingdoms, should have been
only forty-three stadia, scarcely five English miles, distant from each
other; and it is an equally unaccountable fact that scarcely anything is
mentioned about Argos in the ancient legends. The above verse, therefore,
must probably be taken as a general beginning of the description of
Peloponnesus, to which is added a special account of the kingdom of
Tiryns, as a reference to what afterwards follows:—
Νῦν δ’ αὖ τοὺς ὅσσοι τὸ Πελασγικὸν Ἄργος ἔναιον,
which is the designation of Thessaly. Argos, even in the opinion of many
ancients, was only the name of a country. I am convinced, therefore,
that, in the early times, it was nothing but the name of the country, and
that, as the name of the city, it is of later origin. Just as Corinth was
in reality newly built by the Dorians, and ought not, therefore, to be
mentioned here, so Argos also was founded by Dorian settlers at a time
when Mycenae and Tiryns had already fallen from their former eminence.
Throughout all mythology, Tiryns alone is the capital of Diomedes and
Sthenelus, and Mycenae that of the Atreids; these two cities alone
are mentioned, no third ever occurs, and Argos is not spoken of until
the Doric migration and conquest. In this manner it is clear that the
tragedians, who, however, generally were not learned men, do not deserve
the reproach which the Alexandrian grammarians made against them; as, for
example, that Sophocles confounded Argos and Mycenae. Mycenae, before
the existence of Argos, was a true Argos[11], the capital of the whole
country, though by no means identical with the later Argos.[12] In this
manner the outlines of those kingdoms acquire a more suitable shape: the
Acte, or the eastern part of Argolis, was distinct from Argos Proper
even at that time, just as it was afterwards; the capitals, Tiryns and
Mycenae, were still near enough to each other. When, accordingly, the
grammarians found such contradictions as in Sophocles, they endeavoured
to mediate by means of more recent myths, or even by inventing new ones,
and that often in the most singular manner. The whole story, for example,
how Diomedes was forced to go to Italy, and how Sthenelus gave up his
kingdom, arose only from the circumstance, that in later and seemingly
better historical authorities, the statement was found that the capital
of Tiryns was united with the kingdom of Agamemnon; and the difficulty
of accounting for the manner in which that kingdom had disappeared, was
removed by a fiction.
Through the immigration of the Heracleids, Peloponnesus acquired a new
form: the countries and their inhabitants became changed; in Arcadia
alone the ancient population remained the same; all other parts received
either new inhabitants or new rulers. During that period there arose
the three great Doric kingdoms of Messene, Sparta, and Argos, and the
Aetolian kingdom of Elis; and Aegialea, which had been an Ionian country,
became Achaean. This state of things remains the foundation of geography
till after the Macedonian period, when it became completely changed; but
although the principal divisions remained until that period, yet their
boundaries underwent considerable modifications, which will be explained
in the account of each particular country. The three Doric kingdoms in
particular did not preserve the same boundaries, for Messene perished,
and was united with Laconia; Argolis had originally a much greater extent
in the south, but afterwards its frontier in that direction was narrowed,
while, on the other side, the three or four cities on the Acte, as well
as Corinth, Phlius, and Sicyon, also became separated from it. In this
manner Argos, the greatest of those three kingdoms, extending from Malea
to Sicyon, and containing one-third of all Peloponnesus, was greatly
reduced. Afterwards Messene again rose from its ruins, Argos extended
its frontier towards Sparta, Arcadia regained what it had lost, though
the towns remained separate, and the boundaries of Achaia were again
widened, until its name extended over all Peloponnesus.
ARGOLIS, ARGOS.
Argos, as I said before, was originally the largest of the three Doric
states. The fact that Lacedaemon afterwards appears as the first state
of Peloponnesus, is only owing to the good fortune and the pride of the
Lacedaemonians, and to the circumstance that they retained their royal
dynasty, while the others, especially Argos, lost theirs, in consequence
of which the unity of their state was broken. But Argos never recognised
the pretensions of Sparta, and this struggling against what was an actual
fact, did great harm to Argos, and led it to form most hateful alliances
against the rest of the Greeks.
In the subsequent dismemberment of the Argive empire, we find the
elements of its origin, which, in the two other Doric states, are indeed
likewise visible, but produce the opposite effect. In all the three
Doric states, the principle of the constitution is that of feudalism,
a term which may be offensive to some, because it is not usually
applied to the affairs of early Greece. These kingdoms were divided
into several principalities, where Dorian chiefs had settled as vassal
princes with a colony, or ruled over the ancient Achaean inhabitants; in
some instances they were ancient Achaean principalities, whose rulers
maintained themselves by submitting to the power of the Dorians. The
number of such principalities seems to have been particularly great in
Argolis, in consequence of which the country could afterwards be divided
into so many separate towns. As such we find the two ancient capitals,
Mycenae and Tiryns, Corinth, Sicyon, Troezen, Hermione, and Epidaurus,
for even these smaller towns of the Acte had formerly had their own
vassal princes, as is attested by the unanimous mythical accounts of
their kings, especially in the case of Troezen and Epidaurus. It was
essentially the same relation as that between the Lombard kings and their
dukes; a parallel to the case of native princes occurs in the fact,
that the Frankish kings, at the beginning of the middle ages, sometimes
appointed Gauls and Romans as their vassal princes in Italy. The same
system occurs in Laconia: the ruling tribe and the chief king settled
in one town, but there existed six principalities. These constitutions,
however, in their development, took quite opposite directions. In
Laconia, as in France, the vassal princes disappear, and all the country
becomes united under one government; while in Argos, as in Germany, the
union is broken up into small principalities. Corinth, for example,
which, before the Doric conquest, cannot be regarded as an independent
state, is known to have risen to the rank of a state through the Dorians,
and Prumnis, the father of Bacchis,[13] was the first Doric prince there.
In like manner we know, from scanty notices of Ephorus, Scymnus, and
others, that Doric chiefs were the founders of dynasties at Troezen and
Epidaurus: Mycenae and Tiryns alone continued to exist as native Achaean
states under the supremacy of the king of Argos. This kingdom of Argos
was weaker than, for example, that of the Franks, for the Heracleids were
only commanders in war, whose power was by no means unlimited; each tribe
had its own king, and accordingly the three Doric tribes had three. It
is clear that such a distribution of the country could not remain free
from disturbances; hence the power of the kings of Argos could not last
long, and a conflict necessarily arose as soon as one of them ventured
to step beyond the bounds of his prerogatives. This was done by Pheidon,
who ruled first as king, and afterwards as tyrant. He was indeed still
ruler of all Argolis, but after him the state broke up into its parts.
Several vassal princes then usurped the sovereignty, and for a time there
existed in Argolis partly principalities and partly aristocracies. But
Argos thereby became so weak as to be unable to defend the western coast
of the Argolic gulf as far as Malea against Lacedaemon; Cythera also
was lost, and not even the territory of Thyrea could be maintained. At
the same time the Spartans extended their dominion farther and farther;
the nominal dependence of Corinth and Sicyon had ceased long before, as
well as that of the towns in the Acte and of Aegina, which had likewise
belonged to Argos. Here we have another evidence showing that the Homeric
Catalogue was composed after the Doric period, for it represents Aegina
as belonging to the eastern part of Argos; Aegina was naturally foreign
to Argos, and became connected with it only as a Doric colony.
The country about Argos is a plain, fully deserving the name πολυδίψιον
Ἄργος which it bears in Homer, for in the autumn it usually has no water
at all. This is the natural consequence of the physical structure of
Peloponnesus. In the interior of Arcadia the waters accumulate, and there
are in that part large natural reservoirs, as, for example, the lake of
Mantinea, which discharges its waters through passages in the mountains
which separate Arcadia from Argolis, into the plain of Argos. These
passages, however, are not always open, nay, people in the Morea assert,
that the waters find their way through them only once in five years,
and then plentifully supply the rivers and springs of Argolis. This
alleged regularity is probably fabulous. But on the whole, the territory
of Argolis, in its widest extent, as far as the northern slope of the
hills, is scantily supplied with water; in the neighbourhood of Sicyon
there are some small streams, whence the plain there is rich and fertile.
The whole of the central part of Argolis, however, that is, the hills
between Mycenae and Tiryns on the one side, and the towns of the Acte on
the other, which are traversed by the pass of Tretos, consists of very
barren and rocky heights, which admit to some extent of the cultivation
of olives only in the lower valleys. Argos, therefore, when confined to
Mycenae and Tiryns, was but a weak state, a circumstance which, together
with the recollection of its former greatness, placed it, in later times,
in a false position.
The city of ARGOS, as I have already stated, was not founded till after
the time of the Doric immigration; but its castle Larissa (Larissa is the
Pelasgian name for castle) was older, and was situated on a considerable
height; we may even now discern the Cyclopian walls described by
Pausanias. The city had a great circumference, and was built around
the castle of Larissa, stretching from that hill through a plain, and
up another hill. It was not strongly fortified, nor is its natural
position of any particular strength. Argos is one of those cities which
did not suffer much from the calamities of Greece, if we except the one
devastation by the Spartans under Cleomenes before the period of the
Persian war. But it decayed, and appears to have suffered particularly
during the war of Pyrrhus. Pausanias does not say, whether the Romans,
after the destruction of Corinth, visited Argos in the same way, but
the verse of Virgil[14] (_Eruet ille Argos_) leads us to believe that
they did. Under the Roman emperors, it sank so low as to be obliged
to petition the emperor Julian to exempt it from its contribution to
the Isthmian games. In the middle ages, during the tenth and eleventh
centuries, Argos was a considerable manufacturing town, and was
particularly distinguished for the manufacture of silk. Afterwards it
was destroyed by Robert Guiscard, and then a second time by the Turks.
Subsequently a colony of Albanese established itself there, and last year
(1826) it was completely reduced to ashes.
MYCENAE, at a distance of forty-three stadia from Argos, was situated
on a hill; at the time when Greece was most flourishing, Mycenae was no
more than a name, for after the Persian wars, the town, together with
Tiryns was completely destroyed by the Argives. The inhabitants of the
two towns had availed themselves of the Persian war for the purpose
of gaining their independence, by sending a small band to assist the
Greeks at Plataeae. The Argives, who took no part in the Persian war,
afterwards punished them for it, while the other Greeks, contrary to
their promise, did nothing to prevent it; and the two places became the
victims of an inconsiderate act. The ruins of Mycenae and Tiryns, which
still exist, are about the same as those seen by Pausanias: they are
the grandest Cyclopian structures in southern Europe. The lion-gate of
Mycenae, constructed of huge blocks of stone, with its pointed arch and
the two rudely carved lions above it, may still be seen. These remains,
as well as those of Orchomenos are striking proofs, that the greatness of
the ante-Doric period, which is immortalised in the works of the poets,
is not a mere dream. The circumference of the walls of Mycenae is still
considerable, and the city was well suited to be the residence of the
king of kings.
TIRYNS, in the earliest times the rival of Mycenae, as is frequently
intimated in the mythical stories, has likewise left traces of extensive
walls, justifying the epithet τειχιόεσσα, which it bears in the Iliad. It
was situated on the eminence above Nauplia, which, no doubt, was once the
port of Tiryns.
Within the territory of Argolis, there were two small states, which as
late as the Persian war enjoyed a kind of political existence, but stood
in the same relation to Argos, Mycenae, and Tiryns, as Winterthur does to
Zurich, or the towns of Aargau to Berne. They were, in a certain sense,
republics; but could enter into no negotiations with foreign powers
without the sanction of Argos. I allude to CLEONAE, an Argive state,
and ORNEAE, which Herodotus calls a Cynurian state. The CYNURIANS, whom
we also meet with in Thyrea and in the Dryopian territory, are a real
mystery. It is said that they were Dryopians, perhaps a non-Dorian
people, but accompanying the Dorians in their migrations; we may perhaps
compare them with certain bands of Saxons, who accompanied the Lombards
to Italy and settled in Parma and Modena. In like manner, we find
Bulgarians in the principality of Beneventum; and there are distinct
traditions, that Aetolians accompanied the Dorians.
The whole peninsula to the east of the Argolic gulf was, in the best
age of Greece, commonly called ACTE, which must be borne in mind,
especially by the readers of Thucydides; the earlier commentators have
often misunderstood this name. We have no term exactly corresponding to
the Greek Acte; it is more than peninsula, which is a very indefinite
term, nor is it the same as chersonesus. The Greeks would not call Italy
or Spain a chersonesus, but they would apply to them the term of Acte.
A chersonesus is a peninsula, connected with the main land by a very
narrow isthmus, whereas Acte is a country, the greater part of which is
coast-land. Such was the case with Attica; which was originally called
Acte, a name which is often used as a proper name, especially by Latin
poets, who even formed from it an adjective, as _Actaea tellus_, which is
unknown to the Greeks.
This Acte contained two, or we may even say three, considerable Doric
cities, and one whose origin is unknown. The two most ancient places
are EPIDAURUS and TROEZEN; HERMIONE arose somewhat later; and at a
still later period, though we do not know when, was built the town of
HALIAE, which is not marked in our maps, not even in that of D’Anville.
Troezen and Epidaurus appear, in the Greek traditions, among the most
ancient places; we find them mentioned along with Eïonae[15], and they
are certainly more ancient than the Doric migration. In Scymnus[16],
indeed, the Doric chiefs appear as founders, though the traditions of
Troezen went back to Pelops; but this only alludes to the fact, that a
new order of things began at the time of the Dorian conquest. All those
towns, in developing their constitutions, passed through the same process
as Rome and other cities: they begin with an aristocracy of conquerors,
under whom the original inhabitants occupy the position of clients, or
_penestae_; but afterwards the latter become free, the conquered rise to
the rank of a _demos_, the ancient aristocracy gradually dies away, and
the subject country people gain the ascendancy. In the case of Epidaurus,
we have the proof in the tradition about the Artyni and Conipodes, the
former of whom were Dorians, and the latter the Achaean country people.
All these places of the Acte were maritime towns; whereas Argos never
had any navy and was quite a stranger to the sea. The Greeks are almost
everywhere born sailors, even in their Italian colonies; and so it has
ever been down to the present day. The Italian, on the other hand, is
born for agriculture; no real Italian is a navigator, for Venice is
inhabited by Slavonians, and Genoa by Ligurians who do not belong to
the race of true Italians; the Greek colonists in Italy, as at Naples,
are fishermen, and often carry their fish to Rome from a distance of
several hundred miles. Those places of the Acte, if we bear in mind the
small extent of their dominion, had a considerable number of galleys;
at Salamis their number, which was not small, does great honour to the
patriotism of the people, and we can easily see that their power was not
insignificant.
HERMIONE is also called Hermion, and we cannot say which of the two names
is the older one; in Thucydides we only find the ethnic name of the
people when they come forward with others; for in the place itself no
occurrence is mentioned.
HALIAE, situated between Hermion and Nauplia, arose from a settlement
of fishermen, whence the ethnic name Ἁλιῆς or Ἁλιεῖς in Thucydides and
Scylax. The place has been overlooked, because most geographers were
but indifferent Greek scholars, and because the Latin translation of
Thucydides renders Ἁλιῆς by _piscatores_.
These four towns still existed in the time of Philip of Macedonia,
and were well disposed towards Athens, exerting themselves on its
behalf, according to their feeble powers, in the Lamian war. Haliae is
afterwards no longer mentioned, and the others became members of the
Achaean confederacy. The temple of Asclepios, about four miles from the
town of Epidaurus, was celebrated as a place to which pilgrimages were
undertaken; and in times of distress, this circumstance furnished to the
impoverished Epidaurians the means of living.
Opposite to Troezen is the island of CALAURIA, where Demosthenes died a
free man in the temple of Poseidon, an asylum for all Greece, but which
was not respected by the Macedonians.
Not far from the coast of the Acte are the islands of TIPARENOS and
HYDREA (Speizza and Hydra), which in antiquity were quite insignificant,
but have become important in our own age. The latter of them has
preserved its name. Hydrea does not even appear to have had a town, but
its harbour was used in antiquity.[17]
CORINTH is, under this name, not an ancient place; its original name was
Ephyra, and the greatness of Corinth belongs to the later or historical
period. There is not a single important tradition of the early times that
refers to Corinth, and it is quite manifest that only in later times
legends were transferred to Corinth. The situation of ACROCORINTHUS is
such, that from the remotest period the inhabitants of the country must
have used it as a stronghold, as the Isthmus itself is a strong natural
fortification for the defence of Peloponnesus, and was afterwards the
boundary between the Ionians and the peninsula. According to tradition,
Acrocorinthus was in the possession of the Achaeans, and was taken by the
Dorians only after a protracted blockade.