A PECULIAR interest attaches to Argolis, whether we regard it from a historical or an archÆological point of view. Its legendary history carries us back to a period long anterior to the Siege of Troy—according to some chronologists to the year 1860 B.C.—while the excavations at MycenÆ and Tiryns have brought to light innumerable relics of the Homeric or, rather, of a pre-Homeric age, and have confirmed the tradition of a pre-historic connection between Argolis and Egypt.

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.

The oldest name associated with the place is Inachus. It is still borne by the chief river, and its application to a mythical personage is probably due to the agency of the river in the formation of the land by its alluvial deposits. A later tradition tells of the arrival of a family of immigrants from Egypt, the daughters of one Danaus, who exerted such an influence on the life of the community that their descendants share with the Argives the honour of being frequently mentioned in the pages of Homer as the chief representatives of Greece. The story of the enforced marriage of the Danaids with their fifty cousins, the sons of Ægyptus, whose heads they cut off on the bridal night, seems to have had its origin in some new system of irrigation at the expense of the mountain springs and torrents which flow into the plain. For their crime the Danaids are said to have been condemned to pour water, in Hades, into leaky vessels—to which we may see something analogous at the present day in the labours of the women employed to water the fields of “thirsty Argos.” The next great name that meets us is that of Perseus, who gained immortal fame by bringing home the head of Medusa, which turned all who looked upon it into stone. With the help of the Lycian Cyclopes Perseus was believed to have built the fortifications of Tiryns and MycenÆ, and his son of the same name was credited by Herodotus with being the founder of the royal dynasty of Persia.

As we approach the historic age, the figure of Adrastus comes prominently into view. His fame was chiefly derived from the famous Siege of Thebes, which he undertook for the purpose of restoring his son-in-law Polyneices to the throne of his father Œdipus. After his death Adrastus became an object of worship in Argos and the cities which owned its suzerainty. We have an illustration of the close connection which then subsisted between religion and politics in the fact that when Cleisthenes, the “Tyrant” of Sicyon, wished to assert his independence of Argos, he applied to Thebes for an image of Melanippus, the ancient and powerful foe of Adrastus, so that, being introduced into the citadel of Sicyon, he might put the other hero-god to flight. The same ruler also paid a tribute to the influence of poetry when he forbade Homer to be recited in Sicyon, because the great bard said too much about the glory of Argos.

The most noted ruler of Argos in historic times was Pheidon (c. 750 B.C.), whose dominion extended over Sicyon, Phlius, Troezen, Epidaurus, and Ægina. He left his mark on the Peloponnesus by introducing coinage in electrum and silver, and a new system of weights and measures, apparently borrowed from the Phoenicians, which received the name of Æginetan from its chief commercial centre, in the same way as the system in vogue among the Ionian Greeks received the name of Euboeic. According to Herodotus the Argolic territory at one time included all the eastern coast, down to Cape Malea. But the Spartans gradually encroached upon it, till their country became the premier state of Greece, of which we have one of the earliest indications in the fact that it was to Sparta Croesus made his appeal for support in 547 B.C.

Argos played an ignoble part at the time of the Persian invasion. It refused to make common cause with Sparta, unless a thirty years’ truce were concluded between the two states, and the honour of commanding the allied forces were shared equally between them—a demand to which Sparta could not accede, though willing to admit the king of Argos to an equality with her own two kings. In spite of the abstention of Argos the two neighbouring cities of MycenÆ and Tiryns each sent a contingent to ThermopylÆ and PlatÆa, and it was partly in revenge for this that Argos in 468 B.C. took possession of these cities and deprived them of their liberties. The comparative insignificance of MycenÆ from this time forward accounts for Argos being so often substituted for it by the friendly dramatists of Athens, as the scene of the great tragedies in the family of Agamemnon. 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; but it was weakened by internal dissensions between the oligarchic and democratic parties, and never enjoyed more than a very brief ascendency. At one time its citizens made an attempt, with the help of Alcibiades and the Athenians, to connect the city with the sea by means of long walls like those of Athens, but the Spartans interfered and soon put a stop to the work.

In its wars with Sparta Argos sought more than once to take advantage of the religious scruples of the enemy. This happened especially in connection with the festival of Carnean Apollo (a deity worshipped by them both), the date of which the Argives varied to suit their own convenience, alleging the celebration of it as a reason why military operations should be suspended. To guard against such strategy, Agesipolis, the Spartan king, on one occasion obtained authority from the oracles of Delphi and Olympia to disregard such a fictitious claim. Having crossed the border he was challenged by two heralds wearing the insignia of their office, on the ground that it was a time of holy truce; to which Agesipolis replied that he had the warrant of the gods to disobey their commands. The same evening there was a shock of earthquake, whereupon the Spartans sang the pÆan to Apollo and expected an order to retreat; but the king declared that as the earthquake had not happened till after he had crossed the frontier he regarded it as a favourable omen. He proceeded to ravage the country, and had reached the gates of Argos when a flash of lightning killed several of his men, whereupon he at once beat a retreat.

In the previous century a great outrage upon religion had been committed by a Spartan king, Cleomenes, who afterwards went mad and committed suicide. Having driven 6000 Argive troops into the sacred grove of Apollo, close to the city, he set fire to the grove and put the 6000 men to death, inducing many of them to quit their place of refuge on the understanding that their lives would be spared. He then went with a thousand men to the temple of Hera, a few miles distant, and insisted on sacrificing to the goddess in spite of the rule of the sanctuary, by which it was forbidden to strangers; and when admission was refused he caused the priest to be dragged from the altar and scourged. To the great displeasure of his countrymen, however, he carried the war against Argos no farther, alleging as his reason that the light on the altar had flashed upon him from the bosom of the statue of the goddess, not from her head.

Although the chief Dorian temple in the district was that on the summit of Larissa in honour of Apollo, the HerÆum, just referred to, was a much more ancient sanctuary, and was probably the original seat of the worship of Hera in Greece. Of this we have a token in the discovery among its ruins of an Egyptian scarab with cartouche, supposed to be of Thothmes III. (fifteenth century B.C.). Thucydides reckoned the date of the Peloponnesian war by the priestly registers in this temple, which seem to have been even older than the Olympian lists. The earliest priestess is said to have been Io, identified with the moon, whom Zeus transformed into a cow, and whose wanderings, imposed upon her by the jealous goddess, extended to the crossing of the Thracian straits, thence called Bosporus (Ox-ford or Cow-ford).

During the priesthood of Chryso, about a thousand years later (423 B.C.), the temple was destroyed by fire owing to the upsetting of a lamp by the aged priestess while she was asleep. A splendid new temple was soon erected on an adjacent site, but only the foundations of it can now be traced, with some remains also of the older building at a still lower level. Another priestess was Cydippe, whose two sons, Cleobis and Beiton, in the absence of oxen, drew her in a cart all the way from Argos to the HerÆum, a distance of seven miles. In the joy and pride of her heart the mother prayed the goddess to give her sons the best gift that could fall to the lot of man. The consequence was that the young men, having fallen asleep in the sanctuary after sacrificing and feasting, awoke no more, the goddess thus signifying that death was better than life. Pausanias tells us that the temple contained a wooden image of Hera, which had been removed from the conquered city of Tiryns, and also an image of the goddess in gold and ivory, the work of Polycleitus. A good many fragments of the ancient sculpture have been brought to light, and not a few of them are built into Christian churches and other edifices in the neighbourhood, especially a church dedicated to the Virgin, which is worth a visit on this account.

The HerÆum will always have a charm for the classical scholar as the spot where Agamemnon was solemnly acknowledged as their leader by the assembled Greeks before setting out for Troy. It is significant that Hera is represented as devoted to the Greeks all

through the Trojan war, and even before it; and perhaps the proximity of her shrine to MycenÆ, which was only a few miles distant, may help to account for the prominence of that city and its prince in the story of the war.

After being depopulated by the Argives, MycenÆ seems to have been for a long time comparatively deserted, and even now it presents very much the same appearance as it did when seen by Pausanias nearly eighteen hundred years ago. Nowhere has the spade achieved greater triumphs than in this venerated spot. The story of Schliemann’s excavations, both here and at Troy, is one of the romances of the nineteenth century. From his childhood everything mysterious had a fascination for him, and he was possessed with a passionate admiration for the heroes of the Iliad. Though he was early thrown upon his own resources to earn a livelihood, and had a hard struggle for many years, he found time for the study of Greek and other languages, which he mastered chiefly by committing whole books to memory. Having succeeded in amassing wealth he devoted the remainder of his life to the interests of Greek archÆology, cherishing his faith in the Homeric legends in spite of much ridicule, poured upon him sometimes by men of the greatest learning, until at length he was rewarded by discoveries which surpassed his fondest expectations. His conclusions may not all be sound. For example, it is the opinion of Zountas, the eminent Greek archÆologist, in view of all the facts which have come to light, that the bodies found in the shaft-graves within the citadel were not, as Schliemann supposed, the remains of Agamemnon and other members of the house of Pelops, to whose graves Pausanias alludes, but those of an earlier Perseid dynasty, and that the beehive tombs found outside the citadel are those of Agamemnon and other Atreidan kings, being similar to a considerable number of other tombs found on the eastern side of Greece as far north as Thessaly. With this agrees the fact that the famous lion-gate and the adjoining part of the wall are not built in the same Cyclopean style as the rest of the wall, the latter being composed of rough blocks piled one upon another without order, and kept in position by means of small stones and clay inserted between them, while the portions above referred to are composed of carefully-hewn stones of a polygonal shape, fitting into one another.

A prodigious quantity of pottery and other productions of art in gold, bronze, stone, and other materials, has been discovered in the graves and elsewhere at MycenÆ. Such variety do the treasures now stored in the Museum at Athens display that they are supposed to represent a period of artistic development extending from about 1600 to 1100 B.C. Among other things found were an ostrich egg, articles made of ivory, and a great number of amber beads, proving a connection both with Africa and the Baltic. Some of the artistic designs, too, such as those in which the papyrus and the lotus appear, show traces of intercourse with Egypt, which might also be inferred from the discovery of MycenÆan pottery at Thebes in that country. It is at Hissarlik (Troy), however, and in certain islands in the Ægean Sea, especially Crete, that the chief evidence of a civilisation like that of MycenÆ has been discovered. It is the opinion of experts that its origin may go as far back as 2500 B.C., and that its development in Crete may have been contemporaneous with the maritime empire which was associated with the name of Minos, whose influence extended as far as Sicily on the west, and which could hardly fail to be in touch with Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Whether the MycenÆan civilisation was due to the AchÆan race of warriors described in Homer, or to Pelasgians, or to the Phoenicians, has not yet been fully determined. In some respects it does not tally with the conditions of the heroic age, of which Homer sings. For example, very few traces of iron have been found compared with what we might have expected from the number of allusions to it in Homer. The same is the case as regards the safety-pins for fastening the seamless garments which the AchÆans wore. Moreover, Homer represents burning, not burial, as the usual mode of disposing of the dead. But it is possible that these differences may have belonged to different stages in the history of the AchÆan civilisation, which was probably in a state of decadence when Homer wrote. In any case the places to which he gives prominence are generally found to have been centres of the civilisation in question. With regard to MycenÆ in particular, the epithets applied to it by the poet—“abounding in gold” and a “well-built city”—are singularly appropriate. Apart from its legendary dignity as the capital city of the “king of men,” there can be no doubt that MycenÆ was a place of great wealth and importance, partly owing to its trade in pottery and other works of art, but chiefly, perhaps, to its commanding position on the highway of commerce between Nauplia and Corinth—in other words, between the Argolic Gulf on the south and the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs on the north. The latter point is emphasised by a recent writer in the Edinburgh Review, who says: “MycenÆ is on the flank of the hills, and possesses good springs, that great treasure in the thirsty plains of Argolis. Its fine military position is guarded by rocky defiles. Its watch-towers command every vale from which a land force could attack, and every space of sea-coast that might reveal a pirate’s raid. It is the very gate of the pass that leads from the plain of Argos to the beach of Corinth, and to this day the train takes travellers past its portals from Nauplia to the north-western gulf. Such land passages as this, from one sea to another, were of the highest importance to merchant-shipping in the old days of small light vessels, and continued to be so until comparatively recent times. The riches of the barons of MycenÆ were solely due to the fact that they could levy toll on passing caravans of merchandise without fear of an overlord. It was to guard the fortune thus amassed that the ramparts were constructed, which the astonished

antiquarian (who could not see over them) describes as ‘built for the love of building.’”

The modern traveller can hardly fail to be struck, as Thucydides was, with the limited dimensions of a city which is said to have sent a hundred ships to Troy, besides providing sixty for the Arcadians, while Athens only sent fifty. But it is evident from the ruins that the city was not confined within the walls; and, after all, the size of a city, like that of a country, is not always a safe criterion of its wealth and influence. According to Pausanias, the only genuine work of HephÆstus that was to be seen in his day was the sceptre which that divine artificer presented to Zeus, and which Zeus gave to Hermes, and Hermes to Pelops, and Pelops to Atreus, and Atreus to his brother Thyestes, and Thyestes to Agamemnon, that he might “have dominion over many islands and over all Argos.”

A still older and better preserved specimen of the Homeric citadel and palace is to be seen at Tiryns, the fabled residence of Heracles, which lies about a mile from the sea, near the marshy land in which the famous steeds of Argos probably found pasture. It is situated on a long rocky hillock, less than 100 feet above the level of the sea, which was no doubt once an island, before the alluvial deposits from the mountain sides had encroached so far on the domain of Poseidon. Its walls, to which Homer alludes, form one of the most striking monuments of the heroic age. They are in some places considerably over fifty feet thick, and the stones of which they are composed are of great size, from six to ten feet long, and about three feet in height and in thickness. But though the stones are larger than those of MycenÆ they show more signs of hewing, and were originally held together by clay mortar. In the palace at the southern end, of which the ground plan can be distinctly traced, one can recognise a general similarity to the Homeric palace. In the chief entrance, which is evidently the archetype of the propylÆa at Athens, one can see the hole in the door-post and the adjoining wall, into which the great wooden bar was shot when the door was open. After passing through a spacious circular court with an altar of Zeus in the centre, you enter through a portico into the chief apartment or hall. Round the hearth in the centre stood the four pillars which supported the roof. It was against one of these pillars that Odysseus was told he would find the queen AretÉ sitting in the palace of Alcinous, spinning purple wool in the light of the fire. You can also identify the bathroom, with its solid limestone floor, and can even see a terra-cotta fragment of the well-polished tubs referred to by the great minstrel, with receptacles in the wall, probably intended for the oil which was considered indispensable after the bath. Wall-paintings have also been discovered and specimens of a frieze of a bluish colour, supposed to be the kuanos referred to in Homer as adorning the walls of the PhÆacian palace. With the exception of the lower parts, a few feet high, the walls were evidently built of wood or clay, and appear to have been destroyed

by fire, of which the stone shows traces. At a lower level the foundations of a still older building can be seen. Among other things found among the ruins were many little figures of cows in terra-cotta, supposed to have been connected with the worship of Hera, who is often styled Cow-faced (Bo-opis) in Homer.

About two and a half miles from Tiryns, on a small peninsula which juts out into the sea, there is now a thriving little town of 6000 inhabitants, called Nauplia. According to Pausanias its original inhabitants came from Egypt, and its name would lead one to suppose that they were known as seafaring people. In historic times they were driven out by the Argives and took refuge in Mothone, which was granted to them by the Spartans. Nauplia then became the general harbour for the people of Argolis. Its military importance was recognised in later times by the Byzantines, the Venetians, and the Turks, who have successively left their mark upon its fortifications. The capture of Nauplia from the Turks in 1822 was a great encouragement to the insurgent Greeks. It became the capital of the country under the first Greek government, and was also the scene of the assassination of its first president, Capodistrias. It was at Nauplia that Otho made his entry into Greece in 1833 as the sovereign-elect, and it was among the soldiers of its garrison that the revolt began which compelled him to resign his crown, about thirty years later. The modern name of the city, Napoli de Romania (Naples of Greece), betokens the beauty of its situation. There are few more pleasing views in Greece than is seen in fine weather from the top of the rocky hill which rises in the neighbourhood to a height of 700 feet, and which is supposed to owe its name (Palamidi) to the heroic Palamedes, son of Nauplius, who is credited in the Iliad with being the author of so many inventions.

To the north-east of Nauplia lies one of the most attractive spots in the Argolid, namely Epidaurus. The town of that name was close to the coast, opposite to Ægina, which was once tributary to it. But the ruins of the greatest interest are some five miles inland, in the precinct sacred to Asclepios, the god of healing, who was said to have been born in this neighbourhood as the child of Apollo and a nymph, and to have been suckled by a goat on Mount Titthion. Epidaurus thus became the headquarters of the healing art for all the votaries of Asclepios, both in Greece and Asia Minor. The sacred precinct or Hieron was of great extent. Besides the temple, it contained almost everything that could be desired in a health resort, such as a music-hall, a theatre (which is still in a wonderful state of preservation and is the finest in Greece), a hospital and baths, a gymnasium and a race-course. Part of the sanctuary was set apart for the patients seeking the aid of the god, who was generally supposed to communicate with them in their sleep. There were many votive offerings and inscriptions telling of wonderful cures, and when we take into account the influence of religious faith in such a case, and the salutary air of a fine hill-country, we can

hardly wonder at the great hygienic reputation of the place. The dog and the serpent are almost always associated with Asclepios in pictorial representations, the serpent entwined around his staff, and both animals figure prominently in the stories of miraculous cure, the dog sometimes licking the sores of the patient. How the serpent was so highly esteemed is not very clear. But it became the great emblem of the healing art, perhaps owing to the silence and subtlety of its movements and its connection with the underground world. The Epidaurians always took it with them when they went to found a colony; and on one occasion, when ambassadors, in obedience to an oracle, came from Rome in a time of pestilence, seeking the help of the god, the serpent was sent back with them as his representative.

One of the most interesting ruins of the place is the Tholos, a kind of rotunda, more than 100 feet in diameter, of which only the ground parts are standing. These consist of six concentric walls, the three innermost of which supported a circular floor or platform, paved with black and white marble, with a hole in the centre, the purpose of which is not very clear, whether for offering sacrifice, which is suggested by the name of Thumela applied to the building, or for drawing water from beneath. The fourth of the circular walls just mentioned, counting from the centre, supported fourteen Corinthian pillars of marble, the fifth a wall above the ground, the sixth an exterior colonnade with twenty-six columns. The three underground walls nearest the centre, forming a vault, have doors in them by which you can pass from one to the other, but so arranged as to form a labyrinth. An inscription shows that the building was erected by contract and took twenty-one years to finish. The contract was in the hands of two sets of commissioners, the one having charge of giving it out, the other being entrusted with the duty of seeing that the work was properly done. The list of contractors shows that many different cities had an interest in the undertaking.