[10]
After the descendants of Danaüs succeeded to the reign in Argos, and the Amythaonides, who were emigrants from Pisatis and Triphylia, became associated with these, one should not be surprised if, being kindred, they at first so divided the country into two kingdoms that the two cities in them which held the hegemony were designated as the capitals, though situated near one another, at a distance of less than fifty stadia, I mean Argos and Mycenae, and that the Heraeum1 near Mycenae was a temple common to both. In this temple2 are the images made by Polycleitus,3 in execution the most beautiful in the world, but in costliness and size inferior to those by Pheidias. Now at the outset Argos was the more powerful, but later Mycenae waxed more powerful on account of the removal thereto of the Pelopidae; for, when everything fell to the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon, being the elder, assumed the supreme power, and by a combination of good fortune and valor acquired much of the country in addition to the possessions he already had; and indeed he also added Laconia to the territory of Mycenae. Now Menelaüs came into possession of Laconia, but Agamemnon received Mycenae and the regions as far as Corinth and Sicyon and the country which at that time was called the country of the Ionians and Aegialians but later the country of the Achaeans. But after the Trojan times, when the empire of Agememnon had been broken up, it came to pass that Mycenae was reduced, and particularly after the return of the Heracleidae; for when these had taken possession of the Peloponnesus they expelled its former masters, so that those who held Argos also held Mycenae as a component part of one whole. But in later times Mycenae was razed to the ground by the Argives, so that today not even a trace of the city of the Mycenaeans is to be found. And since Mycenae has suffered such a fate, one should not be surprised if also some of the cities which are catalogued as subject to Argos have now disappeared. Now the Catalogue contains the following: “"And those who held Argos, and Tiryns of the great walls, and Hermione and Asine that occupy a deep gulf, and Troezen and Eiones and vine-clad Epidaurus, and the youths of the Achaeans who held Aegina and Mases."
”4But of the cities just named I have already discussed Argos, and now I must discuss the others.
1 For a full account of the remarkable excavations at the Heraeum by the American School of Classical Studies, see Waldstein's The Argive Heraeum, 1902, 2 vols
2 The old temple was destroyed by fire in 423 B.C. (Thuc. 4.133, Paus. 2.17) and the new one was built about 420 B.C. (Waldstein, op. cit., p. 39).
3 In particular the colossal image of Hera, which "is seated on a throne, is made of gold and ivory, and is a work of Polycleitus" (Paus. 2.17). According to E. L. Tilton's restoration (in Waldstein, op. cit., Fig. 64, p. 127), the total height of the image including base and top of the throne was about 8 meters and the seated figure of the goddess about 5 1/3.
Strabo. ed. H. L. Jones, The Geography of Strabo. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
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