[7] The greater part of the city of the Argives is situated in a plain. It has a citadel called Larisa, a hill moderately fortified, and upon it a temple of Jupiter. Near it flows the Inachus, a torrent river; its source is in Lyrceium [the Arcadian mountain near Cynuria]. We have said before that the fabulous stories about its sources are the inventions of poets; it is a fiction also that Argos is without water— “ but the gods made Argos a land without water.
” Now the ground consists of hollows, it is intersected by rivers, and is full of marshes and lakes; the city also has a copious supply of water from many wells, which rises near the surface. They attribute the mistake to this verse,
This word is used for πολυπόθητον, or “ much longed after,“ and I shall return disgraced to Argos (πολυδιψιον) the very thirsty.1
”Il. iv. 171.
” or without the δ for πολυίψιον, equivalent to the expression πολύφθορον in Sophocles,
[for ποͅοϊάψαι and ἰάψαι and ἴψασθαι, denote some injury or destruction; ‘at present he is making the attempt, and he will soon-destroy (ἴψεται） the sons of the Achæi;’2 and again, lest“ this house of the Pelopidæ abounding in slaughter,
”Sophocles, El. 10.
and,“ she should injure (ἰάψνͅ) her beautiful skin;3
”Od. ii. 376.
Besides, he does not mean the city Argos, for it was not thither that he was about to return, but he meant Peloponnesus, which, certainly, is not a thirsty land. With respect to the letter δ, they introduce the conjunction by the figure hyperbaton, and make an elision of the vowel, so that the verse would run thus, “ και κεν ἐλὲγχιστος, πολὺ δ᾽ ἴψιον ῎αργος ἱκοίμην,“ has prematurely sent down, προί̂αψεν, to Ades.4]5
”Il. i. 3.
” that is, πολυίψιον ῎αοͅγοσδε ἱκοίμην, instead of, εἰς ῎αοͅγος.
