Greek Texts & Translations

18. Among the cities of the Peloponnesus, the most celebrated were, and are at this time, Argos and Sparta, and as their renown is spread everywhere, it is not necessary to describe them at length, for if we did so, we should seem to repeat what is said by all writers.

Anciently, Argos was the most celebrated, but afterwards the Lacedaemonians obtained the superiority, and continued to maintain their independence, except during some short interval, when they experienced a reverse of fortune.

The Argives did not admit Pyrrhus within the city. He fell before the walls, an old woman having let a tile drop from a house upon his head.

They were, however, under the sway of other kings. When they belonged to the Achaean league they were subjected, together with the other members of that confederacy, to the power of the Romans. The city subsists at present, and is second in rank to Sparta. 19

We shall next speak of those places which are said, in the Catalogue of the Ships, to be under the government of Mycenae and Agamemnon: the lines are these: Those who inhabited Mycenae, a well-built city,
and the wealthy Corinth, and Cleonae well built,
and Orneiae, and the lovely Araethyrea,
and Sicyon, where Adrastus first reigned,
and they who inhabited Hyperesia, and the lofty Gonoessa and Pellene, and Aegium,
and the whole range of the coast, and those who lived near the spacious Helice. ^note

Mycenae exists no longer. It was founded by Perseus. Sthenelus succeeded Perseus; and Eurystheus, Sthenelus. These same persons were kings of Argos also. It is said that Eurystheus, having engaged, with the assistance of the Athenians, in an expedition to Marathon against the descendants of Hercules and Iolaus, fell in battle, and that the remainder of his body was buried at Gargettus, but his head apart from it at Tricorythus ^note (Corinth?), Iolaus having severed it from the body near the fountain Macaria, close to the chariot-road. The spot itself has the name of Eurystheus'-head.

Mycenae then passed into the possession of the Pelopidae who had left the Pisatis, then into that of the Heracleidaae,