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 had also lost control over the other cities of Argolis, which they never succeeded in recovering. Partly in consequence of its defeat, partly out of jealousy against Sparta, Argos took no part in the war against Xerxes. Indeed on this, as on later occasions, its relations with Persia seem to have been friendly. About 470 the conflict with Sparta was renewed in concert with the Arcadians, but all that the Argives could achieve was to destroy their revolted dependencies of Mycenae and Tiryns (468 or 464). In 461 they contracted an alliance with Athens, thus renewing a connexion established by (q.v.). In spite of this league Argos made no headway against Sparta, and in 451 consented to a truce. A more important result of Athenian intervention was the substitution of the democratic government for the oligarchy which had succeeded the early monarchy; at any rate forty years later we find that Argos possessed complete democratic institutions.

During the early Peloponnesian War Argos remained neutral; after the break-up of the Spartan confederacy consequent upon the peace of Nicias the alliance of this state, with its unimpaired resources and flourishing commerce, was courted on all sides. By throwing in her lot with the Peloponnesian democracies and Athens, Argos seriously endangered Sparta’s supremacy, but the defeat of Mantineia (418) and a successful rising of the Argive oligarchs spoilt this chance. The speedily restored democracy put little heart into the conflict, and beyond sending mercenary detachments, lent Athens no further help in the war (see ).

At the outset of the 4th century, Argos, with a population and resources equalling those of Athens, took a prominent part in the Corinthian League against Sparta. In 394 the Argives helped to garrison Corinth, and the latter state seems for a while to have been annexed by them. But the peace of (q.v.) dissolved this connexion, and barred Argive pretensions to control all Argolis. After the battle of Leuctra Argos experienced a political crisis; the oligarchs attempted a revolution, but were put down by their opponents with such vindictiveness that 1200 of them are said to have been executed (370). The democracy consistently supported the victorious Thebans against Sparta, figuring with a large contingent on the decisive field of Mantineia (362). When pressed in turn by their old foes the Argives were among the first to call in Philip of Macedon, who reinstated them in Cynuria after becoming master of Greece. In the Lamian War Argos was induced to side with the patriots against Macedonia; after its capture by Cassander from Polyperchon (317) it fell in 303 into the hands of Demetrius Poliorcetes. In 272 the Argives joined Sparta in resisting the ambition of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose death ensued in an unsuccessful night attack upon the city. They passed instead into the power of Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia, who maintained his control by means of tyrants. After several unavailing attempts (q.v.) contrived to win Argos for the Achaean League (229), in which it remained save during a brief occupation by the Spartans  (q.v.) and Nabis (224 and 196).

The Roman conquest of Achaea enhanced the prosperity of Argos by removing the trade competition of Corinth. Under the Empire, Argos was the headquarters of the Achaean synod, and continued to be a resort of Roman merchants. Though plundered by the Goths in 267 and 395 it retained some of its commerce and culture in Byzantine days. The town was captured by the Franks in 1210; after 1246 it was held in fief by the rulers of Athens. In later centuries it became the scene of frequent conflicts between the Venetians and the Turks, and on two occasions (1397 and 1500) its population was massacred by the latter. Repeopled with Albanian settlers, Argos was chosen as seat of the Greek national assembly in the wars of independence. Its citadel was courageously defended by the patriots (1822); in 1825 the city was burnt to the ground by Ibrahim Pasha. The present town of 10,000 inhabitants is a purely agricultural settlement. The Argive plain, though not yet sufficiently reclaimed, yields good crops of corn, rice and tobacco.

In the early days of Greece the Argives enjoyed high repute for their musical talent. Their school of bronze sculpture, whose first famous exponent was Ageladas (Hagelaidas), the reputed master of Pheidias, reached its climax towards the end of the 5th century in the atelier of (q.v.) and his pupils. To this period also belongs the new Heraeum (see below), one of the most splendid temples of Greece.

Remains of the early city are still visible on the Larissa acropolis, which towers 900 ft. high to the north-west of the town. A few courses of the ancient ramparts appear under the double enceinte of the surviving medieval fortress. An aqueduct of Greek times is represented by some fragments on the south-western edge. In the slope above the town was hewn a theatre equalling that of Athens in size. The Aspis or smaller citadel to the north-east has revealed traces of an early Mycenaean settlement; the Deiras or ridge connecting the two heights contains a prehistoric cemetery.

The Argive Heraeum.—Since 1892 investigation has added considerably to our knowledge concerning the Argive Heraeum or Heraion, the temple of Hera, which stood, according to Pausanias, “on one of the lower slopes of Euboea.” The term Euboea did not designate the eminence upon which the Heraeum is placed, or the mountain-top behind the Heraeum only, but, as Pausanias distinctly indicates, the group of foothills of the hilly district adjoining the mountain. When once we admit that this designated not only the mountain, which is 1730 ft. high, but also the hilly district adjoining it, the general scale of distance for this site grows larger. The territory of the Heraeum was divided into three parts, namely Euboea, Acraea and Prosymna. Pausanias tells us that the Heraeum is 15 stadia from Mycenae. Strabo, on the other hand, says that the Heraeum was 40 stadia from Argos and 10 from Mycenae. Both authors underestimate the distance from Mycenae, which is about 25 stadia, or a little more than 3 m., while the distance from Argos is 45 stadia, or a little more than 5 m. The distance from the Heraeum to the ancient Midea is slightly greater than to Mycenae, while that from the Heraeum to Tiryns is about 6 m. The Argive Heraeum was the most important centre of Hera and Juno worship in the ancient world; it always remained the chief sanctuary of the Argive district, and was in all probability the earliest site of civilized life in the country inhabited by the Argive people. In fact, whereas the site of Hissarlik, the ancient Troy, is not in Greece proper, but in Asia Minor, and can thus not furnish the most direct evidence for the earliest Hellenic civilization as such; and whereas Tiryns, Mycenae, and the city of Argos, each represent only one definite period in the successive stages of civilization, the Argive Heraeum, holding the central site of early civilization in Greece proper, not only retained its importance during the three periods marked by the supremacy of Tiryns, Mycenae and the city of Argos, but in all probability antedated them as a centre of civilized Argive life. These conditions alone account for the extreme archaeological importance of this ancient sanctuary.

According to tradition the Heraeum was founded by Phoroneus at least thirteen generations before Agamemnon and the Achaeans ruled. It is highly probable that before it became important merely as a temple, it was the fortified centre uniting the Argive people dwelling in the plain, the citadel which was superseded in this function by Tiryns. There is ample evidence to show that it was the chief sanctuary during the Tirynthian period. When Mycenae was built under the Perseïds it was still the chief sanctuary for that centre, which superseded Tiryns in its dominance over the district, and which this temple clearly antedated in construction. According to the Dictys Cretensis, it was at this Heraeum that Agamemnon assembled the leaders