Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/557

Rh A R G A R G 497 of Helios ; while his daughter Me dea was, by her know ledge of witchcraft, connected with the worship of the moon. ^Eetes required of Jason that he should first yoke to a plough his bulls which snorted fire and had hoofs of brass, and with them plough the field of Mars. That done, the field was to be sown with dragons teeth, from which armed men were to spring. Successful so far by means of the mixture which Medea had given him as proof against fire and sword, Jason was next allowed to approach the dragon which watched the fleece; Medea soothed the dragon with another mixture, and Jason became master of the fleece. Then the voyage homeward began, Medea accompanying Jason, and ^Eetes pursuing them. To delay him and obtain escape, Medea dismembered her young brother Absyrtus, whom she had taken with her, and cast the limbs about in the sea for his father to pick up. In another report Absyrtus had grown to manhood then, and met his death in an encounter with Jason, in pursuit of whom he had been sent. Of the homeward course various accounts are given. In the oldest existing account, the &quot;Argo&quot; sailed along the river Phasis into the Oceanus, thence to the mythical lake Tritonis, after being carried twelve days over land through Libya, and thence again to lolcus. Hecatseus of Miletus suggested that from the Oceanus it may have sailed into the Nile, and so to the Mediterranean. Others, like Sophocles, described the return voyage as differing from the outward course only in taking the northern instead of the southern shore of the Black Sea. Some supposed that the Argonauts had sailed up the river Tanais, passed into another river, and by it reached the North Sea, returning to the Mediterranean by the Straits of Gibraltar. And again, others laid down the course as up the Danube (Istros), from it into the Adriatic by a supposed mouth of that river, and on to Corcyra, where a storm overtook them. Next they sailed up the Eridanus into the Rhodanus, passing through the country of the Celts and Ligurians, and reaching the Tyrrhenian Sea and the island of Circe, who absolved them from the murder of Absyrtus. Then they passed safely through Scylla and Charybdis, past the Sirens, through the Planctas, over the island of the Sun, Trinacria, and on to Corcyra again, the land of the Phneacians, where Jason and Medea held their nuptials. They had sighted the coast of the Peloponnesus when a storm overtook them and drove them to the coast of Libya, where they were saved from a quicksand by the local nymphs. The &quot;Argo&quot; was now carried twelve days and twelve nights to the Hesperides, and thence to lake Tritonis, whence Triton conducted them to the Mediter ranean. At Crete the brazen Talos, who would not permit them to land, was killed by the Dioscuri. At Anaphe they were saved from a storm by Apollo. Finally they reached lolcus, and the &quot;Argo&quot; was placed in a grove sacred to Neptune on the isthmus of Corinth. Jason s death, it is said, was afterwards caused by part of the stern giving way and falling upon him. (A. s. M.) ARGONNE, a rocky and forest-clad plateau in the north-east of France, extending along the borders of Lorraine and Champagne, and forming part of the depart ments of Ardennes and Meuse. The famous defence of the French frontier by Dumouriez in 1792 is called the Argonne Campaign. ARGOS. The most important city of this name was situated in the eastern part of the Peloponnesus, about 3 miles from the sea. By the Greeks themselves it was regarded as the most ancient of all their cities, and as the local habitation of many of their earlier heroes. Here Inachus and his descendants had reigned for many genera tions, until the arrival of Danaus the Egyptian, with his fifty daughters, whose dynasty, glorious with the names of Perseus the Gorgon-slayer, and Eurystheus the master of Hercules, held sway over Argos, and Tiryns, aud Mycenae, till it, in its turn, was succeeded by the still more important dynasty of Pelops. The Dorian invasion and conquest followed, and Argos became the head of a Dorian confederation, extending its authority over a large portion of the neighbouring territory. Between this region (Argolis) and Sparta, however, there were no natural boundaries, and a conflict arose between the two states about the border land of Cynuria, For a time, under the despotic management of Pheidon, Argos maintained its ground ; but Sparta ulti mately established its claim in spite of the dubious result of the famous duel of the GOO, which was fought for the decision of the dispute, and the strength of the Argives was completely crushed by Cleomenes at the battle of Tiryns. A temporary ascendency of the serfs in Argos, an extension of the franchise, and a permanent adoption of a more democratic constitution, seem to have been the consequences of this national exhaustion and the subse quent reaction. During the Persian war Argos was indifferent and neutral, but in the contest for power which ensued between Athens and Sparta, the old antipathy against the latter was sufficient to make the Argives stanch allies of the former. In the 4th century B.C., the demo cratic constitution of the city degenerated into a reign of terror (^KTrraAto-yuos), which in its turn gave place to a series of tyrannies, from which escape was ultimately found in the AchaBan League and the Roman domination. Pyrrhus perished in an unsuccessful attack on the city in 272 B.C. In the 13th century of our era, Argos fell into the posses sion of the Franks, from whom it passed into the hands of the Byzantine despots ; and in 1463 it was taken by the Ottoman troops. Here in the darkest period of Greek ignorance lived one of the few representatives of the ancient learning, Theodosius Zigomali (Crusius s Turcogr&cia). In the time of Pausanias the number of temples in Argos and its neighbourhood was remarkable, the most important of them being the HeraBum, or temple of Hera, the ruins of which, visible from the acropolis of Argos, but nearer to MyceuaB, were discovered in 1831 by Colonel Gordon of Cairness (see plan in Leake s Peloponnesiaca, 1846). With in the city the greatest was the temple of Apollo Lyceus. Remains still exist of the cyclopean architecture of the acropolis, of the theatre, which was of great extent, and of an aqueduct which can be traced for miles to the north-west. In the 5th century B.C., Argos was the seat of a great school of statuary under Ageladas, but it did not contribute to the long roll of Greek literature more than the names of Telesilla and Sacadas, of whom the latter was better known, as a musician. The limits of Argolis varied at different times, but it was only under the Romans that they were understood to embrace the districts of Phlius, Cleonae, Epidaurus, Troezen, and Cynuria. ARGOSTOLI, the capital of Cephalonia, one of the Ionian islands, and the seat of a bishop of the Greek Church. It possesses an excellent harbour, a quay a mile in length, and a fine bridge. In 1870 the imports were of the value of 8,347,522 drachmas, or 296,941 Near at hand are the ruins of Cranii, affording fine examples of the military architecture of the Greeks ; and at the w r est side of the harbour there is a curious stream, flowing from the sea, which is employed to drive mills. (Sir C. Fellows s Journal of an Excursion in Asia Minor in 1838, and Wiebel s Die Inscl Kephalonia imd die Meermuhlen von Argostoli, Hamburg, 1873.) Shipbuilding and silk-spin ning are carried on. Population, 9000. ARGOVIE (Lat. Argovia), the French form of Aargau, the name of one of the Swiss cantons. See AARGATJ. ARGUIN, an island, perhaps Hanno s Ceme, off the west coast of Africa, in lat. 20 25 N., long. 16 37 AV. It produces gum-arabic, and is the seat of a turtlt II. 63