Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/329

 ARGEIAN CONFEDERACY. 313 essentially fluctuating. "What Thebes was to the cities of Boeotia, of which she either was, or professed to have been, the founder, the same was Argos in reference to Kleonae, Phlius, Sikyon, Epidaurus, Troezen, and JEgina. These towns formed, in mythi- cal language, " the lot of Temenus," 2 in real matter of fact, the confederated allies or subordinates of Argos : the first four of them were said to have been Dorized by the sons or immediate relatives of Temenus ; and the kings of Argos, as acknowledged descendants of the latter, claimed and exercised a sort of suzerainete over them. Hennione, Asine, and Nauplia seem also to have been under the supremacy of Argos, though not colonies. 2 But this supremacy was not claimed directly and nakedly : agreeably to the ideas of the time, the ostensible purposes of the Argeian confederacy or Amphiktyony were religious, though its secondary and not less real effects, were political. The great patron-god of the league was Apollo Pythaeus, in whose name the obligations incumbent on the members of the league were imposed. While in each of the confederated cities there was a temple to this god, his most holy and central sanctuary was on the Larissa or acrop- olis of Argos. At this central Argeian sanctuary, solemn sacri- fices were offered by Epidaurus as well as by other members of the confederacy, and, as it should seem, accompanied by money- 1 'H/zcjv KTiai'ivTuv (so runs the accusation of the Theban orators against the captive Platajans, before their Lacedaemonian judges, Thucyd. iii. 61.) H/M-aiav varepov ri?f aA/.7?f Eoturiaf OVK r/^iovv avrol, woTrep ETUX&IJ rb Trpairov, ij-//Jiovfvea-9ai vfi f/iitiv, e^u 6e TUV ul.l.uv "Boturuv ifi nurpia, iireidq irpoarivayKuZovTO, tTpQaexupTjaav ;rp6c ai'Tuv 7ro?i./lu r/fidr efihairrov. 2 Respecting Pheidon, king of Argos, Ephorus said, rrjv hysiv o'Xijv av&aSe TJJV 'Ytjfievov SiEa~aanivriv elf xAeiu fifprj (ap. Strabo. viii. p. 358).. 3 The worship of Apollo Pythaeus, adopted from Argos both at Hermionfi and Asine, shows the connection between them and Argos (Pausan. ii. 35, 2; ii. 36, 5): but Pansanias can hardly be justified in saying that the Argeians actually Dorized Hermione : it was Dryopian in the time of He- rodotus, and seemingly for a long time afterwards (Herodot. viii. 43). The Hermionian Inscription, No. 1193, in Boeckh's Collection, recognizes their old Dryopian connection with Asine in Laconia: that town had once been neighbor of Hermione, but was destroyed by the Argeians, and the inhab- itants received a new home from the Spartans. The dialect of the Hermio- nians ("probably that of the Dryopians generally) was Doric. See Ahrens, De Dialecto Doric.i, pp. 2-12. VOL. U Ii