History of Greece

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. PHIDON OF ARGOS. Of the commonwealths founded by the tolians and Dorians in the Peloponnesus, Argos had become the most powerful and important, vlts territory embraced the north-east of the Peloponnesus and the whole of the eastern coast as far as Cape Malea. Its naval power rested on the...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. PHIDON OF ARGOS. Of the commonwealths founded by the tolians and Dorians in the Peloponnesus, Argos had become the most powerful and important, vlts territory embraced the north-east of the Peloponnesus and the whole of the eastern coast as far as Cape Malea. Its naval power rested on the support of the islands of Egina and Cythera. Colonists from Argos7 had founded Cnossus in Crete; the cities of lalysus, Lindus, and Camirus in Rhodes; Cnidus and lasus on the south-west coasc of Asia Minor. Dorians from Epidaurus had colonised the island of Cos; Dorians and lonians, i.e. conquerors and conquered, from Troezen had built Halicarnassus. Moreover the kings of Argos stood at the head of a federation which included the cities supposed to have been founded by Argos on the north and south-east coasts of the Peloponnesus?namely, Sicyon, Epidaurus, Troezen, Egina, Prasiae, Epidaurus-Limera, and Boeae, besides Phlius and Cleonae. Common sacrifices, which were offered to Apollo Pythaeus on the Larissa of Argos, kept this federation together. It devolved upon the king of Argos, who was at its head, to maintain peace among the members and a respect for the sacred law. It lay within his power to punish any member of the league who offended either by attacking a confederate city or by rendering assistance to any state for such an object.1 A still more important privilege obliged the members of the confederacy to furnish reinforcements in war to the kings of Argos.2 The name of the tutelary deity of the league, Apollo Pythaeus, shows that it was first established when the oracle at Pytho had already attained celebrity in the Peloponnesus?that is, not much before the end of the ninth century; it cannot have been founded many years later, as there are tolerably clear indicat...