Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (6.1890-1897 (1897))

226

EXCAVATIONS AT THE AR&IVE HER2EUM IN 1S9S.

exactly three times as far away as Mycense according to Herodo-
tus,4 who makes the distance forty-five stades.5 The evidence,
therefore, of its location seems to show clearly the original con-
nection of the temple with Mycenaj, not with Argos.

The site6 is a double terrace, bounded on two sides by the
streams Eleutherium (to the northwest) and Asterion (to the south-
east). Pausanias says that the former (the Eleutherium) flows
Kara rrjv 6S6v, along or possibly across the way as one comes from
Mycense, and that it was used by the priestesses for purposes of
purification. The second (the Asterion) was, he says, according
to legend the father of Eubcea, Prosymna, and Acrsea; therefore
the hill opposite the Herteum was called Acrsea, the region about
the temple Eubcea, and that below the temple Prosymna. To-day
Prosymna is made the name of a demarchy including several vil-
lages to the southeast of the Herseum. Eubcea, as I have said,
seems to be the name of the whole mountain, and Acrosa is easily
recognizable in a hill to the east across the Asterion. Both the
Eleutherium and the Asterion, streams that flow down from Eu-
bcea, were quite dry during the whole time we were working, but
when Mr. Fox and I revisited the scene two weeks later we found
that the Eleutherium had been swollen to a torrent by recent
rains.

According to Thucydides,7 the temple of Hera at Argos was
destroyed by fire in 423 b. c. This was the prehistoric Herseum,

* Herod., i. 31. 5 Strabo's estimate {loc. cii.) is forty stades.

6 It was discovered more than fifty years ago by General Gordon (cf. Mtjke, Jour-
nal of a Tour in Greeee, n. p. 177). His tentative excavations brought to light
various sculptured fragments as well as terracotta and bronzes. In 1854 the work
was taken up and prosecuted with greater thoroughness by Bursian and Rangabe,
who confined themselves, however, to the site of the new temple (cf. infra). Its
foundations were partially uncovered and several points with regard to the architec-
ture and plan of the temple established ; on the other hand, the excavations were re-
warded by the discovery of many valuable works of art, heads, torsos and smaller
fragments. These were deposited in Argos and have only recently begun to receive
the study which they deserve. (See Bursian's report in the Bullettino, 1854, II. p.
xiii, sq., and Rasbabk's Ausgrabung beim Tempel der Sera univeit Argos ; rough
plans of the site are also to be found in Mure, loc. cit., Bursian's Oeographie von
Griechenland, Vol. II, Taf. i. n. 3, and Curtius' Peloponnesos, Vol. ii, Taf. xvi).
When we first visited the site no trace was left of the work which our predecessors
had done.

' Thucyd., iv. 133.