DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0395
342 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
so commanding that the whole body of Greeks before Troy
usually go by their name. Their capital is My-
cenae, and their monarch Agamemnon, King of
Men; although we find them also in Laconia under the
rule of Menelaus. But the poet has other names, hardly
less famous, applied now to the people of Argolis
and now to the Greeks at large. One of these
names (^Apysloi) is purely geographical, whether it be re-
stricted to the narrow Argolid district or extended to the
wider Argos, and has no special ethnological sig-
nificance. But the other (Aavaoi) belonged to a
people distinct from and, according to uniform tradition,
more ancient than the Achaeans. We find then two races
in Argolis before the Dorian migration, each famous in
song and story, and each so powerful that its name may
stand for all the inhabitants of Greece. The Achaeans
occupy Mycenae, that is to say, the northern mountain
region of the district, while legend represents the Danaans
as inseparably connected with Argos and the seaboard, and
ascribes to them certain works of irrigation.1
Whatever interpretation be put upon the myth, it seems
clear that Argos could not feed its great cities without arti-
ficial irrigation, and this it owed to Danaos and his fifty
daughters, " who were condemned perpetually to pour water
in a tub full of holes," — that is to say, into irrigating
ditches which the thirsty soil kept draining dry.3
1 What these were we do not know ; nor were the ancients apparently much
better informed. According to a Hesiodic fragment " the Danaans made Argos,
once waterless, abound in water" ("Ap-yos &vvZpov thv Aavaoi diaav evvSpov) ;
but Strabo (viii. 6, 7-8) treats this as a poetic fiction along with Homer's
" thirsty Argos " (vo\vBfytoi> "Apyos), for which the geographer proposes various
emendations. Argos, lie tells us, was watered by rivers, lakes and marshes,
while the city was provided with plenty of wells. It was these wells which
later men, with the facts before their eyes, ascribed to Danaan initiative.
2 See Tozer, Geography of Greece, 317 f.
so commanding that the whole body of Greeks before Troy
usually go by their name. Their capital is My-
cenae, and their monarch Agamemnon, King of
Men; although we find them also in Laconia under the
rule of Menelaus. But the poet has other names, hardly
less famous, applied now to the people of Argolis
and now to the Greeks at large. One of these
names (^Apysloi) is purely geographical, whether it be re-
stricted to the narrow Argolid district or extended to the
wider Argos, and has no special ethnological sig-
nificance. But the other (Aavaoi) belonged to a
people distinct from and, according to uniform tradition,
more ancient than the Achaeans. We find then two races
in Argolis before the Dorian migration, each famous in
song and story, and each so powerful that its name may
stand for all the inhabitants of Greece. The Achaeans
occupy Mycenae, that is to say, the northern mountain
region of the district, while legend represents the Danaans
as inseparably connected with Argos and the seaboard, and
ascribes to them certain works of irrigation.1
Whatever interpretation be put upon the myth, it seems
clear that Argos could not feed its great cities without arti-
ficial irrigation, and this it owed to Danaos and his fifty
daughters, " who were condemned perpetually to pour water
in a tub full of holes," — that is to say, into irrigating
ditches which the thirsty soil kept draining dry.3
1 What these were we do not know ; nor were the ancients apparently much
better informed. According to a Hesiodic fragment " the Danaans made Argos,
once waterless, abound in water" ("Ap-yos &vvZpov thv Aavaoi diaav evvSpov) ;
but Strabo (viii. 6, 7-8) treats this as a poetic fiction along with Homer's
" thirsty Argos " (vo\vBfytoi> "Apyos), for which the geographer proposes various
emendations. Argos, lie tells us, was watered by rivers, lakes and marshes,
while the city was provided with plenty of wells. It was these wells which
later men, with the facts before their eyes, ascribed to Danaan initiative.
2 See Tozer, Geography of Greece, 317 f.