an ancient name of Peloponnesus; from Argos, one of the kings, (Homer, Strabo).

capital, and an inland town, of Argolis or Argelia. It had different surnames; as Achaeum from the country, or an ancient people, (Homer); Hippium, from its breed of horses; and Inachium, from the river Inachus, which runs by, or from Inachus the founder of the kingdom, whose name was also given to the river. The Argives related, that this was one of the river-gods who adjudged the country to Juno, when she contended for it with Neptune, which deity in return made their water to vanish; the reason why the Inachus flowed only after rain, and was dry in summer. The source was a spring, not copious, on a mountain in Arcadia, and the river served there as a boundary between the Argives and Mantineans.

Ancient Argos stood chiefly on a flat. The springs were near the surface; and it abounded in wells, which were said to have been invented by the daughters of Danaus. This early personage lived in the acropolis or citadel, which was named Larissa, and accounted moderately strong. On the acsent was a temple of Apollo on the ridge, which in the second century continued the seat of an oracle. The woman who prophesied was debarred from commerce with the male sex. A lamb was sacrificed in the night monthly; when, on tasting of the blood, she became possessed with the divinity. Farther on was a stadium, where the Argives celebrated games in honour of Nemean Jupiter and of Juno. On the top was a temple of Jupiter, without a roof, the statue off the pedestal. In the temple of Minerva there, among other curious articles, was a wooden Jupiter, with an eye more than common, having one in the forehead. This statue, it was said, was once placed in a court of the palace of Priam, who fled as a suppliant to the altar before it, when Troy was sacked. In this city was also the brazen tower in which Danaë, being confined there by her father, was deflowered by Jupiter.

Argos retains its original name and situation, standing near the mountains which are the boundary of the plain, with Napoli and the sea in view before it. The shining houses are whitened with lime or plaster. Churches, mud-built cottages and walls, with gardens and open areas, are interposed, and the town is of considerable extent. Above the other buildings towers a very handsome mosque shaded with oleum cypresses; and behind is a lofty hill, brown and naked, of a conical form; the summit crowned with a neglected castle. The devastations of time and war have effaced the old city. We look in vain (says Mr Chandler) for vestiges of its numerous edifices, the theatre, the gymnasium, the temples, and monuments, which it once boasted, contending even with Athens in antiquity and in favours conferred by the gods.

ARGOS Amphilocheum, (Thucydides), a city of Arcania, (Scylax, Pliny); its territory Amphilochia situated on the east side of the Sinus Ambracius, (Thucydides); distant an hundred and eighty stadia to the south-east of Ambracia, (Polybius). Also called Argia Amphilochei, (Mela); Amphiloci and Amphilochei the people, (Stephanus). The name is from Amphilocheus, son of Amphiarus; and from Argos, the name of his country, in Peloponnesus, (Thucydides).

ARGOS Hippium. See Argos in Peloponnesus, supra.

Argos Hippium, the ancient name of Arpi; but Lampe is a still more ancient; afterwards called Argyrippa, and Argippa; built by, and the residence of, Diomedes, on the Cerbalus, (Virgil); afterwards a large and populous city, (Livy): A town of Apulia; now in ruins, and the place called Arpi.

ARGOS Pelaicum, (Homer); an appellation denoting Thessaly; so called from the Pelaigi.

ARGOS Portus, a port of Tuscany, (Strabo): now Porto Ferraro, in the north of the island Elba. E. Long. 11° 30'. Lat. 42° 35'.