17.

The poet frequently speaks of places in succession as they are situated;

“they who inhabited Hyria, and Aulis;”208

“and they who occupied Argos, and Tiryns,

Hermione, and Asine,

Trœzen, and Eïones.”209

At other times he does not observe any order;

“Schœnus, and Scolus,

Thespeia, and Græa.”210

He also mentions together places on the continent and islands

“they who held Ithaca,

and inhabited Crocyleia,”211

for Crocyleia is in Acarnania. Thus he here joins with Ægina Mases, which belongs to the continent of Argolis.

Homer does not mention Thyreæ, but other writers speak of it as well known. It was the occasion of a contest between the three hundred Argives against the same number of Lacedæmonians; the latter were conquerors by means of a stratagem of Othryadas. Thucydides places Thyreæ in Cynuria, on the confines of Argia and Laconia.212

Hysiæ also is a celebrated place in Argolica; and Cenchreæ, which lies on the road from Tegea to Argos, over the mountain Parthenius, and the Creopolus.213 But Homer was not acquainted with either of these places, [nor with the Lyrceium, nor Orneæ, and yet they are villages in the Argian territory; the former of the same name as the mountain there; the latter of the same name as the Orneæ, situated between Corinth and Sicyon].214