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[7]

The greater part of the city of the Argives is situated in a plain. It has a citadel called Larisa, a hill moderately fortified, and upon it a temple of Jupiter. Near it flows the Inachus, a torrent river; its source is in Lyrceium [the Arcadian mountain near Cynuria]. We have said before that the fabulous stories about its sources are the inventions of poets; it is a fiction also that Argos is without water— “ but the gods made Argos a land without water.

” Now the ground consists of hollows, it is intersected by rivers, and is full of marshes and lakes; the city also has a copious supply of water from many wells, which rises near the surface.

They attribute the mistake to this verse,

“ and I shall return disgraced to Argos (πολυδιψιον) the very thirsty.1

Il. iv. 171.
This word is used for πολυπόθητον, or “ much longed after,

” or without the δ for πολυίψιον, equivalent to the expression πολύφθορον in Sophocles,

“ this house of the Pelopidæ abounding in slaughter,

Sophocles, El. 10.
[for ποͅοϊάψαι and ἰάψαι and ἴψασθαι, denote some injury or destruction; ‘at present he is making the attempt, and he will soon-destroy (ἴψεται) the sons of the Achæi;’2 and again, lest

“ she should injure (ἰάψνͅ) her beautiful skin;3

Od. ii. 376.
and,

“ has prematurely sent down, προί̂αψεν, to Ades.4]5

Il. i. 3.

Besides, he does not mean the city Argos, for it was not thither that he was about to return, but he meant Peloponnesus, which, certainly, is not a thirsty land.

With respect to the letter δ, they introduce the conjunction by the figure hyperbaton, and make an elision of the vowel, so that the verse would run thus, “ και κεν ἐλὲγχιστος, πολὺ δ᾽ ἴψιον ῎αργος ἱκοίμην,

” that is, πολυίψιον ῎αοͅγοσδε ἱκοίμην, instead of, εἰς ῎αοͅγος.

1 Il. iv. 171.

2 Il. ii. 193.

3 Od. ii. 376.

4 Il. i. 3.

5 Probably an interpolation. Meineke.

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