_b._ Argos. Even previously to the Dorian migration, the country of Argolis was parcelled out into several small kingdoms, such as those of Argos, Mycenae, and Tiryns. In Argos, the oldest Grecian state next to Sicyon, ruled the forefathers of Perseus, who exchanged the kingdom of his ancestors for Tiryns: here his successors continued to reign till the time of Hercules, whose sons, expelled by Eurystheus, sought an asylum among the Dorians.--In Mycenae, said to have been built by Perseus, the throne was occupied by the family of Pelops: and at the period of the Trojan war, this little state, to which Corinth and Sicyon then belonged, was the most powerful in Greece, and governed by Agamemnon. The migration into this country by Pelops from Asia Minor, must have been attended with important consequences, since it has given a name to the whole peninsula: the object of Pelops, as we may infer from the riches he brought with him, was probably to establish a trading settlement.--At the Dorian conquest Argos fell to the share of Temenus, the Achaeans were expelled, and the country was peopled by Dorians. As early as the reign of Cisus, son of Temenus, the royal power was so limited, that the successors of that prince hardly preserved any thing but the mere name: about 984 the regal dignity was wholly abrogated, and its place supplied by a republican constitution, concerning the domestic organization of which we know nothing more than that at Argos the government was in the hands of a senate, ([Greek: boule],) of a college of eighty citizens, ([Greek: hoi ogdoekonta],) and of magistrates, who bore the name of [Greek: artynoi]: in Epidaurus, however, there was a body of one hundred and eighty citizens who chose from among themselves the senate, the members of which were called [Greek: artynoi]. As in the other states of Greece so in Argolis, there were as many independent states as there were cities; in the north Argos, Mycenae, and Tiryns; in the south Epidaurus and Troezen. The two last preserved their independence; but Mycenae was destroyed by the Argives in 425, and the inhabitants of Tiryns were forcibly transplanted to Argos. The district of Argos, therefore, comprised the northern portion of the country called Argolis; but not the southern portion, which belonged to the towns situated therein.