But what does the Ἄργος ἱππόβοτον mean? It is demonstrable that in Homer the word Ἄργος has several meanings. 1. It is a city, as in Il. iv. 51, ἤτοι ἐμοὶ τρεῖς μὲν πολὺ φίλταται εἰσὶ πόληες Ἄργος τε, Σπάρτη τε, καὶ εὐρυάγυια Μυκήνη. τὰς διαπέρσαι κ.τ.λ. 2. It is a limited territory, probably such as was afterwards the State of Argolis. For when Telemachus is quitting Sparta, Theoclymenus joins him[648], φεύγων ἐξ Ἄργεος. And again, when Melampus quitted Pylos, he came to Argos: ὁ δ’ ἄλλων ἵκετο δῆμον Ἄργος ἐς ἱππόβοτον[649]. The first proves that Sparta was not included in the geographical name Ἄργος: the second proves the same of Pylos: and this too is the Ἄργος ἱππόβοτον. The same phrase is used in Od. iii. 263, of Ægisthus, who endeavours to corrupt Clytemnestra, μυχῷ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο. Here Mycenæ is plainly meant by the μυχὸς, and the Ἄργος ἱππόβοτον is Argolis, or something like it. This district, including Mycenæ, was the head quarter of the Greek power. Now we find that the whole dominion of Priam was named Τροίη, while including many cities and much territory, and the name Τροίη was also sometimes applied to the capital, of which the proper name was Ilion. So Venezia at the present day means both a city and a territory, even though the city is outside the territory; the only distinction lying in the use or non-use of the article. Therefore it was sufficiently natural, that the Trojan herald should name the whole from the most excellent part, and so identify them: and on the other hand, it would not be otherwise than natural, were he to name the most excellent part, and likewise to name the whole, without verbally distinguishing them. So that in Il. iii. 75, 258, the phrase Ἄργος ἐς ἱππόβοτον, according to what has preceded, may either mean, 1. The part of the Peloponnesus containing Argos and Mycenæ as its head quarter, (and then the line must be interpreted in the third of the modes above pointed out; as we might now say, ‘we visited Rome and Italy.’) 2. Or it may mean the whole of Greece, by transfer from its capital part, and then the line must be interpreted in the second mode, as might now be said, ‘to our Green Erin, our Ireland mother of the brave.’ The English ‘and’ would indeed mar the sense: but the Greek καὶ is much more elastic, and may be equivalent to the Italian _ossia_, or to the sign =. I doubt if there be any passage in Homer where the word Argos stands alone, or with a characteristic epithet such as ἱππόβοτον, and where it requires any other sense than one of the three just given--the city--the north east of Peloponnesus--and (by metonymy) all Greece. When Nestor (Il. ii. 348) denounces those Greeks who should think of returning home before the mind of Jupiter is known, and calls returning Ἄργοσδε ἰέναι, it seems indisputable that we must construe Ἄργος Greece.