Now Prœtus was certainly not lord of Greece. There was no lord paramount of Greece before the Pelopids: and near the time of Prœtus we have Eurystheus, Œneus and his line, Cadmus and his line, Neleus and his line, Minos and his line, as well as probably other thrones, each in its own place. But Prœtus falls within the period of the Perseids, and within the local circumscription of the Eastern Peloponnesus where they reigned. 2. But neither is Eurystheus spoken of by Homer as sovereign of Greece; though he is king of the Argives[686], ὃς Ἀργείοισιν ἀνάξει. For when Juno fraudulently asks and obtains from Jupiter the promise that the person to be born that day shall enjoy a certain sovereignty, it is not over the Argives, but over the περικτίονες: ἦ μὲν τὸν πάντεσσι περικτιόνεσσιν ἀνάξειν ὅς κεν ἐπ’ ἤματι τῷδε πέσῃ μετὰ ποσσὶ γυναικός. Thus the promise is the babe shall reign over περικτίονες, a word clearly inapplicable to the whole of that straggling territory, which was occupied irregularly by the Greeks. But when the fulfilment is claimed, it is that he shall reign over Ἀργεῖοι. Therefore the two names are coextensive, and accordingly Ἀργεῖοι does not mean all Greeks; for example, it does not include the line of Cadmus then ruling in Bœotia. 3. But we come down to the time of Tydeus, who was lord of Argos during the epoch of the Pelopid sovereigns. And now we find that his subjects cease to be called Ἀργεῖοι (see Il. v. 803. iv. 384) in the legends, where Homer observes a peculiar nicety in the application of these important words. _Local sense of the former name retained._ 4. Still the Argeian name continues to preserve its local application to the inhabitants of Argos and its district, or of Achaic Argos. At the games on the death of Patroclus, Idomeneus thinks he discerns Diomed coming in as the winner, and he describes him thus: δοκέει δέ μοι ἔμμεναι ἀνὴρ Αἴτωλος γενέην, μετὰ δ’ Ἀργείοισιν ἀνάσσει[687]. It is plain that here Idomeneus means among Argives, and not among Greeks. 1. Because not Diomed was lord among the Greeks, but Agamemnon. 2. Because Diomed was lord over a part of the Argives. 3. Because the word is used in evident contradistinction to, and correspondence with, the foregoing word Αἴτωλος, which is undoubtedly local. Again, when we are told that Orestes made a funeral feast for the Ἀργεῖοι[688], we may probably presume that we have here again the local sense.