More light has been thrown by ancient authors on the history of the states in the northeast quarter of Peloponnesus, those of Argolis in the largest sense of the word. At Argos itself, regal government subsisted down to the Persian wars, although the line of the Heraclid princes appears to have become extinct toward the middle of the preceding century. Pausanias remarks, that, from a very early period, the Argives were led by their peculiarly independent spirit to limit the prerogatives of their kings so narrowly as to leave them little more than the name. We cannot however place much reliance on such a general reflection of a late writer. But we have seen that Phidon, who, about the year 750 B.C., extended the power of Argos farther than any of his predecessors, also stretched the royal authority so much beyond its legitimate bounds, that he is sometimes called a tyrant, though he was rightful heir of Temenus. After his death, as his conquests appear to have been speedily lost, so it is probable that his successors were unable to maintain the ascendancy which he had gained over his Dorian subjects, and the royal dignity may henceforth have been, as Pausanias describes it, little more than a title. Hence, too, on the failure of the ancient line, about B.C. 560, Ægon, though of a different family, may have met with the less opposition in mounting the throne. The substance of power rested with the Dorian freemen: in what manner it was distributed among them we can only conjecture from analogy. Their lands were cultivated by a class of serfs, corresponding to the Spartan helots, who served in war as light-armed troops, whence they derived their peculiar name, “gymnesii.” They were also sovereigns of a few towns, the inhabitants of which, like the Laconians subject to Sparta, though personally free, were excluded from all share in their political privileges. The events which put an end to this state of things, and produced an entire change in the form of government at Argos, will be hereafter related.