[
7]
Now the city of the Argives
1 is for the most part situated in a plain, but it has for a citadel the place called Larisa, a hill that is fairly well fortified and contains a temple of Zeus. And near the city flows the Inachus, a torrential river that has its sources in Lyrceius, the mountain that is near Cynuria in Arcadia.
2 But concerning the sources of which mythology tells us, they are fabrications of poets, as I have already said.
3 And "waterless Argos" is also a fabrication, ("but the gods made Argos well watered "),
4 since the country lies in a hollow, and is traversed by rivers, and contains marshes and lakes, and since the city is well supplied with waters of many wells whose water level reaches the surface. So critics find the cause of the mistake in this verse: “"And in utter shame would I return to
πολυδίψιον5 Argos."
”
6πολυδίψιον either is used for
πολυπόθητον, i.e., "much longed for." or, omitting the
δ, for
πολυΐψιον, i.e., "very destructive." in the sense of
πολύφθορον,
7 as in the phrase of Sophocles, “"and the
πολύφθορον home of the Pelopidae there;"
”
8 for the words
προϊάψαι and
ἰάψαι , and
ἴψασθαι signify a kind of destruction or affliction: “"Now he is merely making trial, but soon he will afflict
9 the sons of the Achaeans;"
”
10“"mar
11 her fair flesh; "
”
12“"untimely sent
13 to Hades."
”
14And besides, Homer does not mean the city of Argos (for it was not thither that Agamemnon was about to return), but the Peloponnesus, which certainly is not a "thirsty" land either. Moreover some critics, retaining the
δ, interpret the word by the figure hyperbaton and as a case of synaloepha with the connective
δέ,
15 so that the verse would read thus: "And in utter shame would I return
πολὺ δ᾽ ἴψιον Ἄργος," that is to say, "would I return
πολυίψιον Ἄργοσδε," where
Ἄργοσδε stands for
εἰς Ἄργος.