Book 8
6.19
Mycenae exists no longer. It was founded by Perseus. Sthenelus succeeded Perseus; and Eurystheus, Sthenelus. These same persons were kings of Argos also. It is said that Eurystheus, having engaged, with the assistance of the Athenians, in an expedition to Marathon against the descendants of Hercules and Iolaus, fell in battle, and that the remainder of his body was buried at Gargettus, but his head apart from it at TricorythusTricorythus in place of Corinth is the suggestion of Coray. (Corinth?), Iolaus having severed it from the body near the fountain Macaria, close to the chariot-road. The spot itself has the name of Eurystheus’-head.
6.19
Mycenae then passed into the possession of the Pelopidae who had left the Pisatis, then into that of the Heracleidaae, who were also masters of Argos. But after the sea-fight at Salamis, the Argives, together with the Cleonaei, and the Tegetae, invaded Mycenae, and razed it, and divided the territory among themselves. The tragic writers, on account of the proximity of the two cities, speak of them as one, and use the name of one for the other. Euripides in the same play calls the same city in one place Mycenae, and in another Argos, as in the Iphigeneia,Iph. Taur. 508 et seq. and in the Orestes.Orest. 98, 101, 1246.
6.19
Cleonae is a town situated upon the road leading from Argos to Corinth, on an eminence, which is surrounded on all sides by dwellings, and well fortified, whence, in my opinion, Cleonae was properly described as well built. There also, between Cleonae and Phlius, is Nemea, and the grove where it was the custom of the Argives to celebrate the Nemean games: here is the scene of the fable of the Nemean Lion, and here also the village Bembina. Cleonae is distant from Argos 120 stadia, and 80 from Corinth. And we have ourselves beheld the city from the Acrocorinthus.
