Travels through History : The Peloponnese – Argos

This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book called Travels through History : The Peloponnese.

This is the oldest city in Greece, with excavations revealing activity dating back 5,000 years to roughly 3000 BC. As you might expect, there’s a legend attached to Argos, and it involves our friend Zeus once again. An oracle warned King Acrisius of Argos that one day his grandson would kill him. To prevent any chance of this happening, he locked away his beautiful daughter, Danae, so that no man could ever reach her. Of course, this didn’t stop Zeus, who appeared to Danae as a shower of gold, and Perseus, the demi-god, was born. This upset Acrisius somewhat, and he set Danae and Perseus adrift on the Mediterranean in a wooden box. 

As luck would have it, they landed on the shores of a Cyclades island called Seriphos. When Perseus grew up, he found time to kill Medusa using her reflection in his shield to locate her. He then returned to Argos. The feelings of Acrisius are not recorded, but whatever they were, they didn’t stop him attending the ceremonial games where Perseus was competing in the discus. Acrisius presumably wasn’t watching and had forgotten the oracle’s prophecy because a discus thrown by Perseus hit him on the head. He died, but Perseus refused to become king, instead he became king of Tiryns.   

When I visited Argos, I was the only person visiting the theatre and the agora on the opposite of the road. According to the information, the seating on the steep terrace could hold 20,000 people, far more than the theatre at Epidaurus. I found this difficult to believe. To the left of the theatre are the ruins of an odeon dating from the 2nd Century AD, as well as some large Roman baths dating from the same century. The theatre is on quite a slope, so you have to be careful walking on the smooth seats as you head up and down the hill. 

On the opposite side of the road is the agora with some notable features, including another small theatre, a gallery, a nymphaeum, a large drain, and a column hall. Photographers should keep careful notes about their photos, as most of the ruins look rather similar.