#argive plain

References to heroes may be found even at the Heraion site itself. Statues of various heroes among whom was Orestes, stood by its entrance. Many images of warriors, battle scenes painted on the jars and abundant images of mounted heroes painted on dedications, all found in the Heraion, show that in the Argive plain Hera was perceived as a war-goddess, a protector of the heroes. One can reasonably assume that these heroes were believed to have lived in the Mycenaean palaces and to have been buried in the Mycenaean burial caves, where they were worshipped together with their patroness, Hera.

The argument finds further support in the etymological associations of Hera’s name. Many attempts have been made to determine the etymological origin of the name ‘Hera’. In the present context I shall content myself with some basic points. It is commonly believed that Ἥρα is related to ἥρως (the common root being 'Her'). The proponents of this interpretation regard Heros as Hera’s ancient companion, or at least as a male correlate of the name ‘Hera’. It is assumed that ‘Hera’ means ‘a mature woman, ready for marriage’. However, scholars disagree on the identity of Hera’s mate. Though many would agree that the belief that Hera was Zeus’ wife arose only at a later date, some think the goddess’s original spouse was Heros and others believe him to have been Heracles. In her recently published book J.V. O’Brien deals thoroughly with the etymological linkage between ‘Hera’ and ‘Heros’. O’Brien argues that in Homeric Greek one can establish a link between the words ‘Hera’, ‘Heros’, ‘Heracles’ and ῶρη (season). O’Brien views one of Hera’s roles in the Argolid as that of the goddess of the seasons, and concludes that Heros is ‘he who belonged to the goddess of the seasons’. According to O’Brien, Hera, as a goddess of the seasons, is responsible for heroes’ birth and early death; Hera is the one who gives the heroes their energy and therefore their glory. I should accept, without committing myself to O’Brien’s specific conclusions in this respect, the general association of Hera with heroes, for this ties in with my hypothesis that for people in the Archaic period Hera represented the continuity with the Mycenaean past and mediated between them and their heroes.

Hera’s image in the Argive plain as a war-goddess, the patroness of the heroes and a privileged mediator with the Mycenaean past gains further corroboration from her cult centered in the Heraion. The main festival celebrated in the Heraion was the Heraia. … The Heraia was characterized primarily by competitions, such as chariot races, wrestling, boxing, and races. According to de Polignac, participation in the competitions re-enacted and ritualized two kinds of aristocratic rivalries — those between aristocracies of various small towns, and those within each aristocratic community, particularly Argos. He suggests a connection between the competition in the Heraion and the appearance of the claim to heroic status at Argos in the 8th century. The appearance of tripod cauldrons that were piled up in the Heraion in the 8th century may thus indicate an increasing desire to compete and to show off on the part of certain aristocracies.

The armed race was probably the main attraction in the festival, and the winner was presented with a bronze shield, perhaps symbolizing the shield used by young Danaos. This bronze shield was the main theme of many laudatory songs composed for the winners in Hera’s festival. According to Arnold the shield was holy to Hera, a local war-goddess, and played an important role in her cult in some regions in Greece. … More evidence for Hera’s association with war can be found in other areas of the Greek world: in Samos the Heraia festival opened with an armed procession, in Plataia an armed race was organized and in Elis Hera’s epithet was Oplosmia."

The following period in Argive history, misleadingly termed interregnum servile, ended when the sons of the killed warriors were old enough to take up their fathers’ legacy. Although the ‘slaves’ flee, to Tiryns, we have no evidence that this also entailed a return to oligarchy. Quite the contrary, whoever was in charge at Argos from the 470s or so onwards capitalized on what in 494 bc might have seemed the bad fortune of having to empower the dwellers-around. For this generation also spans the period when the Argives systematically get to grips with the Argive Plain by wiping out one by one Mykenai, Tiryns, and Midea during the 460s bc. How fully these cities were destroyed, however, is at least in the case of Tiryns open to debate: we have epigraphic notice of people fleeing, significantly, to the cities on the Akte, to Epidauros and to Halieis. Pausanias mentions— without giving an idea of the time frame—that the Argives incorporated the Tirynthians as synoikoi ‘because they wanted to enlarge their city’ and he also knows of the eponymous hero Tiryns turned into Argos’ son. Below we shall come across more such indications that the integration into Argos of Tiryns’ inhabitants together with their traditions was at least as prominent as was their expulsion. So while the supposed flattening of the three cities may have meant exile for some members of the local elites of the Plain, for others it entailed being synoikized into the socially restructured Argive polis. …

We can trace in some detail a new identity, plausibly a new community, being crafted in the Argeia. While with modern hindsight a redirection of the Plain’s religious traditions towards Argos may not appear spectacular, from an early fifth-century perspective the Argive appropriation and reinterpretation of the Plain’s rich traditions is baffling. We need to dig a little further into the utterly confusing pasts of the Plain, into a complexity that suggests the area’s great dynamism over a long period of time.

As discussed above, Argos overwhelmingly shares traditions with the Akte, much less with the rest of the Plain. On the other hand, Argives no doubt have a constant eye on the Plain, creating a rather irregular web of cults and associated mythical figures. Jonathan Hall has recently suggested some sort of system behind the dense grid of mythology covering the Plain, arguing for competitive traditions rooted at Argos and in the Eastern Plain respectively, each with an unfulfilled claim to control of the entire area. On that reading, Argos would be the hub of the descendants of King Proitos who culminate in the personnel of the Seven against Thebes. By contrast, the family of Perseus, producing Herakles and eventually the Atreids and Trojan warriors, are located in the Eastern Plain, particularly Mykenai. This division cannot be fully supported; but the tentative separation does account for the respective geographical clustering of traditions and, what is perhaps worth more, their monumentalization at Argos. The Seven, often neglected in favour of the greater warriors of Troy, are endowed with a sixth-century heroon in the centre of the Argive polis. Pausanias’ downtown Argos fully commemorates this set of heroes. By contrast, monuments to the Trojan War cycle are oblique and references certainly in Pausanias very general. This is so conspicuous that one starts wondering whether Herodotus’ important notice, that the warriors of Troy were the targets of Kleisthenes of Sikyon’s hatred against Argives, refers, rather than to a well-established presence of the Trojan cycle warriors at Argos, to Argive sixth-century myth-making rather than long-standing cultic reality. In the Eastern Plain, this situation is reversed; the heroes of Troy receive a full showing whilst the Seven are virtually absent.

Similarly, the current view that Hera dominates the cities of the Eastern Plain, but cedes precedence to Apollo and Athena as patrons of Argos itself is extreme, but in essence probably right. Argos, none the less, always had a keen eye to the Heraion in the Eastern Plain which symbolized control of the entire Argeia and, more importantly, its traditions. If the Spartan king Kleomenes chooses the Heraion for a sacrifice marking the end of his campaign against Argos after Sepeia, this should be taken seriously, symbolizing Argive claims perhaps more than Argive realities in the early fifth century. However, archaeology warns that a privileged relationship of Argos to the Heraion is difficult to prove prior to the mid-fifth century; rather, it is Mykenai that cultivates this goddess; and Hera guards the cities of the Eastern Plain, whilst at Argos she is less prominent. Fifth-century Argive flattening of the Eastern Plain and subsequent synoikism inverses the distribution of these figures of myth and cult when the Seven march into the Plain, and the inhabitants of the Plain, the Heraion, Herakles, and the warriors of Troy, take an Argive direction. The Heraion at Prosymna in the course of the fifth century came under Argive auspices; a new temple was built in the 460s, the festival restructured, and the Heraia, games in honour of Hera, were either introduced from scratch, or elevated to Panhellenic status."