6. Although from the foregoing accounts it appears that Argos almost entirely lost its power over the towns which it had been the means of bringing under the rule of the Dorians, yet in early times there existed certain obligations on the part of these cities towards Argos, which at a later period became mere forms. There was in Argos, upon the Larissa, a temple of Apollo Pythaëus, which had probably been erected soon after the invasion of the Dorians, as a sanctuary of the national deity who had led them into the country. It was a temple common to all the surrounding district, though belonging more particularly to the Argives.(310) The Epidaurians were bound at certain seasons to send sacrifices to it.(311) The Dryopians in early times, and afterwards also, in their character of Craugallidæ, or servants of the Delphian god, had at Asine and Hermione erected temples to Apollo Pythaëus, in acknowledgment of a similar dependence; and this was the only one spared by the Argives at the destruction of the former town.(312)
7. The fragments preserved respecting the ancient history of the DRYOPIANS having been collected in a previous chapter,(313) we shall here only remark that this people possessed a considerable district in the most southern part of Argolis, the boundaries of which, so long as they remained inviolate, were defined by two points, viz. the temple of Demeter Thermesia on the frontier between Hermione and Trœzen, eighty stadia from Cape Scyllæum, and a hill between Asine, Epidaurus, and Trœzen,(314) and they may still be pointed out with tolerable certainty. Hercules, who, according to the Doric tradition, brought the Dryopians hither, had accurately marked out these boundaries. It is, however, also related that the Dryopians established themselves beyond these limits at Nemea(315) in Argolis: this, however, as well as Olympia, was not any particular town, but merely the name of a valley, and particularly of a temple of Zeus there situated.