How Argive Was the "Argive" Heraion? The Political and Cultic Geography of the Argive Plain, 900–400 B. C.

The Sanctuary of Hera on the eastern limits of the Argive Plain has, in recent years, figured prominently in accounts seeking to describe the process of Greek state formation. There has been a general consensus that the establishment of the sanctuary in the Geometric period served to delimit the territory of the nascent city of Argos and to establish Argive domination over the Plain, to the detriment of the neighboring communities of Mycenae and Tiryns. This article reexamines the evidence for the Heraion and its position within the Argive Plain from an explicitly interdisciplinary point of view, drawing on archaeological, historical, linguistic, and mythological data. It attempts to demonstrate that the territory of Argos was not coterminous with the entire Argive Plain in the eighth century B. C.; that there were distinct cultural differences between the eastern and western sides of the Plain; that the Heraion is accommodated more easily within the religious and cultural traditions of the eastern Plain; and finally, that there was no major change in this state of affairs until the mid-fifth century B. C.