Argos Travel Guide

Introduction

48km (30 miles) S of Corinth

There should be lots of impressive remains to visit here, but because modern Argos (pop. 20,000) is built precisely on top of the ancient city, there's little to see in town except the 4th-century theater, a hodgepodge of rather tedious remains across from the theater, and the museum. Repeated earthquakes during the last century left modern Argos with an undistinguished agglomeration of flat-roofed concrete buildings, with only the occasional neoclassical house. That said, the central plateia is lively and the street market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings is one of the largest in the Peloponnese. Still, it takes a vigorous imagination to visualize Argos as it was in its heyday in the 7th century B.C. Then, under the tyrant Pheidon, who is often credited with inventing coinage in Greece, Argos was the most powerful city in the entire Peloponnese. Out of town is a different story: The fortifications on Argos's twin citadels, the Aspis and the...