ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book outlines that in the Heroic time of the Late Bronze Age, before history was written and great events and great names were recorded only in traditions handed down by word of mouth, the region round Argos, the 'Argolid', was about the most important in all Greece. By contrast, in historic times Classical Argos is a neglected area. Increasingly Argos was involved in a struggle to maintain her independence, and in a history that inevitably reflects the Spartan or Athenian point of view, her struggles often involve her in action that appears to condemn her as a traitor to Hellenism, in her readiness to make friends with the enemies of that other Greek world of Sparta and Athens, first with the King of Persia, and then, more successfully, with the kings of Macedon.
