ABSTRACT
The primitive situation was changed first by the enlargement of the Argive state to include the other communities of the Argolid at a politically subservient level. The Dorian ascendancy now became wealthy and began to taste real political power. Aristotle does not explain precisely what he meant by traditional monarchy, or the historical facts on which he based his argument; perhaps he assumed that these were universally known, or had been made clear by contemporary historians. The name of the fourth Argive tribe, the Hyrnathioi, first appears in inscriptions of the fifth century BC and it is possible that it was not fully integrated into the Argive constitution until that date. If the annihilation of the Argive army was not quite so complete as the Argive apologists who told Herodotus their version of what happened would have him believe, there could still have been enough individuals surviving of Dorian origin to hold the necessary offices.
