Ancient Argos in the context of "Melia (consort of Inachus)"

The First Peloponnesian War (460–445 BC) was fought between Sparta as the leaders of the Peloponnesian League and Sparta's other allies, most notably Thebes, and the Delian League led by Athens with support from Argos. This war consisted of a series of conflicts and minor wars, such as the Second Sacred War. There were several causes for the war including the building of the Athenian long walls, Megara's defection and the envy and concern felt by Sparta at the growth of the Athenian Empire.

The First Peloponnesian War began in 460 BC with the Battle of Oenoe, where Spartan forces were defeated by those of Athenian-Argive alliance. At first the Athenians had the better of the fighting, winning the naval engagements using their superior fleet. They also had the better of the fighting on land, until 457 BC when the Spartans and their allies defeated the Athenian army at Tanagra. The Athenians, however, counterattacked and scored a crushing victory over the Boeotians at the Battle of Oenophyta and followed this victory up by conquering all of Boeotia except for Thebes.

Cleisthenes (/ˈklaɪsθɪniːz/ KLYSSE-thin-eez; Ancient Greek: Κλεισθένης) was the tyrant of Sicyon from c. 600–560 BC, who aided in the First Sacred War against Kirrha that destroyed that city in 595 BC. He was also said to have organized a successful war against Argos because of his anti-Dorian feelings. After his victory he abolished all the rhapsodes of Homer, because they praised the citizens of Argos. The key innovation of his reign, which Herodotus mentions, was the reformation of the tribal system in the city of Sicyon. Herodotus states that he gave new names to the four tribes of Sicyon, calling his own tribe "Rulers of the People" and naming the other three tribes after swine, donkeys, and pigs. However, Herodotus does not describe the nature of Cleisthenes' reform. Whatever it was, all the tribes kept their new names for sixty years after Cleisthenes' death.

Cleisthenes of Sicyon organized a competition whose prize would be marriage to his beautiful daughter Agariste. The two main competitors were the Alcmaeonid Megacles and Hippocleides. Because Hippocleides made a fool of himself by dancing drunkenly in front of Cleisthenes, Megacles was chosen to marry Agariste.

Phlius (/ˈflaɪəs/; Ancient Greek: Φλιοῦς) or Phleius (Φλειοῦς) was an independent polis (city-state) in the northeastern part of Peloponnesus. Phlius' territory, called Phliasia (Φλιασία), was bounded on the north by Sicyonia, on the west by Arcadia, on the east by Cleonae, and on the south by Argolis. This territory is a small valley about 900 feet (270 m) above the level of the sea, surrounded by mountains, from which streams flow down on every side, joining the river Asopus in the middle of the plain. The mountain in the southern part of the plain, from which the principal source of the Asopus springs, was called Carneates (Καρνεάτης). The territory of Phlius was celebrated in antiquity for its wine. According to Strabo, the ancient capital of the country was Araethyrea (Ἀραιθυρέα) on Mt. Celosse, which city is mentioned by Homer; but the inhabitants subsequently deserted it and built Phlius at the distance of 30 stadia. Pausanias, however, does not speak of any migration, but says that the ancient capital was named Arantia (Ἀραντία), from its founder Aras, an autochthon, that it was afterwards called Araethyrea from a daughter of Aras, and that it finally received the name of Phlius, from Phlias, a son of Ceisus and grandson of Temenus. The name of Arantia was retained in the time of Pausanias in the hill Arantinus, on which the city stood. Hence the statement of grammarians that both Arantia and Araethyrea were ancient names of Phlius. According to Stephanus of Byzantium, Phlius derived its name from Dionysus and Chthonophyle. Phlius was subsequently conquered by Dorians under Rhegnidas, who came from Sicyon. Some of the inhabitants migrated to Samos, others to Clazomenae; among the settlers at Samos was Hippasus, from whom Pythagoras derived his descent.

Like most of the other Doric states, Phlius was governed by an aristocracy, though it was for a time subject to a tyrant Leon, a contemporary of Pythagoras. Phlius sent 200 soldiers to the Battle of Thermopylae, and 1000 to the Battle of Plataea. Although geographically close to Argos, it was an ally of Sparta and a member of the Peloponnesian League. During the whole of the Peloponnesian War it remained faithful to Sparta and hostile to Argos.

Thermos (/ˈθɜːrmɒs/; also known as Thermon /ˈθɜːrmən/, Thermum; Ancient Greek: Θέρμος or Thermika) was an ancient Greek sanctuary, which served as the regular meeting place of the Aetolian League. Its focal point was the temple of Apollo Thermios of about 630 to 610 BC, "one of the earliest developed Doric temples known and a monument of primary importance for our knowledge of the history of Greek architecture". The most famous survivals are the Archaic terracotta metopes decorated with painted scenes from mythology, which are among the earliest examples of this art form in Greece. What is left of these, and other finds from the site, are now in the museum at Thermos, with a selection of the best pieces in National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Thermos was not a city in the sense of a built-up urban centre like Athens, Argos or Corinth and until a late date the Aetolian League was a loose association with a tribal basis rather than a group of city-states.

The Nemean Games (Ancient Greek: Νέμεα or Νέμεια) were one of the four Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece, and were held at Nemea every two years (or every third).

With the Isthmian Games, the Nemean Games were held both the year before and the year after the Ancient Olympic Games and the Pythian Games in the third year of the Olympiad cycle. Like the Olympic Games, they were held in honour of Zeus. They were said to have been founded by Heracles after he defeated the Nemean lion; another myth said that they originated as the funeral games of a child named Opheltes. However, they are known to have existed only since the 6th century BC (from 573 BC, or earlier). The winners received a wreath of wild celery leaves from the city of Argos.

In Greek mythology, Hyrnetho (Ancient Greek: Ὑρνηθώ, romanized: Hurnēthṓ) was a daughter of Temenus, and the wife of Deiphontes, by whom she became mother of Antimenes, Xanthippus, Argeius, and Orsobia.

Temenus favored his daughter Hyrnetho and her husband Deiphontes more than his sons, Hyrnetho's brothers, and planned on making Deiphontes his heir. His sons plotted against him and killed him, but nevertheless, the kingdom of Argos passed to Deiphontes and Hyrnetho, since the army supported them rather than Temenus' sons; alternately, the kingdom was seized by Ceisus, the eldest son of Temenus.

In Greek mythology, Opus (Ancient Greek: Ὀπόεις) may refer to the following characters:

• Opus I, king of the Epeians and son of Zeus by Protogeneia, daughter of Deucalion. Opus was the father of Cambyse or Protogeneia who was carried off by Zeus to Mt. Maenalus in Arcadia where she bore a son, the below Opus who was then adopted by Locrus as his own child, for the latter was barren.
• Opus II, son of Locrus or Zeus by Cabya or Cambyse and thus a grandson of Opus I. From him, a portion of the Locris derived their name Opuntii. Locrus gave Opus a city and a people to govern and strangers came to him from Argos, Thebes, Arcadia and Pisa. But among the settlers, he chiefly honored the son of Actor and Aegina, Menoetius who became the father of Patroclus. In some accounts, after a quarrel between Opus and his father Locrus, the former took a great number of the citizens with him and went to seek an oracle about transplanting a new colony. The oracle told him to build a city where he should chance to be bitten by a wooden dog, and as he was crossing to the other sea, Opus trod upon a cynosbatus (a sweet brier). Greatly troubled by the wound, he spent several days there, during which he explored the country and found the cities Physcus and Oeantheia and the other cities which the so-called Ozolian Locrians inhabited. Opus was the father of Cynus, father of Hodoedocus, father of Oileus, father of Ajax the Lesser.

The Seven against Thebes were seven champions in Greek mythology who made war on Thebes. They were chosen by Adrastus, the king of Argos, to be the captains of an Argive army whose purpose was to restore Oedipus' son Polynices to the Theban throne. Adrastus, although always the leader of the expedition against Thebes, was not always counted as one of the Seven champions. Usually the Seven were Polynices, Tydeus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Parthenopaeus, Hippomedon, and either Adrastus or Eteoclus, when Adrastus is excluded. They tried and failed to take Thebes, and all but Adrastus died in the attempt.

On their way to Thebes, the Seven stopped at Nemea, where they held funeral games for the infant Opheltes, which became the origin myth for the Nemean Games. Before arriving at Thebes, Adrastus sent Tydeus on ahead to resolve the dispute through negotiation, which failed. At Thebes, Capaneus was struck down by Zeus' thunderbolt while attempting to scale the city walls. Tydeus was mortally wounded, and although Athena intended to make him immortal, she let him die when she saw him eating the brains of his attacker. Polynices was killed by (and killed) his brother Eteocles, the seer Amphiaraus was swallowed up by the earth, and Adrastus escaped the battlefield on his divine horse Arion. The victorious Thebans refused to allow the burial of the Argive dead, but Theseus marched an Athenian army to Thebes and recovered the bodies of the fallen warriors.

Polyxo (/pəˈlɪksoʊ/; Ancient Greek: Πολυξώ Poluxṓ) is the name of several figures in Greek mythology:

• Polyxo, one of the 3,000 Oceanids, water-nymph daughters of the Titans Oceanus and his sister-wife Tethys.
• Polyxo, one of the Hyades.
• Polyxo, a Naiad of the river Nile, presumably one of the daughters of the river-god Nilus. She was one of the wives of King Danaus of Libya and bore him twelve daughters: Autonoe, Theano, Electra, Cleopatra, Eurydice, Glaucippe, Anthelea, Cleodora, Euippe, Erato, Stygne, and Bryce. They married twelve sons of King Aegyptus of Egypt and Caliadne, Polyxo's sister, and murdered them on their wedding night. According to Hippostratus, Danaus had all of his progeny by a single woman, Europe, also daughter of Nilus. In some accounts, he married Melia, daughter of his uncle Agenor, king of Tyre.
• Polyxo, mother of Antiope and possibly Nycteis by Nycteus.
• Polyxo, mother of Actorion. She came to invite Triopas and Erysichthon to her son's wedding, but Erysichthon's mother had to answer that her own son was not coming, as he had been wounded by a boar during hunt. The truth was that Erysichthon was dealing with the insatiable hunger sent upon him by the angry Demeter.
• Polyxo, a Lemnian, nurse of Hypsipyle and a seeress. She advised that the Lemnian women conceive children with the Argonauts, as all the men on the island had previously been killed.
• Polyxo, a native of Argos, who married Tlepolemus. She received Helen after the latter had been driven out of Sparta, but when Helen was bathing, several handmaidens sent by Polyxo, seized her and hanged her from a tree.
• Polyxo, a Maenad in the retinue of Dionysus who attempted to kill Lycurgus of Thrace.
• Polyxo (or Polyzo), a sister of Meleager.