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The meaning seems to be: ‘The Cynurians being autochthonous, appear to be Ionians, and the only ones left in the Peloponnese’ (the Aegialians having been driven out). Pausanias (iii. 2. 2 λέγονται δὲ οἱ Κυνουρεῖς Ἀργεῖοι τὸ ἀνέκαθεν εἶναι, καὶ οἰκιστήν φασιν αὐτῶν Κύνουρον γενέσθαι τοῦ Περσέως) would derive them from the preDorian inhabitants of Argos. It is probable that they belong to the aboriginal population, but there seems no special reason for holding them to be Ionic. H. here as elsewhere (cf. i. 56) makes Ionians a branch of Pelasgi.

Apparently the town Orneae (about thirteen miles north-west of Argos) was reduced by Argos to a status similar to that of the Laconian Perioecic towns under Sparta. Hence all the other Perioeci of Argos were termed Orneatae; cf. the Caerites at Rome. Stein holds that καὶ περίοικοι is an adscript, on the grounds that Cynuria had belonged to Sparta at least since about 550 B. C. (i. 82; Thuc. v. 41), and that the Argive Perioeci, some of whom are said to have been enfranchised (Ar. Pol. 1303 a 8), and who were all, including the Orneatae (Thuc. v. 67), treated as σύμμαχοι (Thuc. v. 47, 77), had been united with Argos (Paus. viii. 27. 1). But περίοικοι may well be an explanation of Ὀρνεᾶται.

ἐκ τοῦ μέσου κατέατο: cf. 22. 2. This implies a condemnation of the Argives; cf. vii. 148 f.

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