Location information

Argos Oresticum

  Argos Oresticum (Argos Orestikon), the chief town of the Orestae, said to have been founded by Orestes, when he fled from Argos after the murder of his mother. (Strab. vii. p. 326.) Strabo places these Orestae in Epirus; and they must probably be distinguished from the Macedonian Orestae, who dwelt near the sources of the Haliacmon, on the frontiers of Illyria. Stephanus B. (s. v. Argos) mentions an Argos in Macedonia, as well as Argos Oresticum; and Hierocles also speaks of a Macedonian Argos. Moreover, Ptolemy (iii. 13. § § 5, 22) distinguishes clearly between an Epirot and a Macedonian Orestias, assigning to each a town Amantia. Hence the Macedonian Argos appears to have been a different place from Argos Oresticum. The former was probably situated in the plain of Anaselitza, near the sources of the Haliacmon, which plain is called Argestaeus Campus by Livy (xxvii. 33; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 121, who, however, confounds the Macedonian Argos with Argos Oresticum). The site of Argos Oresticum is uncertain; but a modern writer places it near Ambracia, since Stephanus calls the Orestae a Molossian people. (Tafel, in Pauly's Realencycl. vol. i. p. 738.)

This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD)
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...