Francis Croissant, former general secretary of the French School at Athens, handed over to Marcel Piérart in 1974 the resumption of the excavations on the agora at Argos with Jean-Paul Thalmann: this was the beginning of more than 40 years of research on the city of ‘illustrious Argos’. This work in Argos inspired the present volume, conceived by Curty and other colleagues from Fribourg, following the tradition of paying homage to a professor, in this case to Piérart, emeritus since 2015.

The volume gives to scholarship a collection of Piérart's main articles devoted to the city of Argos. Among the entire bibliography of Piérart, about 70 entries concern Argos; the 19 published here deal mainly with political and institutional aspects of the city. The works on mythology and religion as well as the publications on Book 2 of Pausanias will be reissued elsewhere. The volume is organised in six sections, which offers the opportunity to put together articles written in different periods of Piérart's career. Piérart was thus able to link them to new archaeological or epigraphical discoveries and to make some corrections or additions to older hypotheses. The first section, ‘Introduction’, contains a single and recent contribution by Piérart on the excavations conducted by Wilhelm Vollgraff at Argos between 1902 and 1930, mainly on the Aspis, on the acropolis of the Larisa and on the agora. He admires the modesty of the Dutch scholar and his ability to modify his outdated hypotheses. Section 2 deals with the city, its territory and borders. Four articles written in the 1990s and 2000s address several important topics, such as the topography, the genesis of this ‘old’ city, the water supply and the layout of the fortifications. The discovery of the ‘Treasure of Pallas’ in Corinth Street in 2001 (containing part of the financial record of the city) questioned the location of the city walls: Piérart adds a recent note to the second article to take this decisive find into account, answering a controversial question. He develops his reflections on the Argive territory, the ‘Argeia’, its relationship both to neighbouring cities and to the Laconian territories. He analyses the literary and the epigraphical sources from the Archaic to the Roman period on the evolution of the borders of Argos and Argolis.

The relationship of Argos to its neighbours is taken up with the issue of the ‘politeia’ of the city, the subject of the third section. Since the 1980s Piérart has discussed the advent and the nature of democracy as well as the composition of the democratic institutions of Argos. He strives to demonstrate in particular the relative disappearance of phylai for the benefit of phatrai and then, maybe from 338 bce, of komai in the designation of citizens, thanks to the epigraphical sources, whereas the analysis of Herodotus allows him to consider the civic identity and the democratic regime of Argos in the fifth century bce.

Section 4 comprises articles devoted to texts known for a long time, but whose interpretation has been renewed by archaeological or epigraphic discoveries. Regarding the common oracle given to the Milesians and the Argives based on Herodotus 6.19 and 77, Piérart offers a French version of a conference paper published in 2003, in which he considers the date, the meaning and the consistency of the oracle; he adds three recent publications, without taking a further position on the context of the oracle. In the following article, commenting on the text of Herodotus 6.92, when the Argives refuse to help the Eginetans, Piérart examines and rejects the existence of an Argive Amphictyony conceived by some scholars. In the next article Piérart examines Thucydides 1.107–8, alongside Pausanias and some Argive inscriptions, to discuss the alliance between the Athenians and the Argives during the ‘events in Boeotia’ (Battles of Tanagra and Oinophyta). After these discussions concerning the history of Argos in the fifth century bce, Piérart deals with the fourth century through an inscription from Argos (IG IV, 616) mentioning the koinon of the Arcadians, the city of Stymphalos and Cleonai. He argues that this last mention implies that Cleonai was part of the city of Argos at that time, during the last quarter of the fourth century bce, to which he tries to date the koinon of the Arcadians. An additional note could have indicated the changes in dating prompted by the discovery of the Treasure of Pallas (see the conclusion). The section ends with an analysis of the arrival of Pyrrhos of Epirus in Argos and his journey to his death: Plutarch, who gives many topographical details, is compared to other literary sources, especially Pausanias, in order to highlight a version based on local traditions chosen by the biographer of this new Achilles.

Section 5 concerns the city of Argos and its relationship with the Romans. In three articles Piérart paints a geographical, economical and institutional portrait of the city from the second century bce to the second century ce. Argos is not a very prosperous city until the second part or the end of the first century ce, when long-distance exchanges intensify and public construction resumes. Beyond the changes in the institutional frame or in foreign policy, Piérart presents the new face of the city visible in monuments. Porticoes on the agora, a theatre, an odeon and fountains were offered by the generosity of the emperor or by rich Argive families. He also discusses the new political regime based on the synedroi at the end of the Hellenistic period and favoured by the Romans.

The conclusion to the volume consists of an article first published in 2014: Piérart draws some conclusions from the discovery of part of the financial record of the city, first about the nomenclatio civium (use of the name of the ‘phatra’ or of the ‘kômai’), then about the relationships of Argos with its neighbours. The new documents suggest that Cleonai was already part of the city of Argos at the beginning of the fourth century bce; that the cities of Thyreatis may have also been ‘kômai’ of Argos as early as the first third of the fourth century; and that Argos had a cleruchy or a kind of colony at Epidaurus during the fourth century bce.

We must welcome this book, which offers a comprehensive bibliography, an index of sources, an analytical index of names and sites. A map of the Argive plain, an aerial photo, seven city maps from LH to the Roman period, a map of the city centre and four of the agora usefully complete the volume. A map of the Thyreatis region would have helped to understand better the discussions about this area.

Thanks to this collection of articles, Piérart shows his contribution to research on the city of Argos, especially to its political, social and institutional history, which also includes a limited number of analyses of monuments and topography of the city.