From the 5th millennium BC up to about 600 AC, the citadel was continuously inhabited, but the first citation to Assini was made ​​by Homer (B 560), indicating that Argos , Tiryns , Epidaurus and other cities of Argolida participated in the Trojan war with a large number of ships ( eighty ships) .

The first excavations of the Acropolis and Lower Town were accomplished by the Swedish Archaeological Expedition (1922-1930) and continued in the 1970s by D Conservation Unity of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquity and the Swedish Institute in Athens.