Mycenae- Greek LocationLocation · Landmark"Rich in Gold"
Also known as: Μυκήναι, Μυκήνη, Mykenai, Mykēnai, and Mykēnē
Titles & Epithets
Symbols
Description
Behind cyclopean walls and the Lion Gate, Perseus's golden citadel became the seat of the cursed House of Atreus, from whose throne Agamemnon marshaled a thousand ships against Troy.
Mythology & Lore
Founding by Perseus
When Perseus accidentally killed his grandfather Acrisius at funeral games in Argos, he could not bring himself to claim the dead man's throne. He exchanged kingdoms with his cousin Megapenthes, taking Tiryns, then founded a new city on the plain nearby. Pausanias preserves two traditions for the name: either the cap of Perseus's scabbard fell at the spot where he found a spring of water, or he plucked a mushroom from the ground and a stream welled up beneath it. Both stories turn on the word mykes. Perseus fortified the new settlement with the help of the Cyclopes, who raised massive limestone walls from boulders fitted without mortar. Later generations, marveling at blocks too heavy for human hands, called these walls "cyclopean" and insisted only giants could have built them.
The House of Atreus
Pelops won his kingdom through a rigged chariot race against Oenomaus of Pisa, and Pindar tells the story in Olympian 1. His sons Atreus and Thyestes fought over the Mycenaean throne. When Atreus discovered that Thyestes had seduced his wife Aerope, he feigned reconciliation and invited his brother to a banquet. Aeschylus has the chorus of the Agamemnon recount what happened next: Atreus served Thyestes the cooked flesh of his own sons. Thyestes looked down and saw the hands and feet of his children on the plate. He overturned the table and cursed the house.
Agamemnon, son of Atreus, inherited the throne. Homer calls his city "rich in gold" and "of the broad ways," and from Mycenae Agamemnon commanded the fleet that besieged Troy for ten years. His return brought no triumph. Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, Thyestes' surviving son, killed the king in his own hall. In the Odyssey, Agamemnon's ghost tells the story from the underworld: he was cut down at the feast table, like an ox at the manger.
Orestes, Agamemnon's son, grew to manhood in exile and returned to avenge his father. He killed both Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. The Erinyes came for him, hounding him across Greece until Athena convened a jury at Athens to try him for the matricide. Aeschylus ends the Eumenides with Orestes acquitted and the Furies appeased. The blood stopped.