Mycenae

In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the major centers of Greek civilisation.  It dominated much of southern Greece, the Cycladitic islands, Crete and the western Anatolia.  At its peak in 1350 BC, the Citadel and the lower town had a population of 30,000.

With 3 of my children in front of the famous Lion Gate. 

Francesco Grimani in 1700 identified the ruins of Mycenae based on Pausanias' description.

Mycenae's Acropolis and surrounding countryside.  The German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) excavated Mycenae and nearby Tiryns.  Schliemann is considered as the modern discoverer of prehistoric or Bronze Age Greece. 

Grave circle, in the cemetery, inside Mycenae's citadel.

Wild cyclamens growing in the sun-parched fields of Mycenae's palace.

Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, conducted the 10 year war against Troy, to get beautiful Helen back to his brother Menelaus.  Legend tells us that the long and arduous war divided mortals and gods alike, and contributed to curses and vengeance that followed many of the Greek heroes.  After the war Agamemnon returned to Mycenae and although he was greeted warmly by his subjects, he was slayed by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegistheus.

 The heroes of the Trojan war inspired many writers in antiquity, Homer being the pre-eminent of all, as well as many poets in recent times among whom the American poet Louise Gluck who won the 2020 Nobel price for Literature.  Her emblematic poem on Achilles and her work according to Anders Olsson, Chairman of Nobel Committee,  is "deceptively natural, candid and uncompromising, with no trace of a poetic ornament".

The Triumph of Achilles

In the story of Patroclus

no one survives, not even Achilles

who was near god.

Patroclus resembled him; the wore

the same armor.

Always in these friendships

one serves the other, one less than the other;

the hierarchy

is always apparent, though the legends 

cannot be trusted

their source is the survivor,

the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire

compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles

grieved with his whole being

and the gods saw

he was a man already dead, a victim

of the part that loved,

the part that was mortal.

Achilles tending Patroclus, identified in inscriptions on a vase.  Attic red-figure kylix, ca 500 BC

Tiresias and the Underworld

We decided against searching for Tiresias, the blind prophet, somewhere at Oceanus which was beyond the Pillars of Hercules, todays Gibraltar, as it required changing our southern course towards the Aeolian Islands.   

Odysseus though reached the Underworld, met Tiresias, and performed the rite Circe taught him, pouring fresh ram's blood on the ground. Tiresias the blind prophet was not the only shade Odysseus encountered in the Underworld, as he spoke to the ghosts of his fallen comrades, including Achilles and Agamemnon.  He also saw Minos, the great king, dispensing judgment; and Tantalus, forever hungering for food just out of reach; and Sisyphus, pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again.

Two sets of myths revolve around the cause of Tiresias blindness. The most prevalent one was that the goddess Athena blinded him when he saw her bathing naked.  The other myth states that Zeus called up Tiresias, to mediate on an argument he had with Hera about who was most pleasured during an erotic act - a man or a woman. Tiresias, a man who also lived as a woman for seven years, stated that women experience more pleasure agreeing with Zeus. This angered Hera, who in return blinded him.  Zeus felt badly and gave Tiresias the gifts to prophesize and that of a long life that lasted seven generations. 

While in the Underworld the ghost of Tiresias revealed to Ulysses that Poseidon was angry with him but gave him advice and directions on how to get home to Ithaca safely.  As we did not meet Tiresias we had to rely on ancient and modern navigation methods to find our way and reach our destinations, which I will describe in a future post.  But first we had to sail by the Sirens!

Mycenae

Mycenae (Greek: Μυκῆναι) is an archeological site located in the northeast corner of Peloponnese approximately 100 kilometers south from Athens.

The entrance to the citadel is a favorite site for picture taking. Two young tourists, Mark and Chloe, standing in front of the Lion Gate entrance.

According to Greek mythology Perseus founded the city.  The historian Pausanias suggested that Mycenae’s name was derived either from the word μύκης (Greek: mushroom) as Perseus found one at the site or after the cap (mycēs) of the sheath of his legendary sword.  The site has been inhabited since the Neolithic period.  The existing ruins, the fortifications and the Lion Gate were rebuilt with massive stones that they were thought to be the work of the one-eyed giants Cyclops and date from 1350 BC. 

Mycenae was built as a fortified hill surrounded by hamlets and estates.  Since Mycenae was the capital of a state that ruled much of the eastern Mediterranean world, the rulers must have placed their stronghold in this remote region for its defensive value.  Mycenae was a military power and the center of Greek civilization, in the second millennium BC, thus the period from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to its name.

Palaces at that time were stately and featured the throne room.  The throne was placed against the center of a wall that allowed an unobstructed view of the ruler from the entrance.  Frescos adorned the walls and the floor of the palace and many of the houses of his subjects.

Mycenae’s king Agamemnon led the Greeks against Troy.  The Trojan War is one of the most important events and has been narrated through Homer’s Iliad that relates to its siege; and the Odyssey that describes Odysseus’s journey home.

The Ancient Greeks believed that the Trojan War had taken place in the 13th or 12th century BC, and that Troy was located near the Dardanelles.  As of the mid-19th century, both the war and the city were widely believed to be non-historical. However, in 1868, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated its ruins.

In 1876, Heinrich Schliemann discovered a funeral golden mask. The mask covered the face of a body that he believed belonged to the legendary king Agamemnon. The mask is currently displayed in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.