Mycenae
placeMycenae was the great Bronze Age citadel in the Argolid, seat of King Agamemnon who led the Greek expedition against Troy — its Lion Gate still stands after 3,200 years.
The Myth
Founded by Perseus, son of Zeus and Danaë, Mycenae became the most powerful city in Greece during the Late Bronze Age. Agamemnon ruled from here when he summoned the Greek kings to war against Troy. Upon his return, his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murdered him in his bath. His son Orestes later avenged him, setting off the chain of blood guilt dramatised by Aeschylus. When Schliemann excavated Mycenae in 1876, he found gold death masks, including one he famously (if wrongly) declared to be "the face of Agamemnon."
Parents
Founded by Perseus
Children
N/A
Symbols
Fun Fact
The massive walls of Mycenae were so enormous that later Greeks believed only the Cyclopes could have built them — hence "Cyclopean masonry."
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth: