Mycenaean culture, ca. 1300 BC.
It is difficult to separate truth from myth in the legends regarding the origins of Mycenae. According to legend, Mycenae was founded by Perseus. Perseus married Andromeda and had many sons but in the course of time went to war with Argos and was slain by Megapenthes.
The Mycenaean period flourished between the arrival of the proto-Greeks in the Aegean around 1600 BC and the collapse of their Bronze-Age civilization around 1100 BC. Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior aristocracy. Around 1400 BC, the Myceneans extended their control to Crete, center of the Minoan civilization. Not only did the Mycenaeans defeat the Minoans, but according to legend, they defeated Troy, a powerful city-state that rivaled Mycenae’s power. Because its only evidence is the Iliad of Homer and other texts replete with mythology, the existence of Troy and the Trojan War is uncertain.
The story told in the Iliad has its roots with King Atreus and his two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus. Aegisthus, the son of Thyestes, killed Atreus and restored Thyestes to the throne. With the help of King Tyndareus of Sparta, the Atreids drove Thyestes again into exile. Tyndareus had two ill-starred daughters, Helen and Clytemnestra, whom Menelaus and Agamemnon married, respectively. Agamemnon inherited Mycenae and Menelaus was regent in Sparta.
Helen eloped with Paris of Troy. Agamemnon conducted a 10-year war against Troy to get her back for his brother. The returning Agamemnon was greeted royally with a red carpet rolled out for him and then slain in his bathtub by Clytemnestra and Aegistheus.
By 1200 BC the power of Mycenae was declining. Legend tells us that the long and arduous Trojan War, although nominally a Greek victory, brought anarchy, piracy and ruin. Around 1100 BC the Mycenaean civilization collapsed. Numerous cities were sacked and the region entered what historians see as a dark age. During this period Greece experienced decreasing population and they lost their literacy. Historians have traditionally blamed this decline on an invasion by another wave of Greek people, the Dorians, although the historical validity of this theory is now doubted.
Agamemnon
It is difficult to separate the Agamemnon of history from the character of myth. He is one of the most distinguished heroes of Greek mythology, and King of the Mycenean Greeks who waged war against the Trojans in Homer’s epic, the Iliad. His family’s history was marred by pederastic rape, murder, incest, and treachery. It was believed that this past brought misfortune onto the entire House of Atreus.
Agamemnon was the commander-in-chief of the Greeks during the Trojan War. During the fighting, Agamemnon killed Antiphus. The Iliad tells the story of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in the final year of the war. Agamemnon took an attractive slave and spoil of war Briseis from Achilles. Achilles, the greatest warrior of the age, withdrew from battle in revenge and nearly cost the Greek armies the war.
Although not the equal of Achilles in bravery, Agamemnon was a dignified representative of kingly authority. As commander-in-chief, he summoned the princes to the council and led the army in battle. He took the field himself, and performed many heroic deeds until he was wounded and forced to withdraw to his tent. His chief fault was his overweening pride. An over-exalted opinion of his position led him to insult Chryses and Achilles, thereby bringing great disaster upon the Greeks.
After the capture of Troy, Cassandra, doomed prophetess and daughter of Priam, fell to his lot in the distribution of the prizes of war. After a stormy voyage, Agamemnon and Cassandra landed in Argolis or were blown off course and landed in Aegisthus’ country. According to the account given by Pindar and the tragedians, Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, was seduced by Aegisthus. She was then convinced to slay Agamemnon in his bath, a piece of cloth or a net having first been thrown over him to prevent resistance. Clytemnestra also killed Cassandra. Her wrath at the earlier sacrifice of her daughter, and her jealousy of Cassandra, are said to have been the motives of her crime. Aegisthus and Clytemnestra then ruled Agamemnon’s kingdom for a time, but the murder of Agamemnon was eventually avenged by his son Orestes.
