Myceanae is my favourite archaeological sight in greece! i love the story as i know it from history class in school & university! i love the place! the landscape is beautiful! i have been there many times as a kid (with eleni, 10 years ago, when we were at school). i give information by an internet site cause i couldnt say all i know in english! :)
The civilization which blossomed in Greece during the bronze age, we call it, Mykenaean.
In the period (1660 - 1400 BC), Mykenaeans amassed great prosperity and became the dominant power in the Aegean. Adventurous, daring, master seafarers, the Mykenaeans colonized Crete, Cyclades, Cyprus and Dodecannese, Sicily and northern Greece.
Their goods replaced the Minoans and could be found at the markets of Egypt and Syria.
According to the tradition, the city of Mykenae, the main representative of this civilization, was founded by Perseus (1400 - 1350 BC), the son of Zeus and Danae, the daughter of king Akrisios of Argos. Mykenae was build by the mythical Cyclops, the same ones who constructed the enormous walls of the nearby city of Tyrinths, which was governed by his brother Proetos.
Perseus was succeeded by his son Sthenelos, the father of Eurystheus, who captured Argos and according to the myth, he assigned Herakles to perform the twelve labors.
After the death of Eurystheus, the city was governed by Atreus of Elis (1250 BC), the brother of Eurystheus wife and son of Pelops and Hippodameia.
There are many and various myths about the tragic fate of the Atreides family. The rivalry between Atreus and his brother Thyestes for the throne of Mykenae and the illicit love affair between Thyestes and the wife of Atreus, Aerope, ended in the tragic "Thyestian dinner", in which Thyestes ate his sons, who had been killed by Atreus. For this horrible action of Atreus, his family was cursed.The city under Atreus expanded its boundaries and amassed great wealth and under the leadership of his son Agamemnon (1200 BC), who led the famous campaign against Troy, the city reached its greatest wealth and power. We do not know the reasons for the war, if we don't accept as credible, the abduction of Helen by Paris. Many suggestions have been given, from fishing rights to the textile trade. We also don't know the exact date of the war. Dates, as high as 1270 BC, had been given, though the Greek traditional date was 1184 BC.
When Agamemnon, the "king of men", returned victorious from the Trojan war, he was assassinated by Aegisthos, the son of Thyestes and lover of his wife Klytaemnestra. Soon after, the son of Agamemnon, Orestes, took revenge by killing them both.
Eighty years after the fall of Troy and during the reign of the son of Orestes, Tisamenos, the city of Mykenae was captured and destroyed by the Dorians. The city with the walls intact, though lost its power continued to exist for many centuries. The outer city was not deserted, as the many tombs, which have been found, indicate. A fine relief has survived from a temple that was erected in the early sixth century. When the Persian army invaded Greece, Mykenae send army both in Thermopylae and Plataea.
The city was destroyed once more by Argos (468 BC), after a long besiege.
In the Hellenistic times, Mykenae revived, the walls were repaired and a temple was build at the acropolis, where the Argive tyrant Aristippos was killed (235 BC).
