Mycenae

Mycenae was a city situated north of Argos, on a hill overlooking the valley of Argolis. The city was famous for the Lion Gate (the photo below), and its giant masonry, known as Cyclopean walls.

According to the Great Eoiae, a genealogical poem attributed to Hesiod, the city was named after Mycene, daughter of the river-god Inachus and wife of Arestor. Pausanias also mentioned this, but he also mentioned an alternative tradition in which it was founded and built by the Argive hero Perseus. Pausanias elaborated on this by saying that Perseus named the city after the mushroom, mykes, which he had pulled out of the ground, so that he could drink water from where it gushed out of the ground. Apollodorus only said that Perseus fortified the city, not that he founded the city.

Eurystheus, grandson of Perseus, was the last ruler of the line of the Perseids before Atreus and his brother Thyestes (the Pelopids) established a new dynasty. Agamemnon, son of Atreus, was the most powerful ruler in Greece during the time of the Trojan War.

During the reign of Agamemnon and Orestes, later writers often confused Mycenae with Argos. Sometimes Mycenae was called Argos.

See the Houses of Argolis for the families who ruled Mycenae.

For the genealogy see House of Perseus and House of Atreus.