1. Homer, Iliad, 1.30, 4.52 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)
| 1.30. /as she walks to and fro before the loom and serves my bed. But go, do not anger me, that you may return the safer. 4.52. /Then in answer to him spake ox-eyed, queenly Hera:Verily have I three cities that are far dearest in my sight, Argos and Sparta and broad-wayed Mycenae; these do thou lay waste whensoe'er they shall be hateful to thy heart. Not in their defence do I stand forth, nor account them too greatly. |
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2. Aeschylus, Eumenides, 654 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 654. ἔπειτʼ ἐν Ἄργει δώματʼ οἰκήσει πατρός; | |
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3. Euripides, Electra, 1125-1133, 48, 652-656, 1124 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1124. ἤκουσας, οἶμαι, τῶν ἐμῶν λοχευμάτων: | 1124. You have heard, I suppose, that I have given birth; |
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4. Euripides, Iphigenia Among The Taurians, 1218, 1221-1225, 1216 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
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5. Euripides, Orestes, 1603-1604, 228, 238, 255-275, 283-293, 314-315, 321, 38, 429-430, 47, 479, 48, 480-481, 49, 492-499, 50, 500-541, 582-584, 75-76, 1602 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1602. You are so well qualified to handle holy water! Oreste |
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6. Euripides, Phoenician Women, 203, 224, 226-228, 243, 202 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 202. From the Tyrian swell of the sea I came, a choice offering for Loxias from the island of Phoenicia |
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7. Euripides, Suppliant Women, 212, 211 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
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8. Herodotus, Histories, 7.202, 9.28 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 7.202. The Hellenes who awaited the Persians in that place were these: three hundred Spartan armed men; one thousand from Tegea and Mantinea, half from each place; one hundred and twenty from Orchomenus in Arcadia and one thousand from the rest of Arcadia; that many Arcadians, four hundred from Corinth, two hundred from Phlius, and eighty Mycenaeans. These were the Peloponnesians present; from Boeotia there were seven hundred Thespians and four hundred Thebans. 9.28. This was the Athenians' response, and the whole army shouted aloud that the Athenians were worthier to hold the wing than the Arcadians. It was in this way that the Athenians were preferred to the men of Tegea, and gained that place. ,Presently the whole Greek army was arrayed as I will show, both the later and the earliest comers. On the right wing were ten thousand Lacedaemonians; five thousand of these, who were Spartans, had a guard of thirty-five thousand light-armed helots, seven appointed for each man. ,The Spartans chose the Tegeans for their neighbors in the battle, both to do them honor, and for their valor; there were of these fifteen hundred men-at-arms. Next to these in the line were five thousand Corinthians, at whose desire Pausanias permitted the three hundred Potidaeans from Pallene then present to stand by them. ,Next to these were six hundred Arcadians from Orchomenus, and after them three thousand men of Sicyon. By these one thousand Troezenians were posted, and after them two hundred men of Lepreum, then four hundred from Mycenae and Tiryns, and next to them one thousand from Phlius. By these stood three hundred men of Hermione. ,Next to the men of Hermione were six hundred Eretrians and Styreans; next to them, four hundred Chalcidians; next again, five hundred Ampraciots. After these stood eight hundred Leucadians and Anactorians, and next to them two hundred from Pale in Cephallenia; ,after them in the array, five hundred Aeginetans; by them stood three thousand men of Megara, and next to these six hundred Plataeans. At the end, and first in the line, were the Athenians who held the left wing. They were eight thousand in number, and their general was Aristides son of Lysimachus. |
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9. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 11.65 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 11.65. 1. The following year Theageneides was archon in Athens, and in Rome the consuls elected were Lucius Aemilius Mamercus and Lucius Julius Iulus, and the Seventy-eight Olympiad was celebrated, that in which Parmenides of Posidonia won the "stadion." In this year a war broke out between the Argives and Mycenaeans for the following reasons.,2. The Mycenaeans, because of the ancient prestige of their country, would not be subservient to the Argives as the other cities of Argolis were, but they maintained an independent position and would take no orders from the Argives; and they kept disputing with them also over the shrine of Hera and claiming that they had the right to administer the Nemean Games by themselves. Furthermore, when the Argives voted not to join with the Lacedaemonians in the battle at Thermopylae unless they were given a share in the supreme command, the Mycenaeans were the only people of Argolis who fought at the side of the Lacedaemonians.,3. In a word, the Argives were suspicious of the Mycenaeans, fearing lest, if they got any stronger, they might, on the strength of the ancient prestige of Mycenae, dispute the right of Argos to the leadership. Such, then, were the reasons for the bad blood between them; and from of old the Argives had ever been eager to exalt their city, and now they thought they had a favourable opportunity, seeing that the Lacedaemonians had been weakened and were unable to come to the aid of the Mycenaeans. Therefore the Argives, gathering a strong army from both Argos and the cities of their allies, marched against the Mycenaeans, and after defeating them in battle and shutting them within their walls, they laid siege to the city.,4. The Mycenaeans for a time resisted the besiegers with vigour, but afterwards, since they were being worsted in the fighting and the Lacedaemonians could bring them no aid because of their own wars and the disaster that had overtaken them in the earthquakes, and since there were no other allies, they were taken by storm through lack of support from outside.,5. The Argives sold the Mycenaeans into slavery, dedicated a tenth part of them to the god, and razed Mycenae. So this city, which in ancient times had enjoyed such felicity, possessing great men and having to its credit memorable achievements, met with such an end, and has remained uninhabited down to our own times. These, then, were the events of this year. |
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10. Strabo, Geography, 8.6.10 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 8.6.10. After the descendants of Danaus succeeded to the reign in Argos, and the Amythaonides, who were emigrants from Pisatis and Triphylia, became associated with these, one should not be surprised if, being kindred, they at first so divided the country into two kingdoms that the two cities in them which held the hegemony were designated as the capitals, though situated near one another, at a distance of less than fifty stadia, I mean Argos and Mycenae, and that the Heraion near Mycenae was a sanctuary common to both. In this sanctuary are the images made by Polycleitus, in execution the most beautiful in the world, but in costliness and size inferior to those by Pheidias. Now at the outset Argos was the more powerful, but later Mycenae waxed more powerful on account of the removal thereto of the Pelopidae; for, when everything fell to the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon, being the elder, assumed the supreme power, and by a combination of good fortune and valor acquired much of the country in addition to the possessions he already had; and indeed he also added Laconia to the territory of Mycenae. Now Menelaus came into possession of Laconia, but Agamemnon received Mycenae and the regions as far as Corinth and Sikyon and the country which at that time was called the country of the Ionians and Aegialians but later the country of the Achaeans. But after the Trojan times, when the empire of Agememnon had been broken up, it came to pass that Mycenae was reduced, and particularly after the return of the Heracleidae; for when these had taken possession of the Peloponnesus they expelled its former masters, so that those who held Argos also held Mycenae as a component part of one whole. But in later times Mycenae was razed to the ground by the Argives, so that today not even a trace of the city of the Mycenaeans is to be found. And since Mycenae has suffered such a fate, one should not be surprised if also some of the cities which are catalogued as subject to Argos have now disappeared. Now the Catalogue contains the following: And those who held Argos, and Tiryns of the great walls, and Hermione and Asine that occupy a deep gulf, and Troezen and Eiones and vine-clad Epidaurus, and the youths of the Achaeans who held Aigina and Mases. But of the cities just named I have already discussed Argos, and now I must discuss the others. |
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11. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.16.5, 7.27.5, 8.27.1, 8.33.2 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 2.16.5. It was jealousy which caused the Argives to destroy Mycenae . For at the time of the Persian invasion the Argives made no move, but the Mycenaeans sent eighty men to Thermopylae who shared in the achievement of the Lacedaemonians. This eagerness for distinction brought ruin upon them by exasperating the Argives. There still remain, however, parts of the city wall, including the gate, upon which stand lions. These, too, are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who made for Proetus the wall at Tiryns . 7.27.5. There is an old gymnasium chiefly given up to the exercises of the youths. No one may be enrolled on the register of citizens before he has been on the register of youths. Here stands a man of Pellene called Promachus, the son of Dryon, who won prizes in the pancratium, one at Olympia, three at the Isthmus and two at Nemea . The Pellenians made two statues of him, dedicating one at Olympia and one in the gymnasium; the latter is of stone, not bronze. 8.27.1. Megalopolis is the youngest city, not of Arcadia only, but of Greece, with the exception of those whose inhabitants have been removed by the accident of the Roman domination. The Arcadians united into it to gain strength, realizing that the Argives also were in earlier times in almost daily danger of being subjected by war to the Lacedaemonians, but when they had increased the population of Argos by reducing Tiryns, Hysiae, Orneae, Mycenae, Mideia, along with other towns of little importance in Argolis, the Argives had less to fear from the Lacedaemonians, while they were in a stronger position to deal with their vassal neighbors. 8.33.2. For Mycenae, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan war, and Nineveh, where was the royal palace of the Assyrians, are utterly ruined and desolate; while Boeotian Thebes, once deemed worthy to be the head of the Greek people, why, its name includes only the acropolis and its few inhabitants. of the opulent places in the ancient world, Egyptian Thebes and Minyan Orchomenus are now less prosperous than a private individual of moderate means, while Delos, once the common market of Greece, has no Delian inhabitant, but only the men sent by the Athenians to guard the sanctuary. |
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