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The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology
By Martin P. Nilsson
1. ARGOLIS
I commence of course with Argolis, for this province held the primacy both in Mycenaean civilization and in Greek mythology. It is the richest in Mycenaean remains as well as in myths. Its capital was Mycenae, and that this city should give its name to the age and the civilization with which we have to deal is justified by discoveries which have been surpassed nowhere;4 for in this connection we do not speak of Crete and the Minoan civilization. Mycenae was the proudest and wealthiest town of Mycenaean Greece. The architectural remains are imposing: the city wall with the Lion Gate, the only monumental sculpture from prehistoric times, the unfortunately very ruinous remains of the great palace, the nine bee-hive tombs which in number and size surpass those found on any other site. The so-called tomb of Atreus is the largest and stateliest dome erected before the building of the Pantheon in Rome nearly a millenium and a half later. The famous shaft-graves yielded the finds through which the Mycenaean civilization was first discovered; their richness is still unsurpassed. There are also numerous chamber tombs; Professor Tsoundas excavated some of them long ago and the English School in Athens explored recently the extensive cemetery of Kalkani.5 Their great number proves that Mycenae was populous and their contents, that its inhabitants were prosperous.
Tiryns seems almost to rival Mycenae because of its mighty walls with their galleries and the well preserved remains of the palace, although it is a distinctly smaller town, and what has been found there of other remains and objects is not so important as the finds at Mycenae. There is, however, an extensive lower town and a well built bee-hive tomb. Quite recently an extensive work was discovered through which a river southeast of Tiryns was diverted in order to protect the lower town from being flooded.
The third Mycenaean fortress in Argolis is Midea. Its imposing walls enclose an area larger than that of any Mycenaean site except Gla; it is still unexplored, but in the neighborhood hardly a mile to the south at the village of Dendra, Professor Persson had the luck to discover a collapsed but untouched bee-hive tomb and several chamber tombs. The finds are famous and rival in value those of Mycenae.6
It is proved by archaeological facts that on the site where the famous temple of Hera, the Heraeum, stood later, there once was another Mycenaean city. There are traces of Mycenaean walls and houses; Mycenaean sherds and idols are found;7 there is a bee-hive tomb in the neighborhood, and, finally, rich chamber tombs from all periods of the Mycenaean age were recently excavated by American archaeologists.8
The remains from Argos, the capital of Argolis in historical times, are less significant. On a low hill called Aspis, Mycenaean sherds were found and on Deiras, the ridge which unites this hill with the imposing acropolis, the Larissa, some chamber tombs were excavated. On the Larissa some remains of Mycenaean walls were discovered recently.9
There are also several minor sites in Argolis; e.g., in the neighborhood of Corinth, Nauplia, and Asine, where a Swedish expedition has unearthed a small Mycenaean town and found a series of chamber tombs.10
This brief recalling of the outstanding archaeological facts will be sufficient for our purpose. Turning to the myths, we commence with the capital in the Mycenaean age, Mycenae. There are two series of strikingly different tombs, the shaft-graves and the bee-hive tombs, both testifying to great wealth and power. It has been said that this difference in funeral customs is accounted for in the mythical narratives telling of two royal houses at Mycenae, one of which succeeded the other, the Perseidae and the Atreidae. The earlier series of tombs, the shaft-graves, have been said to be those of the Perseidae and the later, the bee-hive tombs, to have been erected by the later dynasty, the Atreidae; but this parallelism can hardly be held reliable. It is more specious than founded on facts and had better be left out of account.11 We turn to the myths themselves.
The most prominent hero of Mycenae in the earlier mythical generation is Perseus. The kernel of his myth is the slaying of the monster Gorgo, and is perhaps the best instance of a folk-tale received into Greek heroic mythology.12 To this kernel his birth story had already been added in Mycenaean times, but the episode taking place on the island of Seriphus seems to be of a rather late date and may be passed over here. The myth of Perseus is unusually crowded with folk-tale motifs and this is in some measure a proof of a high antiquity. Folk-tales are told in all countries everywhere and they are not localized by other peoples. In Greece, however, they were localized because of the innate tendency of heroic mythology to localize its heroes, and because the folk-tale was preserved only when it was received into the heroic mythology.
It is generally recognized that Perseus belongs to Mycenae. He is said to be the founder of the city. An etymological explanation was invented later.13 That the founding of the city had to be fitted with some pains into the series of his adventures seems to make it probable that his connection with the city of Mycenae depended on old tradition. There was a heroön said to be that of Perseus on the road from Mycenae to Argos, but that may be late, as was certainly the altar on Seriphus.14 There is better evidence for his cult at Mycenae. An inscription in archaic letters found between the Lion Gate and the so-called tomb of Clytaemestra speaks of some officials connected with Perseus to whom judicial functions are attributed in certain cases.15 This proves that these officials were an old and venerable corporation. Professor Robert assumes that it was sent from Argos to provide for the cult of Perseus, following the destruction of Mycenae by the Argives some time after the Persian war. If this is right, the cult was so old and venerable that the Argives felt themselves bound not to discontinue it. The inscription seems, however, to be too early to permit such an interpretation. In regard to the date of the cult, we can only infer that it existed in the archaic age, a fact which proves that Perseus' connection with Mycenae is of old date. During the Roman age it was a matter of course.16
The genealogies are of little or no value, being invented in order to fit Perseus into the common pseudo-historical scheme. I gave voice above to the opinion that the story of his birth was already in Mycenaean times joined with the folk-tale of his slaying of the Gorgon. This cannot be proved by the story of the subterranean bronze thalamus in which his mother was enclosed and where she was sought by Zeus in the shape of a golden rain. For even if a bee-hive tomb decorated with bronze ornaments is rightly recognized in the description of this subterranean thalamus, it has been justly remarked that such a story may have been invented only after the bee-hive tombs had fallen into disuse. Some of them may have been accessible for a long time after being opened by plunderers.
There is, however, a more certain indication to the same effect: the name of Perseus' mother Danaë signifies nothing but "the Danaan maiden."17 In the beginning the Danaan maiden had of course no father, or if she had one he was evidently a Danaan man, a Danaüs, just as Chryses is the father of Chryseis, the maiden from Chryse. Acrisius was introduced later and made the father of Danaë in order to attach the genealogy of Perseus to Argos, the historical capital of Argolis. Danaoi is a tribal name, already obsolete in Homer, and the same name is recognized in Egyptian inscriptions from the times of Echenaton and Ramses III: it is Mycenaean and was out of daily use in the Homeric age. The consequence is that such a name as "the Danaan maiden" cannot have been imposed upon the mother of Perseus except in Mycenaean times and that the birth story therefore had already been created in this age. This result leads to the conclusion that the birth story was joined in this age with the tale of his slaying of the Gorgo. Thus the Perseus myth is in its essential parts of Mycenaean origin.
The second kingly house of Mycenae is that of the Atreidae, whose cruel deeds and misfortunes have been celebrated in so many famous tragedies. This house and especially its chief representative in Homer, Agamemnon, seem to be firmly localized at Mycenae, but even this has been denied. Professor Wilamowitz has said that the artificial make-up of the name of Atreus is apparent;18 i.e., he is of the opinion that this name is formed from the family name attributed to Agamemnon, the Atreides. This seems hardly to be a happy idea. We have seen that names ending in -eus make up an older series of mythical names and go back to a great antiquity.19 Of course a name may have been formed later with this ending, but in this case one would expect the stem of the name to be clear, as it is, e.g., in the name of Eurystheus' herald Copreus, "the Dung-man." This is not true of the name Atreus. Or if Atreides is the primary form from which an eponymous hero Atreus was abstracted, as Minyas was abstracted from the Minyans, it would be in fact a tribal name, and this is very unlikely. On the other hand, if Atreides is a true gentilicial name, the name of an ancestor Atreus is its basis, and this seems to be by far the most probable view. Atreus is certainly an old mythical personage and no late invention.
This opinion is corroborated by the famous passage describing the scepter of Agamemnon,20 in which the genealogy of the house of the Atreidae is given. The scepter carried by Agamemnon is said to have been wrought by Hephaestus and given to Zeus; Zeus gave it to Hermes, Hermes to Pelops, Pelops to Atreus, Atreus at his death to Thyestes, and Thyestes left it to Agamemnon to carry, and so to rule over all Argos and many islands. Even those scholars who embrace the opinion that Homer's description of the kingship reflects the conditions of the early historical age recognize in this passage a relict of a much older age, in which the king was invested with a really kingly power; it can but be the Mycenaean age.21 But the genealogy is so closely linked up with this description of the kingly power that the former cannot be separated from the latter. Both go back into the Mycenaean age.
The most questionable and at the same time a superfluous figure of the genealogy is the father of Atreus, Pelops. The house being called after Atreus, Pelops appears to have been put at the head of the genealogy secondarily. He is recognized to be nothing but the eponymous hero of the Pelopes, the vanished tribe which gave its name to the Peloponnese.22 The form is that of a number of Greek tribal names ending in -ops, plur. -opes. That is the reason why at an early date he was made the ancestor of the kingly house which ruled the peninsula or at least the most important part of it. Other myths connected with Pelops are late. He plays an important part in the myths of Olympia, which are post-Mycenaean,23 and his connections with Asia Minor are certainly also of late date. Pelops himself is by his name proved to be of Greek origin.
Of the many cruel deeds attributed to the house of the Atreidae there is no word in this passage nor was there any place for them. In the Iliad, Clytaemestra is barely named as the wife of Agamemnon, but in the Odyssey her seduction by Aegisthus and the murder of Agamemnon are fully related. It is impossible to pronounce any well founded judgment on the age of this tragic myth, but it is the oldest of the family tragedies of the Atreidae, and it was followed by other myths of a similar nature attached to this house. The story of the Atreidae and the story of the Labdacidae are similar, being of a highly tragic nature, but there is a marked difference between them: on one side unwittingly committed guilt and internecine feuds, on the other, cunning cruelty and deceptive ruse.
One would think that at any rate Agamemnon's localization at Mycenae is firm and well attested, but even this has been denied. When Professor Bethe says24 that in the Iliad Agamemnon is only twice or thrice called king of Mycenae and in other passages is said to be from Argos,25 and from this pretended discrepancy concludes that he was originally not king of Mycenae but a war king, a commander-in-chief of the Greek troops, he is using a logic by which it would be possible to argue that the king of Prussia was not at the same time emperor of Germany. I confess that I cannot imagine a war king without a city and country of his own.26
There are other more specious arguments to the same effect. The best one is the oft repeated contention that Agamemnon originally was a god. I do not enter upon the question of principles.27 Some time ago scholars preferred to regard Greek heroes as faded gods. This theory has lost much of its attractiveness, although there are certainly such heroes even if there are not so many as was imagined. But for Agamemnon's godhead no good evidence exists, as has been proved in a searching analysis.28 The idea is founded upon an expression in the enigmatical poem of Lycophron,29 but here the expression is partly a copy of the Hellenistic cult of the rulers, partly a synecdoche; Agamemnon is used for Zeus and vice versa. The scholiast commenting on the passage or his source was guilty of the conclusion that Agamemnon was venerated as Zeus Agamemnon and gave him a temple, too, whose emplacement he deduced from a following verse30 to be a deme in Laconia which elsewhere is unknown, Lapersai. The temple is not mentioned elsewhere, but there was a memorial of Agamemnon in the temple of Alexandra at Amyclae.31 This Zeus Agamemnon was of course welcome to the Euhemerist authors and their followers, the ecclesiastical writers. Thus there is no wonder that he appears in Clemens Alexandrinus and Athenagoras. The source is said to be a certain Staphylus from Naucratis who has written about different Greek provinces, of course a Hellenistic author.
Still worse is the second testimony. Pausanias relates that the inhabitants of Chaeronea venerated Agamemnon's scepter, of which Homer speaks, but states that they called it a spear and that it had been found together with some golden objects on the boundary between Chaeronea and Panopeus.32 I cannot see why this information should be rejected. Why is it improbable that people had discovered an old tomb containing gold objects and a spear or staff which they took the fancy to venerate? But apart from this the inhabitants of Chaeronea called it a spear, not a scepter, and the title Agamemnon's scepter is clearly nothing but the usual attribution of old and curious things to Homeric heroes. Moreover, if Agamemnon's scepter was venerated, this in no wise proves that Agamemnon himself was a god.
Other so-called testimony quoted to the same effect is most futile.33 It is related that Agamemnon dug wells at Aulis and in other places of Greece, that he was honored in baths at Clazomenae, and that the inhabitants of Smyrna called a bath by his name.34 In the same way warm springs, even baths, were attributed to another hero, Heracles. It is hardly necessary to state that this is no proof of the existence of a cult. A god Agamemnon never existed except in the fancy of the interpreters of Lycophron.
Others do not believe in the old god Agamemnon but contend that the hero Agamemnon originally belongs to Asia Minor; his family is said to have survived on Lesbos and at Cyme. Only Homer brought him to Greece, for Perseus was the hero of Mycenae.35 To begin with, I cannot see why a town cannot have two heroes or more; most of them have. In regard to the descendants of Agamemnon in Asia Minor, the testimony is as follows. A passage in Pollux36 speaks about those who invented the process of coining money, mentioning Pheidon and Demodike from Cyme, wife of the Phrygian king, Midas, and daughter of a King Agamemnon of Cyme. That the kingly house of Cyme claimed descent from Agamemnon because one of its members bore his name is not a very striking inference, and if they did ennoble their pedigree by attaching to it one of the famous heroes of Greek mythology, so also did others, for example, the kingly house of Lydia. For my part I am inclined to draw quite another conclusion; namely, that in the end of the eighth century B.C.37 Agamemnon was still used as a human name, for names of heroes were not given to men before the Hellenistic age. It follows that Agamemnon was not venerated as a hero at that time and still less was he believed to be a god.
On Lesbos there was a town, Penthile,38 and to this belongs probably the noble family of the Penthelidae. Aristoteles relates that the members of this family were wont to go about at Mytilene striking people with clubs but were overcome by Megacles and his friends.39 Further, it is related in several differing versions that Orestes or his descendants emigrated to Asia Minor.40 The tradition here relevant says that the son of Orestes and Erigone, Penthilus, or his grandson Gras, went to Lesbos and founded cities there. This Penthilus is of course taken to be the ancestor of the Penthelidae, but their claim to descent from Agamemnon is no better founded than the descent from Heracles claimed by the Mermnades in Lydia or by the royal house of Macedonia. Penthilus is a late invention akin to Megapenthes, the bastard son of Menelaus, or the son of Proetus who exchanged Tiryns for Argos with Perseus; his name hints at the calamities of the house of the Atreidae. The fact that a noble family of Lesbos was called Penthelidae41 facilitated a connection with heroic genealogy, such as noble families loved. Their name was certainly derived from that of the town.
There are no valid grounds either for the godhead of Agamemnon or for the theory that he belonged originally to Asia Minor; he exists only as a mythical personage, and the attempt to sever him from Mycenae is vain. The arguments adduced to prove the contrary are as fallacious and vain as arguments are wont to be when somebody tries to give reasons for a preconceived opinion.
Corresponding to the paramount importance of Mycenae in the Mycenaean age, two of the most famous cycles of Greek myths are attached to this town, that of Perseus and that of the Atreidae. It would have been necessary only to point to this fact, not to enter upon a discussion of the myths, if doubt had not been cast upon the connection of Agamemnon and his house with Mycenae. His position as overlord of the Greek princes is another heritage from the Mycenaean age, due to the wealth and power of his city; I shall recur to this topic in my last chapter.42 Finally, it is to be observed that it is quite incomprehensible how the wealth of myths attached to Mycenae came into existence if they were created in historical times, when Mycenae was a very small and unimportant town; but it is perfectly comprehensible if the origins of the cycles go back into the time of the glory of Mycenae, the Mycenaean age. They were popular from of old and were taken up by literature and developed by means of new accretions and inventions, for many details of the cycles are evidently of later date.
In regard to Tiryns, things are not quite so clear as in the case of Mycenae and need more discussion. p. 51 The foremost hero of Tiryns is of course Heracles, for the Heracles who performs his labors on the injunction of his suzerain, Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae, is at home at Tiryns. But, as I propose to treat the Heracles cycle in a separate chapter, I only note the fact here, emphasizing its bearing on our judgment as to the mythological importance of Tiryns, and proceed to another hero whose connection with Tiryns seems more questionable.
Bellerophon is always said to be a Corinthian by birth, the son of Glaucus, and the grandson of the wily Sisyphus. At Corinth he had a sacred precinct, a cypress grove on the road to the harbor town Kenchreai,43 and Athena Chalinitis, who had a temple at Corinth, was said to have this epithet because she had tamed Pegasus, placed a bit in his mouth, and given him to Bellerophon.44 More important than this tradition is the fact that Pegasus appears on the coins of Corinth and of the neighboring town of Sicyon from the earliest time of coinage. In the sixth century B.C., Corinth and Sicyon laid claim to Bellerophon.
Homer, who narrates his story at length,45 says that he was the son of Glaucus and the grandson of Sisyphus, but states that he came from Ephyre in the interior of horse-breeding Argos. The current identification of Ephyre with Corinth is questionable.46 Further, Homer has no mention of Pegasus, and Aristarchus may be right in concluding that he did not know this feature of the myth.47 Hesiod has it, just as he has many other innovations.
Genealogies are not to be trusted very much in proving the old localization of a myth. A more reliable indication is provided by the locality of the chief myth of a cycle; i.e., that part of the myth which must be considered to be the old kernel, especially if there is no apparent reason why this myth should be localized in a certain place. Such a localization depends presumably upon old, good tradition. Genealogies cannot be admitted without being tested, for they were often invented in order to transfer a hero from one place to another and to bring him into connections which for some reason it was desired to establish. So Corinth, and probably Sicyon also, laid claim to Bellerophon and succeeded in appropriating him for themselves.
The kernel of the cycle of Bellerophon is a series of adventures, the killing of the Chimaera, the battles with the Solymi and with the Amazons, and finally the ambush which Iobates laid for him; but, as in many other such cycles, this chain of adventures is preceded by a story which seeks to explain why the hero was driven out to stand these hardships. Here we have the old motif known from the biblical story of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar. Potiphar is called Proetus and his wife is called Anteia by Homer, Stheneboia by later authors. Proetus is unanimously said to be king of Tiryns; the Cyclopes built its mighty walls for him. Homer says that Proetus drove Bellerophon out from the people of the Argives because Bellerophon, though subject to him, was a better man than he.48 This is the regular epical opinion concerning a king's jealousy of a brave vassal; it may have been introduced surreptitiously or it may have preserved an earlier tradition; in the next lines the Potiphar motif is substituted for it.
The scene of this introductory myth is laid at the court of Tiryns, and as there appears no reason whatever why it should have taken place precisely at Tiryns, which in a later age was highly unimportant, I venture to refer this localization to the heyday of Tiryns. This reference to the Mycenaean age receives perhaps a certain corroboration from Homer's hint at a vassalship of Bellerophon, such as was unknown in historical times and even in the Homeric age, if by the Homeric age we understand that age in which the poems were ultimately composed.
The series of adventures which make up the kernel of the myth take place in far-off Lycia. The Amazons are at home in Asia Minor, whatever fact or people may be underlying the myth. The Solymi are always located in the neighborhood of Lycia, although it cannot be proved that references in later authors are independent of Homer. Professor Malten proved in a substantial paper49 that the Chimaera and the winged horse are of Oriental origin; he thinks that Bellerophon is a Lycian hero who was taken over by the Greeks during their wanderings and wars on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean in the Mycenaean age. If this kernel of the cycle dates from the Mycenaean age, it may seem strange that its setting is far-off Lycia, and that may perhaps be adduced as an argument against this dating. Happily a Mycenaean representation, the glass plaque from Dendra,50 shows that the adventure with the Chimaera was known in the Mycenaean age.
If we consider things closely, it is not to be wondered at that a Mycenaean myth has its setting in Lycia. It is contended that the Bellerophon myth was introduced into Homer by the Ionians.51 It is, however, to be observed that there is a wide tract of land between Ionia and Lycia inhabited by Dorians and Carians, and the question is relevant, why have not the Ionians introduced their own myths? The answer is that they had none. Ionia is singularly devoid of myths except for foundation legends of the Ionian cities. Here is a remarkable fact which ought to be well observed and which requires an explanation.
This fact agrees with certain outstanding omissions in Homeric geography.52 The islands situated in the neighborhood of Troy, Lesbos, Tenedos, Lemnos, and Samothrace, are mentioned, but not the rich Ionian islands, Chios and Samos. On the contrary the Dorian islands Cos and Rhodes are mentioned, Cos in connection with a myth of Heracles53 and Rhodes in a passage considered to be a later addition, in which is described at length how the Rhodian hero Tlepolemus was killed by Sarpedon.54 It is really curious that the Ionian minstrels had nothing from their own country to put into their poems. This fact is notable, for it agrees in a surprising manner with the well-known but too little appreciated fact that Mycenaean remains are almost entirely lacking in Ionia. Mycenaean vases and sherds were found at Troy, at Phocaea, and at Miletus, a single tomb was discovered at the Heraeum of Samos,55 and a bee-hive tomb was discovered at Colophon.56 That is all, and nobody will doubt that if there were Mycenaean tombs their contents would have appeared in the hands of the dealers. This was the case on Rhodes, which, on the contrary, is full of Mycenaean tombs and finds. It is a remarkable coincidence that a Rhodian hero has found a place in Homer, and I am not disposed to think it accidental.
The curious facts and connections put forward here are further stressed by a consideration of the peoples allied with the Trojans.57 If we take the relevant passages into consideration, omitting the Catalogue, it appears that the range is strictly limited to north-western Asia Minor and the neighboring parts of Europe.58 Most prominent are the Thracians of Europe, with one exception to which I recur below, even if the Doloneia is left out of account. Next to them come the Paeones, a more western Thracian tribe. For the description of the death of the two Paeonian heroes is more full than that of the death of the two Paphlagonian heroes. With the Paphlagonians we cross to Asia Minor. Less important is the mention of the Halizones and of the Mysi; each people has the death of a hero briefly mentioned. The Caucones are mentioned twice in passing. No Phrygian hero takes part in the war, but the country appears in the background as the mighty empire it was, in the description of Priam's visit and in the fact that Hecabe was a Phrygian princess. The Maeones, who belonged to Lydia and lived south of the Mysians, are mentioned only in passing, and some knowledge of the country is displayed in another passage. The Carians occur only in the enumeration of the Trojan allies in the Doloneia.
This is a very consistent limitation to the neighboring peoples north and east of Troy, and it is most natural in view of the situation of Troy. It is obvious and reasonable that the Homeric poets took the conditions of their own age into account in describing the allies of Troy, of whom old myths had not much to tell. I have dwelt more fully upon this in order to emphasize the astonishing fact that none of the Trojan allies plays such a prominent part as the people hitherto not mentioned, the Lycians who lived in the far-off south of Asia Minor.
The passages where Lycia and the Lycians are mentioned are too numerous to be enumerated, and I need only point to the prominent part played by the Lycian heroes Sarpedon, Glaucus, and Pandarus in various songs of the Iliad.59 But in the fourth book it is said that Pandarus came from the town of Zeleia and the river Aesepus,60 which flows from Mount Ida to the sea,61 and these indications are reproduced in the Catalogue.62 This contradicts the Lycian localization of Pandarus, but scholars have generally held the opinion that the habitat of the Lycians was erroneously transferred to the Troas and the shores of Aesepus. Professor Wilamowitz and Dr. Finsler on the contrary have put forward the view that the Lycians were originally at home there and that their name was transferred to the Termiles,63 as the native inhabitants of Lycia called themselves. There is no apparent reason for such a transference and the mythological expression which usually is given to such a change is wanting. It would of course imply that Sarpedon and Glaucus also were at home in the Troas, but the above-mentioned scholars have not been inclined to draw this conclusion. The old opinion is certainly right. The Homeric poets, who did not know the south of Asia Minor, transplanted Pandarus to the Troas, naturally placing the allies of the Trojans in the neighborhood of Troy.
Moreover, the same thing seems to have happened in the case of the Cilicians. Andromache is said to be the daughter of Eëtion, ruler of the Cilicians and king of Thebes beneath Mount Plakos, a town which was taken by Achilles.64 Evidently this Thebes is not far from Troy, but the existence of Cilicians elsewhere than in southeastern Asia Minor is unknown. I can but think that the poet had vaguely heard about the Cilicians but did not know their habitat and made them, offhand, inhabitants of Thebes beneath Mount Plakos.
Be this as it may, the enigmatical fact remains that the most prominent adversaries of the Greeks next to the Trojans themselves are a people in the far-off south of Asia Minor. And this fact is connected with the other, that the myth of Bellerophon, of which the Mycenaean date is attested by a Mycenaean work of art, is localized in Lycia. Here the observation comes into play that the middle part of the western coast of Asia Minor, Ionia, is almost devoid of Mycenaean remains. On the other hand, Rhodes has both myths and Mycenaean remains, and a Rhodian hero appears in the Iliad, though many scholars think that the passage is an interpolation.
There is, however, a very obvious explanation of these facts, one which, moreover,, corroborates the Mycenaean origin of the myth and the Mycenaean background of epics. I have pointed to the scarcity of Mycenaean remains in Ionia.65 Archaeology proves that the western coast of Asia Minor was colonized by the Greeks only at the very end of the Mycenaean age. Prior to this time the wandering Greek tribes followed the highway toward the east, enticed by the great and rich civilization of Syria and Egypt. In doing so they followed the lure of wealth and civilization just as other barbarous peoples have followed it, e.g., the Teutonic tribes when they flooded the Roman empire. These wanderings have left their traces in the early colonization of Cyprus and its numerous Mycenaean remains. Here the statement in the Iliad may be noticed, that Agamemnon received a valuable gift, a richly decorated cuirass, from the Cyprian king Cinyras.66 Mycenaean finds are fairly numerous also on the coast of Syria. Greek tribes appeared in the Delta about 1200 B.C. Dr. Forrer's great Achaean kingdom with possessions on the southern coast of Asia Minor coincides remarkably with this movement of the Greek tribes.
The road which the Greeks followed went along the southern shore of Asia Minor. They colonized the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus and seem to have had a stronghold or trading station on the Syrian coast near Laodicea ad mare.67 We must surmise that they also tried to take booty and to gain a foothold on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Unhappily this country is almost unknown archaeologically. But Dr. Gjerstad who visited Cilicia recently informs me that there is evidence of Mycenaean colonization in this district. If Dr. Forrer is right, the Achaean king had possessed himself of Pamphylia about 1330 B.C. But apart from this it must be presumed that the Greeks during their voyages along the southern coast of Asia Minor had numerous opportunities of coming into conflict with the peoples who lived there, and these were the Lycians and the Cilicians.
The memory of these fights was preserved in the myths and in the epics. Hence the Lycians came to play a prominent part, and the adventures of Bellerophon were localized in Lycia. The woeful signs of the message which he carried from the king of Tiryns to the king of Lycia refer of course to the Minoan script which the Greeks took with them to Cyprus. The battles with the Lycians were celebrated in early epics and were from these introduced into the Trojan epos with that disregard for geography and chronology which is peculiar to epics, when events are incorporated into them. While the Lycians loomed largely in earlier recitals, they became the chief adversaries of the Greeks next to the Trojans themselves in the Trojan cycle.68
The same thing happened in the case of the Cilicians. The Greeks had learned to know them also during their voyages toward the east, and for this reason they were mentioned in epics and recitals. The Homeric poet took over the tradition and had heard that they were a mighty people, but not knowing their whereabouts he thought them fit to be the people over whom the father-in-law of the most brilliant hero of the Trojans ruled, just as Hecabe came from the mighty Phrygian empire. King Cinyras of Cyprus who gave Agamemnon an artfully wrought cuirass may have been introduced into Homer from the same source.
As far as I can see, this is the most natural explanation of the relevant facts. I have dwelt upon it at length because it not only corroborates the Mycenaean origin of the Bellerophon myth but also gives a valuable outlook on the Mycenaean background of the epics.
I touch only lightly upon another myth connected with Tiryns, because its association with Mycenaean times is very uncertain. This is the story of the daughters of King Proetus, who went mad and, according to the common version, were healed by the seer Melampus. The earliest testimony, the Catalogue of Hesiod, says that Hera punished the maidens because of their excessive indulgence in love affairs. In a late epos, the Melampodeia, the tale is transferred into the usual Dionysiac scheme. The Proetides are driven mad by Dionysus because they resisted his cult. Melampus, who is said by Herodotus to have taught the name and the cult of Dionysus and the phallic processions, belongs evidently to the religious movement of the archaic age in which the cult of Dionysus was received and regulated. The version according to which Hera caused the madness is earlier and moreover connected with Tiryns, where Hera was the chief goddess, but it is impossible to say how old it may be.
It has been remarked pertinently that the myth of the Proetides has the same basic idea as that of Io. Although the statement that the Proetides believed that they had been metamorphosed into cows occurs only in late writers, the same elements are conspicuous--the wrath of Hera, the madness, and the extensive wanderings, but in the case of Io the love of Zeus is given as the cause, and Argus is said to have watched Io and to have been killed by Hermes. There is no certain clue for unraveling this myth. I am content to point to the fact that it is attached to the Heraeum, which was built upon a Mycenaean site of importance, and that it especially established the connection of Hera with the cow.69 There is certainly reason to think that the cult of Hera at the Heraeum is of Mycenaean date, and this may perhaps be surmised in regard to the myth, too, although there is no specific proof. If some explanation is wanted, it may be guessed that the ecstatic cult of the nature goddess, with dances, which is so conspicuous on Mycenaean monuments, gave rise to this myth, just as the somewhat kindred ecstatic cult of Dionysus gave rise to many similar myths in a later age. But this is of course a mere guess, and the myth of Io may be dismissed, not being very essential for our purpose.
At last we come to Argos, the capital of Argolis in historical times. In the Mycenaean age it was but one of the minor sites and its remains from this age are not important. Of the myths connected with the city of Argos, we may pass over that of the culture hero Phoroneus, who is much less prominent than the hero of Nauplia, Palamedes, and the eponymous hero Argos; in a later chapter I shall recur to the attempt to make him a rival of Heracles.70 The only myth of interest, but, nevertheless, of a very great interest, is that of the Danaides.
The kernel of this myth was always the murder on the bridal night of the fifty sons of Aegyptus by the fifty daughters of Danaüs. The reason why this mass murder was perpetrated and the relations between the fathers, Danaüs and Aegyptus, differ in various versions and are of secondary importance. The events which followed are also related variously, but it is well to observe that, according to the current versions, the Danaides were not punished for their cruel deed.71
What does this deed of the Danaides, the murder of their husbands, signify? The nature symbolism, according to which this myth like many others was interpreted formerly, need hardly be discussed seriously.72 If we disregard such more or less far-fetched interpretation, the tale which seems to present the closest analogy is that of Judith and Holophernes, the tale of the Jewish woman who enticed the oppressor of her people into love and slew him on the bridal night. It may be worth while to try to proceed on this analogy. It implies that the motif, which is so conspicuous in the legend of Judith, the heroism of the woman, had been forgotten in the Greek tradition. The Greek shuddered always in telling the story, but if the deed was originally a crime, it is impossible to understand why no punishment followed, or if a punishment was given, why that was forgotten. So much seems to be absolutely certain, that the killing of the husbands, the sons of Aegyptus, was originally no crime. It cannot have been an action neither good nor bad. Was it then a heroic deed?
There is a curious question to which very little attention has been paid. Why are the Danaides so many, not less than fifty? We may understand why, to prove his heroic strength, it is told that Heracles in one night begat fifty sons, but there is no apparent reason why the Danaides should be so many and the killing of their husbands a wholesale massacre. If we take the word Danaides in the original sense of Danaan maidens73 and not according to the usual interpretation as the daughters of Danaüs, a way to understanding this feature will perhaps be opened; Danaüs is moreover a very shadowy personage.
The current opinion is that the husbands of the Danaides were originally nameless and that they were made sons of Aegyptus only after the Greeks had learned to know Egypt in the seventh century B.C.74 As they found animals venerated in this country, they transferred the myth of Io, who was metamorphosed into a cow, to Egypt, and with the Io myth that of the Danaides also was transferred to Egypt; thus their husbands were made sons of Aegyptus. The elaboration of the cycle is ascribed to the author of a lost epos, the Danais, of which only one fragment is preserved, telling that the daughters of Danaüs armed themselves near the river of the Nile.75 This seems prima facie to refer to the killing of their husbands, and if this is so, the locality where the drama was enacted was changed. For in the current version Danaüs and his daughters flee to Argos, the sons of Aegyptus pursue them and compel them there to the disastrous wedding. To avoid this contradiction others refer the words to a fight in which the maidens engaged before leaving Egypt.76 This seems to be a very doubtful means of evading the localization in Egypt, which probably is really the old version.
The Greeks, however, knew Egypt not only in the seventh century B.C., but also in the twelfth century B.C., when Greek tribes and in fact the Danaans tried to invade Egypt; and we know, moreover, that these migrating peoples came with wives and children. There is a circumstance pointing to the probability that the myth goes back to this time. For the tribal name of the Danaans is already obsolete in Homer and it is hardly probable that it was picked up and applied to a myth invented in the seventh century B.C. If the myth goes back to the time when the Danaans raided Egypt, its origin may be explainable under the conditions of this time. A crowd of Danaan women had been captured and made concubines of Egyptians; they slew their husbands and escaped. The wholesale slaughter of the Greeks on Lemnos by their indigenous wives is a somewhat kindred story, explaining why this island was lost to Greek colonization.77 This may be the simple underlying fact; certainly it explains why the deed was not considered a crime. It is a simple story from the life of that stormy age, simpler than the dramatic episode of Judith and Holophernes, but the analogy is there.78
This explanation of the myth of the Danaides as an historical reminiscence from the time when the Danaans attacked Egypt may seem hazardous to many, and I am quite aware of its hypothetical character; but it is perhaps not less probable than other interpretations which have been proposed. If my guess hits the mark, this fable is the only one connected with the city of Argos which goes back into the Mycenaean age. But it is evident that it in fact refers to the whole province of Argos and not to its later capital, with which it was connected only loosely and secondarily. The unimportance of the city of Argos from a mythological standpoint corresponds to its obscurity in the Mycenaean age. When Argos became the capital of the province, it tried of course to build up a mythology of its own; we have noticed these efforts, but they cannot deceive anybody.
Footnotes
36:3 The standard work on Greek Mythology is the fourth edition of L. Preller's Griechische Mythologie, edited by C. Robert. The volumes treating heroic mythology are a quite new and most substantial and learned work with the separate title: Die griechische Heldensage (1920--26); only the indexes are still wanting. The best English handbook on the subject is H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Greek Mythology (1928).
36:4 The important results of the recent excavations of the English School are published in the Annual of the British School at Athens, XXV (1921-23).
37:5 The report on these excavations is forthcoming in the periodical Archaeologia.
38:6 A. W. Persson, Kungagraven i Dendra (1928), is a popular survey in Swedish. The final publication of these most important finds is forthcoming in the Acta of the R. Society of Letters of Lund.
38:7 Tiryns, Vol. I (1912), pp. 114 et seq.; cp. my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, pp. 410 et seq.
38:8 Preliminary reports in the American Journal of Archaeology, XXIX (1925), pp. 413 et seq., XXXI (1927), p. 105, and in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, XLVI (1926), pp. 226 et seq.; XLVII (1927), pp. 237 et seq.; XLVIII (1928), p. 184.
38:9 For the recent finds on the Larissa see Vollgraff in Mnemosyne, LVI (1928), pp. 313 et seq., and in Mededeelingen der K. Akad. van Wetenschappen, Letterkunde, Vol. LXVI (1928), Ser. B, No. 4.
39:10 Concerning the sites near Corinth, see Blegen, American Journal of Archaeology, XXIV (1920), pp. 1 et seq. A preliminary report of the excavations at Asine is published in the Bulletin of the R. Society of Letters of Lund, 1924-25, but this does not include the still more important finds of the campaign in 1926, especially the results of the excavation of the Lower Town, in which the sanctuary described in my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, pp. XX et seq., was discovered. A supplementary excavation having been made in this year (1930), the final publication is in preparation.
39:11 Consequently I need not discuss the recent theory of Sir Arthur Evans reversing the old view referred to in the text. He thinks that the bodies and objects found in the shaft-graves were transferred thither from the bee-hive tombs, and adds vivacious polemics against the dating of the bee-hive tombs proposed by Mr. Wace (A. J. Evans, The Shaft-Graves and Bee-Hive Tombs of Mycenae and their Interrelation, 1929).
40:12 E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, I-III (1894-96).
40:13 Paus. ii. 16, 3. See p. 123, n. 46.
40:14 Paus. ii. 18, 1.
41:15 Inscr. Graec., IV. No. 493, which mentions ἱαρομνάμονες τὸς ἐς Περσε̃. Judicial functions are attributed to them when there is no σαμοργία. Cp. Wilamowitz, Aristoteles and Athen, II., p. 48, n. 26.
41:16 During the Roman age the honors of Heracles and Perseus were decreed for citizens of merit (Inscr. Graec., iv., No. 606, cp. No. 586). The noble family of T. Statilius Lamprias attached its genealogy to Perseus and the Dioscuri (ibid. Nos. 590 and 940).
42:17 So Ed. Meyer also, Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, I (1892), p.73. Cp. below p. 65.
43:18 "Agamemnon führt einen Vatersnamen, dessen künstliche Mache klar ist," Wilamowitz, "Die griech. Heldensage, II," Sitzungsberichte der preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften, 1925, p. 242.
43:20 Il. ii. vv. 101 et seq.
44:21 See my paper, "Das homerische Königtum" in Sitzungsberichte der preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften, 1927, p. 27; cp. below pp. 240 et seq.
44:22 By Ph. Buttmann, Mythologus, II (1829), p. 170.
44:23 See below pp. 91 et seq.
45:24 E. Bethe, Homer, III (1927), pp. 11 and 50; P. Cauer, Grundfragen der Homerkritik; ed. 3 (1923), pp. 274 et seq.
45:25 E.g. Il. ii. v. 108.
45:26 Cp. my above-quoted (p. 44, n. ) paper, p. 27.
46:27 For this view I quote only H. Usener, "Der Stoff des griech. Epos," Sitzungsberichte der Akad. der Wissenschaften in Wien, CXXXVII (1897), III, pp. 5 et seq., reprinted in his Kleine Schriften IV (1913), pp. 203 et seq.
46:28 I. Harrie, "Zeus Agamemnon," Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XXIII (1925), pp. 359 et seq.
46:29 Lykophron, Alexandra, vv. 1123 et seq., ἑμὸς δ᾽ ἀκοίτης, δμωΐδος νύμφης ἄναξ, Ζεὺς Σπαρτιάταις αἱμύλοις κληθήσεται τιμὰς μεγίστας Οἰβάλου ιέκνοις λαχών. Inversely Agamemnon is named instead of Zeus, v. 335, ὁ δ᾽ ἀμφὶ τύμβῳ τάγαμέμνονος δαμείς; i. e., Priamus who was killed on the altar of Zeus Herkeios.
46:30 Ibid., v. 1369 (Agamemnon) Ζηνὶ τῷ Λαπερσίῳ ὁμώνυμος Ζεύς.
46:31 Paus. iii. 19, S.
47:32 Paus. ix. 40, 11, who states that it was a δόρυ.
47:33 I refer to the only attested cult, at Tarentum, in a note, because it is evidently secondary. The cult applied more justly to the descendants of Atreus and Agamemnon and other heroes; cp. my Griechische Feste (1906), p. 457, n. 8.
48:34 See Usener, op. cit., p. 6 or 203 resp. with notes.
48:35 Wilamowitz in the paper quoted, p. 43, n. 18, p. 242.
48:36 Pollux, ix. 83.
48:37 For the Midas in question ought to be the last king of Phrygia, whose empire was crushed and who was killed by the Cimmerian invasion in the very beginning of the 7th century B.C.
49:38 Steph. Byz. s.v. Πενθίλη.
49:39 Aristot., Polit., v. 10, p. 1311 b.
49:40 Pindar, Nem., xi. 44, says of a victorious athlete from Tenedos that his ancestors emigrated from Amyclae with Orestes; for other testimony see Robert, Griech. Heldensage, pp. 1340 et seq.
49:41 The names are not quite identical, differing in the second vowel. Steph. Byz., however, calls the town Πενθίλη and its inhabitants Πενθελείς.
51:43 Paus. ii. 2, 4.
51:44 Paus. ii. 4, 1.
51:45 Il. vi. vv. 152 et seq.
51:46 E. Bethe, Thebanische Heldenlieder (1891), pp. 182 et seq.
52:47 Schol. Il. A, vi. 183, and T, vi. 192.
53:48 Il. vi., vv. 157 et seq. The words ἐκ δήμου ἔλασσεν - - - Ἀργείωον are of course not to be taken as a contradiction of the localization of Proetus at Tiryns; similarly Agamemnon sometimes is called king of Mycenae and sometimes king of the Argives.
53:49 L. Malten, "Bellerophon," Jahrbuch des deutschen archäolog. Instituts, XL (1925), pp. 121 et seq.
54:50 See above pp. 33 et seq.
54:51 Wilamowitz, Die Ilias and Homer (1916), p. 305.
54:52 I do not take the Catalogue of the Ships into account, since it is to be judged on its own merits.
55:53 Il. xiv. v. 255; xv. v. 28.
55:54 Il. v. vv. 628 et seq.
55:55 Comptes rendus de l’académie des inscriptions et belles lettres, 1921, p. 122. Gnomon, III, 1927, p. 189.
55:56 Art and Archaeology, xiv (1922), p. 259.
55:57 Cp. the interesting survey by W. Leaf, Troy (1912), pp. 269 et seq.
56:58 I give herewith a survey. Thrace and the Thracians are mentioned fairly often. The death of Peirous from Ainus is described at some length (Il. iv. vv. 517 et seq.); another Thracian chief is mentioned (v. 462) and killed by Aias (vi. 7). Especially in the Doloneia the Thracians play a prominent part. A leader of the Kikones is killed (xvii. 73). The Trojan allies are enumerated in this book (x. vv. 428-434). Following this list we inquire what their parts are in the Iliad. The Paeones dwelt at the river of Axius in Macedonia. A Paeonian hero, Pyraichmes, is killed by Patroclus (xvi. 285 et seq.) and another, Asteropaeus, by Achilles; the latter description especially (xxi. 140 et seq.) is rather full; he is mentioned in several other passages and with him (xvii. 348 et seq.) Apisaon. The Paphlagones are not mentioned in the quoted enumeration, but their chief, Pylaimenes, is killed by Menelaus (v. 577), and his son, Harpalion, by Meriones (xiii. 656 et seq.). The Caucones lived to the west of the Paphlagones; except in the enumeration they are mentioned only in passing (xx. 329). The chief of the Halizones, Odius, is killed by Agamemnon (v. 39); their town, according to the Catalogue (ii. 856), was Alybe, but their habitat is unknown. A Mysian hero is killed by Aias (xiv. 511). It is told that Priamus received gifts from them (xxiv. 278); and their country is mentioned (xiii. 5), so that it seems to belong to Europe. The Mysi are a part of the Moesian tribe which emigrated to Asia Minor. Phrygia is said to be the neighboring country to the empire of Priamus (xxiv. 545); his queen was a Phrygian princess. Apollo appears to Hector in the figure of her brother Asius who lived on the shores of Sangarius (xvi. 715 et seq.). The Maeones were a tribe living in Lydia. Their country is mentioned in passing (iii. 401; and xviii. 291), and the people are mentioned in the quoted enumeration. A Maeonian woman is said to be skilled in dyeing (iv. 142); and Iphition who was born at Hyde near Mount Tmolus is killed by Achilles (xx. 385 et seq.), and in this connection the Gygaean lake and the rivers of Hyllus and Hermus are mentioned.
57:59 Especially in v, xi, and xvi.
57:60 Il. iv. vv. 105 and 91.
57:61 Il. xi. v. 21.
58:62 Il. ii. vv. 824 et seq.
58:63 Wilamowitz, Hermes, XXXVIII (1903), p. 585; Finsler, Homer (ed. 3; 1924), p. 17.
58:64 Il. vi. vv. 395 et seq.; cp. i. vv. 366 et seq. and xxii. vv. 479 et seq. E. Bethe, Neue Jahrbücher für klass. Altertumswissenschaft, VII (1901), p. 671, proposed the hypothesis that this Thebe is the Thessalian town with that name. This view was supported by O. Kern, ibid., XIII (1904), p. 16, and by P. Cauer, Grundfragen der Homerkritik (ed. 3, 1921), p. 59 p. 261. It was also developed by F. Staehlin, Das Hypoplakische Thebe, eine Sagenverschiebung bei Homer (Programm, München, 1907), but it fails to account for the inhabitants being Cilicians, and is most unlikely. It is a remarkable fact that the names of the cities which are by Homer attributed to the Cilicians, Thebes and Lyrnessus, recur in Pamphylia (Steph. Byz. s.v. Θήβη and Σάρδησσος; cp. P. Kretschmer, Glotta, XIII (1924), p. 209 et seq.)
59:65 In my Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, p. 27, and above p. 53.
60:66 Il. xi. v. 20.
60:67 Lively connections with the Mycenaean world are proved by numerous Mycenaean finds in the recent excavations at Minet el Beida north of Laodicea ad mare on the Syrian coast; see the periodical Syria, X (1929), pp. 285 et seq.
61:68 Wilamowitz, Die Ilias and Homer (1916), p. 305, contends that the Ionians introduced the Lycians because their kings claimed descent partly from the Lycian hero Glaucus (Herodotus i. 147); Inschr. von Magnesia a. M., No. 17; O. Kern, Die Gründungsgeschichte von Magnesia a. M. (1894). I have above given my opinion of similar instances. The fame of Glaucus is due to the Homeric epics, and that is the reason why the genealogies were attached to him.
63:69 See my Griechische Feste (1906), pp. 42 et seq.
64:71 Except in a single late version, Schol. Eurip. Hec. 886, according to which Lynceus, the only son of Aegyptus who was saved, put them to death. P. Friedländer, who treats the myth at length in his dissertation, Argolica (Berlin, 1905), pp. 5 et seq., takes this version to be the oldest, quite arbitrarily. This is one weak point of his reasoning; the other is that there is no apparent reason why the brother of Danaüs, ejected from Argos, should retire to Egypt. The well-known myth that the Danaides were compelled to carry water in perforated vessels is Hellenistic and was transferred to them from those who were not initiated into the mysteries. I agree with Robert, Griech. Heldensage, p. 277, that it is an Orphic invention.
64:72 The connection of the Danaides with the spring at Lerna, Apollodorus, ii. 1, 5, 11, and Paus., ii. 24, 2, is superficial. Amymone was not originally one of the Danaides.
65:73 The alternative form Δανααί occurs in a quotation from Hesiod in Strabo, viii. p. 371; frag. 24 Rzach, ed. 3.
65:74 E.g. Ed. Meyer, Forschungen zur alten Geschichte I (1892), p. 84.
66:75 Frag. epic. graec. ed. Kinkel, p. 78.
66:76 For another attempted explanation see Ed. Meyer, loc. cit., p. 82, n. 3.
67:77 I agree with Wilamowitz, Sitzungsberichte der preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1906, p. 76, that this is the meaning of the myth, which was very much enlarged and remodeled. The latest treatment, by G. Dumézil, Le crime des Lemniennes (1924), takes up other points of view.
67:78 In the first edition of his Geschichte des Altertums, I (1884), p. 264, Ed. Meyer found a reminiscence of old wanderings of the peoples in the story of the emigration of Danaüs from Egypt; later in his Forschungen, loc. cit., he changed his view.