ParadiseLost

The events and the Bathroom location are all iffy or plain myths, brothers and sisters might be half-brothers/sisters in different versions and my historical outline is just bits and pieces of different versions of possible truths and myths.
So take this tripreport with a grain of salt . But remember we can't say for certain what did or didn't happen 3200yrs ago!
Also the red plaster floor in the Bathroom was covered-over by dirt after the excavation, so you can't see it today. Regards, Walter

Agamemnon was the mean King (of Mycenae) in the movie 'Troy', who was always at odds with Achilles.
  After the Trojan War he returns home and his wife kills him in the bathtub, for good reasons IMO .

 The 'Bathroom' location as the official on-site guidebook describes it is iffy. "This part of the palace includes a room of which only a corner has survived, with traces of red plaster on the floor; it has been fancifully identified as the bathroom in which Agamemnon was murdered".
  *But* and these are just my guesses and I'll like any input
from any Greek history buffs or pros.
  It would be an ideal and practical location for a royal palace bathroom.
  Mycenae is completely walled except for this small section where the cliff is defense enough along with a corner of the palace complex built atop the cliff.
  Mycenae has no running water, water must be carried up either from springs outside the walls or from an underground fountain/cistern within the walls (~100 steps down to the fountain/cistern).   So water was carried by workers or slaves to fill this bath and with no running water there is no need to have a drainage system within the fortification.   
Now when you want to drain the dirty bathwater it's alot easier to have the bathroom near the edge of the site's fortifications/walls. It's either that or build an underground drainage system thru the very rocky ground and under buildings to outside the fortification. Or have workers/slaves bail the bath with buckets and walk them to a drainage area.
 This bathroom location is right on the cliff, all you would need is a drain thru or under the wall.
  Ok the official guidebook is calling this a bathroom as in bathing. But how about a w.c. there also? The waste would just drop down the cliff and you would have clean or used water handy for personal use or cleaning the w.c. area?
  Different timeframe but the Romans often put w.c.'s after Baths and used the bath's waste water to flush them. So a water supply and a w.c. kind of go hand-in-hand so to speak .
 This bathroom is within the King's Palace and right behind the Megaron, which was *the* principal room in the Palace, it was the King's Throne Room (the throne was probably in the middle on the southside wall: this would follow Mycenaean tradition as would a bathing room close-by the Megaron like in Tiryns and Pylos). So this location would cover the King's Throne Room and Court where he conducted day to day business and also his private residence.

 I googled and checked a few history and guidebooks I have for more info on the *exact* location. I'm certain that the location I mention is the one the official guidebook is referring too, meaning to the right of the 'sideways |_|' labeled #17 on the Mycenae Map website.   Also 'Let's Go-Greece' has a map on which this *exact* location is high-lighted 'BATH'. I realize that 'Let's Go' is just a backpacker tourist guidebook written by Harvard students but I believe their publishers just like all the other guidebooks (except Rick Steves who draws his own simple plans) get their maps/plans/diagrams from established sources already in print.
  Also I don't know if this is relevent but the bathroom in Nestor's Palace (Mycenaean palace in Pylos) located nearby and servicing that Megaron had a white plaster floor and our bathroom location has a red plaster floor. Was this a common flooring material or only used in bathing rooms?
  I'm more into Roman history than Greek but I threw together this *version* of the events and there are very many .   It's just to give you some idea of the historic myth while you are standing there looking at this scant rubble ruin that once was a corner of a room that *might* have an intriguing story to tell. A perfect example of "if these walls could talk" .  
 Myths, truths, lies, stories, legends make-up Helen's Trojan War and the events surrounding it.
  But there were Greek-Trojan Wars in this era and Troy was destroyed ~1180BC which is the right time-frame for our Trojan War story.
  Homer (700-800BC?) is credited? for writing the Iliad, an epic poem about these events and people. So for ~400yrs this story was told as an oral tradition, then put in poem form and finally written down.   So it is probably based on a true event (the war) but Hollywoodized (myths) over the years.
  King Agamemnon was very likely a real king, who perhaps was killed by his wife.
  Helen of Troy, there is no proof that she existed but there is no proof that she didn't. Two kingdoms going to war over a kidnapped queen is as good a reason as any .
Who knows perhaps a close or distant member of a royal family that was captured or kidnapped by the Trojans. Going to war over the abduction of a queen makes a far better tale than the abduction of the king's 2nd cousin-twice removed .   
  But if you traveled all the way to Mycenae and are now standing in this 'Bathroom' location in the sweltering summer heat. Why worry about what is the truth and what is the myth after 3200yrs . We will *never* know what actually happened, so we might as well go with what we got , anything else will just get in the way of this mythical tragic story of Love, Hate, Rage, Revenge, Murder, Human Sacrifice, Jealousy, Matricide and Forgiveness.
 IMO it's not a big stretch to believe that this war actually did happen and Agamemnon's wife whacked him in the tub. But Helen, Paris, Achilles, etc and a wooden horse is pushing it .
 
 There are two brothers, one is the King of Sparta (Menelaus) and the other the King of Mycenae (Agamemnon). Just like in the movie Troy .    They marry two Spartan sisters, Clytemnestra marries Agamemnon and Helen marries Menelaus.
  Helen is the most beautiful girl in the World and every King, Ruler and famous man wants to marry her.   Her father chooses King Menelaus for the political connections but makes all the others promise to always defend Helen and her husband before he made his final choice known to them.

 Paris is a prince and son of the King of Troy but his mother exposed (abandon) him to the wilderness as an infant. She was told in a prophesy that her son when he reached manhood would destroy Troy.   But he is found by shepherds and raised as one of their own.

 Then one day three Goddesses of beauty Athena, Hera and Aphrodite appear before him (I saw this once in a movie and then they all...ahhh...well never mind )
  The goddesses ask him to choose who is the most beautiful one among them.
  They all try to bribe him (one with power: another with wealth & military victories: and one with Love) Paris chooses Aphrodite's bribe (Love) and that is to make the most beautiful woman in the World fall in love with him.   And that woman was a Queen called Helen of Sparta.  

 So off he sails to Sparta where King Menelaus treats him as his honored guest.
  But the King must leave to attend a family funeral in Crete, so he leaves his wife behind to entertain Paris.   Menelaus was an older man, it was an arraigned marriage and he cheats on her.     Paris is a young handsome Prince with a 'Goddess Aphrodite Love Spell'® working it's magic for him .   So it was a no brainer for the young beautiful Helen .
  So off they sail to Troy but on the way out of the palace they grab the King's treasury, steal the King's wife and ya might as well grab his gold for traveling expenses .

 Menelaus is fit to be tied when he finds out, he wants Helen and Paris dead!..dead!..dead! and his money back.   He goes to Mycenae to get his brother's help, Agamemnon agrees and they call-in all the markers (the other Greek Kings who promised to defend Helen and her husband).
They get a vast army together with a fleet of a thousand ships ready to go and kick some Trojan butt, but Agamemnon can't his ships to start...no wind .   

 The Goddess Artemis is ticked-off at Agamemnon because of an earlier animal killing, so no wind for him.   But a soothsayer tells him he can appease the goddess by sacrificing his daughter (Iphigeneia).
 Agamemnon knows his wife and daughter will never go for this, so he tricks them into coming to the harbor by claiming that he has arranged his daughter's marriage to Brad Pitt...I mean Achilles . Well the old sure-fire 'virgin daughter sacrifice to the gods' works and the Goddess lets the winds blow towards Troy.

Clytemnestra is in a rage that her husband killed their daughter just so he could jump-start his ships.   In time she takes a lover (Aegisthus) and exiles her son (Orestes) who disapproves of mom's adultery.   It's 'party time' in the palace and Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are ruling over Mycenae.
 But finally after 10yrs all good things must come to an end. Agamemnon returns victorious from Troy. And to make his earlier marital problems even worst he brings back a war trophy, Princess Cassandra (sister of Paris) as his concubine.   Clytemnestra wants to avenge her daughter's murder and is also ticked off with this concubine affair. Plus both she and Aegisthus know once the King finds out about their affair it's all over for them (Agamemnon's father threw his adulterous wife off a cliff!).

That night there is a feast to celebrate Agamemnon's victory and return home.   After the feast Agamemnon retires to a nice warm bath. Ahhh...it's great to be back home in the palace after a long decade at work. With a loving wife and the surviving children, the dead King of Troy's Princess daughter as your love toy and basically *the* superpower KIng of the whole region. Life is good!   
 But Clytemnestra who has issues murders Agamemnon in his bath, she threw a large cloth over him and then either stabbed him with a sword or axe murdered him possibly with the help of her lover.   And then out of sheer jealousy she murders Cassandra, like she even had a choice in the matter of becoming Agamemnon's war trophy and raped.   

 Clytemnestra's son returns 7yrs later and kills both mom and her lover to avenge his father's murder.   Basically all the other major players are killed Paris, Achilles, Troy's royal family, etc along with a cast of 10's of thousands.
 
King Menelaus finally gets Helen at the end of his sword but her beauty just overwhelms him and he cannot kill her.   So they sail off into the sunset and back to Sparta, where they live out their lives ('happily ever after'? Who knows ) and when death finally takes them they are buried together.

LOCATIONS AND PHOTOS:
Ok go to this map/plan:
www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21104a/00/lk04a012.jpg See in the center the number '17' and just below it the 'square sideways U' like this |_| but turned 90deg to the right.
  That is the only surviving corner of the bathroom which is described in the official on-site guidebook. The area to the right of it and the area below that is the Bathroom. Kind of like this ---=_x_] except the = which is the 'sideways sq U' would be the upper left corner* of the room
[*_x_].
 This aerial photo shows this 'U |_|' section, only now it is upside down like this TT in the bottom middle of the photo http://helios.classics.uga.edu/cours...ae/Slide55.JPG So the area below the TT and the area to the left is the Bathroom.
Now go back to the 'Map/Plan' website photo. See the purple area below 17 and to the left, that is the Megaron or Throne Room labeled 19.
This is what it once looked like
http://www.coconino.edu/apetersen/_A...nstruction.gif And today in the floor you can see where the circular hearth once stood in the center with the 4 columns around it like this [:]. You can just barely make out the hearth and column floor impressions in the aerial photo and in this next photo. 
The photographer in this photo is standing *in* the 'U |_|' while taking this shot of the Megaron. The 'U |_|' and the Bathroom area to his left cannot be seen though
www.grisel.net/images/greece/Mycenae11.JPG

The underground (~100 steps) Fountain or Cistern I mention is #26 in the upper right corner of the 'Map/Plan'. You can walk down into it but you definitely need a small flashlight/torch to see. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...lf/Cistern.jpg www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21104a/00/lk04a017.jpg

This is a nice photo website of Mycenae: http://helios.classics.uga.edu/cours...gy/mycenae.htm

Also if you happen to be going to Epidaurus from Nauplia look for this ancient bridge www.xs4all.nl/~hansmiv/reizen/Greece/GR1_22.jpg   It's ~14km outside on Nauplia on the left, it's 50m before a modern bridge on a sharp corner. I recall on the right there is a vehicle pull-off and a small sign saying 'Mycenaean Bridge'.   It is also called the 'Cyclopean Bridge'. It is probably of Mycenaean origin but this rebuilding might be 5C-BC.

ParadiseLost

This [:] should be this

[ : o : ]

ParadiseLost

I was going to email this to someone when I noticed many of the URLs were dead.
So here's new URLs and a bit of a rewrite. Regards, Walter

The Bathroom murder location is very iffy but possible.
The events are legends and myths but perhaps based on some truths?

  Also Brothers and sisters might be half-brothers/sisters in different versions and my historical outline is just bits and pieces of different versions of possible truths and myths.

  So take this trip report with a grain of salt. But remember we can't say for certain what did or didn't happen 3200yrs ago!

Also the red plaster floor in the Bathroom was covered-over by dirt after the excavation, so you can't see it today. Regards, Walter

Agamemnon was the mean King of Mycenae in the movie 'Troy', who was always at odds with Achilles.

  After the Trojan War he returns home and his wife kills him in the bathtub, for good reasons IMO .

 The 'Bathroom' location as the official on-site guidebook describes it is 'iffy'. "This part of the palace includes a room of which only a corner has survived, with traces of red plaster on the floor; it has been fancifully identified as the bathroom in which Agamemnon was murdered".
 
 *But* and these are just my guesses and I'll like any input from any Greek history buffs or pros.
  It would be an ideal and practical location for a royal palace bathroom.

  Mycenae is completely walled except for this small section where the cliff is defense enough along with a corner of the palace complex built atop the cliff.

  Mycenae has no running water, water must be carried up either from springs outside the walls or from an underground fountain/cistern within the walls (~100 steps down to the fountain/cistern).

  So water was carried by workers, serfs or slaves to fill this bath and with no running water there is no need to have a drainage system within the fortification.   

Now when you want to drain the dirty bathwater it's alot easier to have the bathroom near the edge of the site's fortifications/walls.
  It's either that or build an underground drainage system thru the very rocky ground and under buildings to outside the fortification.
  Or have workers/slaves bail the bath with buckets and walk them to a drainage area.

 This bathroom location is right on the cliff, all you would need is a drain thru or under the wall.
  Ok the official guidebook is calling this a bathroom as in bathing.

  But how about a w.c. there also? The waste would just drop down the cliff and you would have clean or used water handy for personal use or cleaning the w.c. area?

  Different timeframe but the Romans often put w.c.'s after Baths and used the bath's waste water to flush them.   So a water supply and a w.c. kind of go hand-in-hand so to speak .

   This bathroom is within the King's Palace and right behind the Megaron, which was *the* principal room in the Palace, it was the King's Throne Room (the throne was probably in the middle on the southside wall: this would follow Mycenaean tradition as would a bathing room close-by the Megaron like in Tiryns and Pylos).

  So this bathroom location would cover the King's Throne Room and Court where he conducted day to day business and also his private palace residence.

 I googled and checked a few history and guidebooks I have for more info on the *exact* location.
  I'm very certain that the location I mention is the one the official guidebook is referring too, meaning to the right of the 'sideways |_|' labeled #17 on the Mycenae Map website.

  Also 'Let's Go-Greece' has a map on which this *exact* location is hi-lighted 'BATH'. I realize that 'Let's Go' is just a backpacker tourist guidebook written by Harvard students but I believe their publishers just like all the other guidebooks (except Rick Steves who draws his own simple plans) get their maps/plans/diagrams from established sources already in print.

 Also this could be relevent; The bathroom in Nestor's Palace (Mycenaean palace in Pylos) located nearby and servicing that Megaron had a white plaster floor and our bathroom location has a red plaster floor. Was this a common flooring material or *perhaps* only used in bathing rooms?
 
 I'm more into Roman history than Greek but I threw together this *version* of the events and there are very many .

 It's just to give you some idea of the historic myth while you are standing there looking at this scant rubble ruin that once was a corner of a room that *might* have an intriguing story to tell.
  A perfect example of "if these walls could talk" .  

 Myths, truths, lies, stories, legends make-up Helen's Trojan War and the events surrounding it.
  But there were Greek-Trojan Wars in this era and Troy was destroyed ~1180BC which is the right time-frame for our Trojan War story.

  Homer (700-800BC?) is credited? for writing the Iliad, an epic poem about these events and people.

  So for ~400yrs this story was told as an oral tradition, then put in poem form and finally written down.  
 So it is probably based on a true event (the war) but Hollywoodized (myths) over the years.

  King Agamemnon was likely a real king, who perhaps was killed by his wife.

  Helen of Troy, there is no proof that she existed but there is no proof that she didn't.

  Two kingdoms going to war over a kidnapped queen is as good a reason as any .

Or who knows perhaps a close or distant member of this royal family that was actually captured or kidnapped by the Trojans. And going to war over the abduction of a Queen makes a far better tale than the abduction of the king's 2nd cousin-twice removed .   
 
 But if you traveled all the way to Mycenae and are now standing in this so-called 'Bathroom' location in the sweltering summer heat.
  Why worry about what is the truth and what is the myth after 3200yrs .

  We will *never* know what actually happened, so we might as well go with what we got , anything else will just get in the way of this mythical tragic story of Love, Hate, Rage, Revenge, Murder, Human Sacrifice, Jealousy, Matricide and Forgiveness.

 IMO it's not a big stretch to believe that this war actually did happen and Agamemnon's wife whacked him in the tub.
  But Helen, Paris, Achilles, etc and a wooden horse is pushing it .

[The story]
  There are two brothers, one is the King of Sparta (Menelaus) and the other the King of Mycenae (Agamemnon). Just like in the movie Troy
.

 They marry two Spartan sisters, Clytemnestra marries Agamemnon and Helen marries Menelaus.

  Helen is the most beautiful girl in the World and every King, Ruler and famous man wants to marry her.

  Her father chooses King Menelaus for the political connections but makes all the others promise to always defend Helen and her husband before he made his final choice known to them.

 Paris is a Prince and son of the King of Troy but his mother exposed (abandon) him to the wilderness as an infant.
  She was told in a prophesy that her son when he reached manhood would destroy Troy.
 But he is found by shepherds and raised as one of their own.
 Then one day three Goddesses of Beauty Athena, Hera and Aphrodite appear before him (I saw this once in a movie and then they all...ahhh...well never mind )
 
 The Goddesses ask him to choose who is the most beautiful one among them.
  They all try to bribe him, one with power, another with wealth & military victories and one with Love.
 
 Paris chooses Aphrodite's bribe (Love) and that is to make the most beautiful woman in the World fall in love with him.
And that woman was a Queen called Helen of Sparta.  

 So off he sails to Sparta where King Menelaus treats him as his honored guest.
  But the King must leave to attend a family funeral in Crete, so he leaves his wife behind to entertain Paris.  

  Menelaus was an older man, it was an arraigned marriage and he cheats on her.
  Paris is a young handsome Prince with a 'Goddess Aphrodite Love Spell' ® working it's magic for him .
 So it's a no brainer for the young and beautiful Helen.  

 So off they sail to Troy but on the way out of the palace they grab the King's treasury, steal the King's wife and ya might as well grab his gold for traveling expenses .

   Menelaus is fit to be tied when he finds out, he wants Helen and Paris Dead! And his money back too!

  He goes to Mycenae to get his brother's help, Agamemnon agrees and they call-in all their markers (the other Greek Kings who promised to defend Helen and her husband).

They get a vast army together with a fleet of a thousand ships ready to go and kick some Trojan butt, but Agamemnon can't his ships to start...no wind .   

  This is because Goddess Artemis is ticked-off at Agamemnon because of an earlier animal killing, so she's stilling the winds on him.  

 But a soothsayer tells him he can appease the Goddess by sacrificing his daughter (Iphigeneia).

 Agamemnon knows his wife and daughter will never go for this (ya think!), so he tricks them into coming to the harbor by claiming that he has arranged his daughter's marriage to Brad Pitt...I mean Achilles .
  Well the old sure-fire 'virgin daughter sacrifice to the gods' works and the Goddess lets the winds blow towards Troy.

Clytemnestra is in a rage that her husband killed their daughter just so he could jump-start his ships (go figure!).

 In time she takes a lover (Aegisthus) and exiles her son (Orestes) who disapproves of his mom's adultery.

  Now it's 'Party Time' in the palace and Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are ruling over Mycenae and having a grand ole time.
 But finally after 10yrs all good things must come to an end.

  Agamemnon returns victorious from Troy. And to make his earlier marital problems even worst he brings back a war trophy, Princess Cassandra (sister of Paris) as his concubine.

  Clytemnestra wants to avenge her daughter's murder and is also ticked off with this concubine affair.

  Plus both she and Aegisthus know once the King finds out about their affair it's all over for them (Agamemnon's father threw his adulterous wife off a cliff!).

That night there is a feast to celebrate Agamemnon's victory and return home.

  After the feast Agamemnon retires to a nice warm bath. "Ahhh...it's great to be back home in the palace after a long decade at work. With a loving wife and the surviving children, the dead King of Troy's Princess daughter as your sex toy and basically *the* superpower KIng of the whole region. Life is good"!   
 But Clytemnestra who still has issues murders Agamemnon in his bath.
  She threw a large cloth over him and then either stabbed him with a sword or axe murdered him possibly with the help of her lover.
  And then out of sheer jealousy she murders Cassandra, like she even had a choice in the matter of becoming Agamemnon's war trophy love toy.   

 Clytemnestra's son returns 7yrs later and kills both mom and her lover to avenge his father's murder.

 But we do have one happy ending.
  Years earlier KIng Menelaus finally gets his wife Helen at the end of his sword!
  His revenge is just a thrust away.
But as he looks upon Helen her beauty just overwhelms him and he cannot kill her.
 So they sail off into the sunset and back to Sparta, where they live out their lives ('happily ever after'? Who knows ).
  And years later when death finally takes them they are buried together.

LOCATIONS AND PHOTOS:
Ok go to this map/plan:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~klio/im...mycen_plan.jpg *OR* http://tinyurl.com/yrgny6
  See in the center the number '17' and just below it a 'square sideways U' like this |_| but turned 90deg to the right.
  That is the only surviving corner of the bathroom which is described in the official on-site guidebook. The area to the right of it and the area below that is the Bathroom. Kind of like this with the * being the surviving corner [*_x_]

  This plan is a closer view; The sideways '|_|' is just above the upper right corner of the Megaron called the 'Throne Room' in this plan http://www.odysseyadventures.ca/arti...alace-plan.jpg *OR* http://tinyurl.com/2j3747.

 This aerial photo shows this '|_|' section, only now it is upside down like this TT in the very bottom middle edge of the photo http://www.personal.kent.edu/~khame/...erial.02.w.jpg *OR* http://tinyurl.com/3ym4jp
  So the area below the TT and the area to the left is the Bathroom.

  Now go back to the 'Map/Plan' website photo. See the purple area below 17 and to the left, that is the Megaron or
Throne Room labeled 19.

 This is what it once roughly looked like http://www.utexas.edu/courses/cc302k...s/PY%20meg.jpg *OR* http://tinyurl.com/3avyq3
  And today in the floor you can see where the circular hearth once stood in the center with the 4 columns around it like this [ : o : ].
  You can just barely make out the hearth and column floor impressions in the aerial photo and in this next photo.  

 The photographer in this photo is standing *in* the '|_|' whiletaking this shot of the Megaron.
www.grisel.net/images/greece/Mycenae11.JPG

This is a nice model of the site
http://www.greeceathensaegeaninfo.co...nae-recon1.gif *OR*
http://tinyurl.com/2l36td
  The Megaron is the bldg to the right of the words 'Palace (Megaron)' and the bldg just below the word (Megaron) is the bldg where the bath was.

This is an aerial photo & model of the site; http://www.greeklandscapes.com/image...rial_photo.jpg *OR*
http://tinyurl.com/34pv83
In the aerial photo in the upper middle are two square areas, the bottom one is the 'Great Court or Forecourt' and the one above it is the Megaron, the '|_|' section would be just to the left of the left upper corner of the Megaron.

The underground (100 steps) Fountain or Cistern I mention is #26 in the upper right corner of the 'Map/Plan'. You can walk down into it but you definitely need a small flashlight/torch to see. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...lf/Cistern.jpg

In the future if map/plan link which numbers the sites (like #17) goes dead just google-image mycenae plan (with no " " marks), it's a popular map/plan and you should be able to find it.
Also mycenae aerial with bring up photos like the ones I used.

  Also if you happen to be going to Epidaurus from Nauplia look for this ancient bridge www.xs4all.nl/~hansmiv/reizen/Greece/GR1_22.jpg *OR* http://tinyurl.com/27gp8g
  It's ~14km outside on Nauplia on the left, it's 50m before a modern bridge on a sharp corner. I recall on the right there is a vehicle pull-off and a small sign saying 'Mycenaean Bridge'.   It is also called the 'Cyclopean Bridge'. It is probably of Mycenaean origin but this rebuilding might be 5C-BC.

Pegontheroad

Did the movie contain all this action? Or did you read the Iliad?

Years ago in San Francisco, I saw Eugene O'Neill's play "Mourning Becomes Electra," which is really 3 different stories in a 5 hour drama. It's set during the Civil War but tells the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Electra, Orestes, et. al..

ParadiseLost

<<<Did the movie contain all this action?>>>

No, the only Mycenae scene IIRC was Menelaus meeting Agamemnon in the throne room.
And Agamemnon's family and murders aren't mentioned.

<<<Or did you read the Iliad?>>>
Yes but a very long time ago .

I just googled for info and threw together the story to make that bathroom site interesting by connecting it too a story we all know...Helen of Troy and the Trojan War.

Without the Iliad we wouldn't have Agamemnon and Mycenae would just be an ancient ruin that was ruled over by a bunch of nameless Kings who's legacies were lost in time.

But with Agamemnon we get a wild story with murders, betrayal, revenge, sex, etc. which puts people walking among these ruins while we visit them.

So whether it's legend, truth, myth or half truth/half myth or if I favored a particular version of the tale what's the difference. We'll never know!
As long as it puts a cool story for us tourists to that bunch of old rocks that's all that matters.

As I said in the beginning of my post "...take this tripreport with a grain of salt ." Regards, Walter

NikolettaG

Wow! This is a really comprehensive account! It does help to make the stones 'come alive' – it's often so difficult to link the legends, history, etc. to an archaeological site. In response to the comment about reading the Iliad, though, can I be a boring old pedant and point out that although Agamemnon is a key figure in the Iliad, he's still alive at the end of it - Homer's account of his death comes in the Odyssey. It is referred to at various points – usually to emphasise the contrast between his homecoming to his (faithless) wife, and Odysseus' homecoming to his (faithful) Penelope. In Homer, however, it is Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's lover, who actually kills Agamemnon (while Clytemnestra looks on) and no bath is mentioned!

The 5th Century playwright Aeschylus (who would have been influenced by Homer, of course) gives his version of events in his trilogy the Oresteia: It's the first play 'Agamemnon' which has given us all the familiar details: bath, axe, death of Cassandra (She's also briefly mentioned by Homer). This is a WONDERFUL play – well worth reading before a visit to the site. There's also Michael Cacoyannis' movie 'Iphigenia' (1977), based on Euripides' play about the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter. Part of this was filmed at the actual site. Can't remember who played Achilles, but he was just as tasty as Brad Pitt!

Nikki

Thanks for all the details about the story behind Mycenae. It is the aura created by the legends that made Mycenae one of the most evocative sites in Greece for me.

I could imagine Agamemnon marching in through the lion gate on his return from Troy, to be greeted and then murdered by Clytemnestra. Well worth reading up on the mythology before visiting.

ParadiseLost

NikolettaG...Wow thanks for that info!
I did assume alot with Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey which I didn't really check.

I just went straight to google based on the Mycenae on-site guidebook which stated;
"This part of the palace includes a room of which only a corner has survived, with traces of red plaster on the floor; it has been fancifully identified as the bathroom in which Agamemnon was murdered".
So with the keywords (agamemnon bath murder) I got exactly what I wanted, a dead Agamemnon in a bathtub and an axe wielding bloody wife standing over him .

Its been almost 2yrs since I wrote this and I just googled again to see if I used any others sources besides the one you mentioned and I remember reading this guy also.

According to the account given by ***Pindar and the tragedians, Agamemnon was slain by his wife alone in a 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 sacrifice of Iphigenia 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 with the help of his daughter Electra.

***Pindar (or Pindarus) born ~522 BC in Cynoscephalae (a Boeotia village) and died in Argos 443 BC. He was perhaps the greatest of the nine lyric poets of ancient Greece.

I guess the later post-Homer guys just did a slight Hollywood-type rewrite and put Agamemnon in a tub and an axe in the wife's hands to liven-up their death scene .

Thanks Again...Regards, Walter

NikolettaG

Walter - I was fascinated by your post (I hadn't noticed it wasn't a new one). It sent me back to Homer to check the references to the death of Agamemnon. It's such an important theme in the Odyssey and it's mentioned within the first 30 lines, by Zeus at the Council of the gods with which the story opens. (I used to teach Classics but it's amazing how much you forget!)
Also - I was very interested in the photo of the Mycenaean bridge: I've seen it several times on the way to a play at Epidauros, as the bus driver has always stopped briefly to let the passengers see it. So thank YOU for all of this!

Rostra

I just wanted to update this esp the "Bathroom" location with a recent post of mine.

"Most of the links are dead but this pdf is excellent with diagrams of 'Bathing Rooms' in Pylos and Tiryn located in basically the same location (Throne Rooms) as the one in Mycenae (with an excellent diagram on this location).

http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/...milarities.pdf

And a map showing this Bathroom #17.

http://www.travelinstyle.com/greece/...s/IMAGE003.JPG

Also I am more into Roman history so my 'storyline' of the mythical events here was only somewhat researched just too give we tourists something cool to see and relive when at Mycenae plus it plays into the movie 'Troy' with Brad Pitt butting heads with Agamemnon and also the scenes of Agamemnon's Throne Room at Mycenae early in the movie."