European Kingdoms

Mycenae

The Mycenaeans were Indo-Europeans who blended into the indigenous Greek population between 2800 and 2000 BC. While city states had emerged by 1600 BC (the same time at which Mycenaean culture also appears on Cyprus), the Mycenaeans did not form one nation state, but instead banded their independent city states together under one leader in times of trouble. During their own time they were known primarily as Achaeans, after the Achaea region of Greece.

Records on the Mycenaeans are very sparse, usually being limited to myths and legends. Many of their leaders are semi or wholly legendary. The latter are backed in lilac. Mycenaeans also established trading outposts on the Anatolian coast, and were possibly the Ahhiyawa mentioned in Hittite texts from the mid-fifteenth century onwards.

Kings of Iolkos

A Mycenaean city state near Thessaly. The ruins of the city are close to Demetrias, near the Port of Volos.

Critheas

Aeson

Pelias

Acastus

c.1220 BC

Jason

Leader of the Argonauts.

c.1220 BC

Jason is from one generation before that of the participants of the Trojan War. He makes the heroic voyage to Kolkis to secure the Golden Fleece, rescuing Phineas of Thrace along the way.

Kings of Mycenae

The citadel was at Argos, situated on the lower slopes of the Euboea Mountain, on the road leading from the Argolic Gulf to the north (Corinth and Athens). The name of this city state name was adapted to describe the whole of this Late Bronze Age Greek civilisation. Tantalus was, according to Greek mythology, a son of Zeus, so he may well have been the first king of Mycenae.

Tantalus

Killed his son, Pelops, to test the gods. They revived Pelops.

Pelops

Son. m Hippodamia, dau of Oenomaus.

Upon the (permanent) demise of Pelops, his sons, Atreus and Thyestes, fight between each other for the kingdom. Atreus wins and becomes king.

Atreus

Son. Founder of the House of Atreus. Murdered by Aegisthus.

Aegisthus

Nephew. Usurper.

Thyestes

Father. Joint ruler.

The brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus, sons of Atreus (or grandsons via Pleisthenes, according to alternate traditions), shelter with Tyndareus of Laconia (Sparta) following the usurpation of the Mycenaean throne. Together the brothers return to drive out Aegisthus and Thyestes, and Agamemnon increases the kingdom's territory by conquest to become the most powerful Mycenaean ruler.

c.1200 - 1177 BC

Agamemnon

Brother. Killed Tantalus of Maeonia and married his widow.

c.1200 BC

Menelaus

Gained the throne of Sparta. Took part in Trojan War.

c.1193 - 1183 BC

Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter, Iphigeneia, to the gods, and amasses the forces of his allied Achaean kingdoms, including Phthia, Pylos, Tiryns, and Thebes. The force sails off to the Trojan War, leaving Agamemnon's strong-willed wife, Clytemnestra, in charge.

Clytemnestra begins an affair with Aegisthus, the only surviving son of Thyestes. When Agamemnon returns (with his captive consort, Cassandra) the pair are murdered in the bath by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, partially in revenge for the death of Iphigeneia.

c.1193 - ? BC

Clytemnestra

Wife. Daughter of Tyndareus of Laconia.

c.1183 - ? BC

Aegisthus

Cousin of Agamemnon and third husband of Clytemnestra.

Orestes

Killed his mother and fled the kingdom for a time. Ruled?

Kings of Phthia (Achaean Phthiotis)

A Mycenaean city state in southern Thessaly. The ruins of the city are close to Demetrias, near the Port of Volos.

Xouthos

First of the Aeolides line.

Doros

Achaeos

Phthios I

Phthios II

Hellen

Myrmidon

First of the Myrmidones line.

Actor

Eurytion

Pileas

First of the Pileides line.

? - c.1183 BC

Achilles

Took part in the Trojan War. Killed Hector. Killed by Paris.

c.1193 - 1183 BC

Achilles leads his forces in the Mycenaean army which attacks Troy.

c.1183 - ? BC

[Name Unknown]

Son. Killed Priam of Troy.

1200 - 1140 BC

Mycenaean power is gradually eroded by the invading Dorians from the north, with domination coming by 1140 BC. The surviving Ionic-speaking Mycenaeans gather and flourish in Athens, or in conquered Mediterranean territories which probably include Phillistia.

Once the Hittites had been destroyed in c.1200 BC, and the Mycenaeans had themselves smashed Troy, the wholesale colonisation of the western coast of Asia Minor could begin (the possibility that the earlier Ahhiyawa might also be a Mycenaean colony notwithstanding), allowing the Mycenaeans to form kingdoms such as Lydia between c.1100 to 900 BC which themselves usually survive until they are conquered by the later great empires.

However, in common with much of the Middle East, general instability driven by a major regional drought causes a dark age to fall throughout the remainder of Greece, until c.750 BC, when classical Greece begins to emerge. Overseas trade ceases in the Mediterranean, people are no longer buried with lavish grave goods, and several fortresses are destroyed or substantially reduced in size - or abandoned altogether. The only state to buck the trend is that of Alashiya, which prospers, perhaps due to the removal of Mycenaean dominance in the region.

Athens

Athens was under Minoan domination until around the fifteenth century BC. At the end of the Mycenaean Period, it was in effect the bolt-hole for the Mycenaeans as the rest of Greece was invaded by the barbarian Dorians from the north, plunging the country into a Dark Age.

Trade was undertaken with the Phoenician city states, with papyrus being imported from there and locations being used in stories about the Greek gods.

1060 BC

Codros

Last king.

480 - 479 BC

Invading Greece in 480 BC, the Persians are swiftly engaged by Athens and Sparta in the Vale of Tempe, and then stymied by a mixed force of Greeks led by Sparta at Thermopylae. Athens then defeats the Persian navy at Salamis, and after the Persian king Xerxes returns home, his army is decisively defeated at the battle of Plataea and kicked out of Greece.

431 - 404 BC

The Second Peloponnesian War brings mighty Athens and its empire to its knees and establishes Sparta as the greatest Greek power.

395 - 387 BC

At the start of the Corinthian War, Sparta fights against a coalition of four allied states; Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos; all initially backed by Persia.

338 BC

Philip II of Macedonia defeats the Greek states at the Battle of Chaeronea and gains overlordship over all of Greece, including Athens and Sparta.

307 BC

At the start of his reign as an Antigonid king, Demetrius I frees Athens from the rule of Cassander of Macedonia and Ptolemy of the Lysimachium Empire, and restores the democratic system there.

267 - 261 BC

The Chremonidean War is fought between a coalition of Greek city states including Athens and Sparta for the restoration of their independence from Macedonian influence, aided by the Ptolemaic Egyptians.

148 BC

The Achaean League of Greek states rises up against the Romans establishing a permanent presence in Greece and is swiftly destroyed. Rome destroys Corinth as an object lesson and annexes Greece & Macedonia, incorporating them into the Roman Province of Macedonia.