European Kingdoms

Mycenaeans

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. Their civilisation seems to have flourished immediately following the fall of Crete, which seems to have dominated the Greeks up to that point.

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 of this kingdom was at Argos, on the Peloponnese, 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. The city state was at the height of its power by 1300 BC.

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

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

c.1193 - 1183 BC

Agamemnon calls to arms the forces of his allied Achaean kingdoms, including Crete, Phthia, Pylos, Sparta, Tiryns, and Thebes. Before he can leave for the Trojan War, the seer Calchas (later to be found in Pamphylia) prophesises that in order to gain a favourable wind, the king must sacrifice his daughter, Iphigeneia, to the gods. Afterwards, the force sails off to various adventures on its way to Troy, 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.

c.1193 - 1183 BC

Achilles leads his forces in the Mycenaean army which attacks Troy. When the fleet lands in Mysia, he wounds Telephas, and at Troy he kills Cygnus of Kolonae, Mynes of Lyrnessos, and Hector son of Priam, but is subsequently killed by Paris.

c.1183 - ? BC

Neoptolemus

Son. Killed Priam of Troy and Eurypylos of Mysia.

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. All the Mycenaean palaces and fortified sites are destroyed and a major proportion of sites are abandoned, suggesting a largescale depopulation of the Peloponnese.

Once the Hittites had been destroyed in c.1200 BC, and the Mycenaeans had themselves (probably) smashed Troy, the colonisation of the western coast of Anatolia could begin (the possibility that the earlier Ahhiyawa might also be a Mycenaean colony notwithstanding), allowing the Mycenaeans to form or take over states or regions such as Maeonia, and perhaps Pamphylia, 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.