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Updated: June 29, 2025
The discoveries which were made during the last quarter of the nineteenth century by Schliemann and his successors at Mycencæ, Tiryns, Orchomenos, and elsewhere, were quite conclusive as to the former existence of a civilization quite equal to, and in all probability the original of, that which is described for us in the Homeric poems; but it was not until the treasures of Knossos and Phæstos began to be revealed in 1900 and the subsequent years that it became manifest that what was known as the Mycenæan civilization was itself only the decadence of a far richer and fuller culture, whose fountain-head and whose chief sphere of development had been in Crete.
The monster had its hollow lair by the grove of Nemean Zeus, but as for him that slew it, I know not surely whether he was a man of sacred Argos, there, or a dweller in Tiryns city, or in Mycenae, as he that told the tale declared.
The explorations and excavations of Sir Arthur Evans at Cnossus seem to prove that the Homeric civilization of Tiryns and Mycenae was derived from Crete, whose earliest remains carry us back three thousand years before the Christian era. And if Crete gave to ancient Greece her earliest civilization she has insisted on giving herself to modern Greece.
The charging bull of Tiryns, the first to be discovered, was a mystery so long as it stood alone; but it is only one of a succession of such pictures painted upon walls, engraved upon gems, and stamped on seal impressions which show that the Cretans and Mycenæans were as fond of their bull-fights as a modern Spaniard of his.
Yea for the very founder of this country once on a time struck with his staff of tough wild-olive-wood Alkmene's bastard brother Likymnios in Tiryns as he came forth from Midea's chamber, and slew him in the kindling of his wrath. So even the wise man's feet are turned astray by tumult of the soul. Then he came to enquire of the oracle of God.
In details, we have the frieze of kuanos of the Palace of Alcinous, paralleled by the fragments discovered, as already mentioned, at Tiryns, and by similar friezes at Knossos, while the bronze walls of the same palace have been, if not paralleled, at all events illustrated, by the bronze decorations of the vaults of the great bee-hive tombs at Mycenæ and Orchomenos.
The mainland palaces of the Mycenæan Age at Tiryns and Mycenæ are, so to speak, buried in fortifications.
So first Acrisius drove out Proetus; and he went across the seas, and brought home a foreign princess for his wife, and foreign warriors to help him, who were called Cyclopes; and drove out Acrisius in his turn; and then they fought a long while up and down the land, till the quarrel was settled, and Acrisius took Argos and one half the land, and Proetus took Tiryns and the other half.
These figures of bulls, as we have already seen in connection with the Palace of Tiryns, were among the most favourite subjects of Mycenæan and Minoan art; but nothing so fine as the Knossos relief had yet been discovered. 'It is life-sized, or somewhat over, and modelled in high relief.
The Pythia, or priestess in the temple, desired him to settle at Tiryns, to serve as bondman to Eurystheus, who ruled at Mycenae as King, and to perform the great labours which Eurystheus should impose upon him. When these tasks were all accomplished, the inspired priestess added, Hercules should be numbered among the immortal gods.
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