MYCENÆ, in Ancient Geography, a town of Ar-
golis, in Peloponnesus. The kingdom of the Argives
was divided into two portions by Acrilius and his bro-
ther Proetus. Argos and Mycenæ were their capitals.
—These, as belonging to the same family, and distant
only about 50 stadia or six miles and a quarter from
each other, had one tutelary deity, Juno, and were
jointly proprietors of her temple, the Heraeum, which
was near Mycenæ. It was here that Agamemnon
reigned. He enlarged his dominions by his valour and
good fortune, and possessed, besides Mycenæ, the re-
gion about Corinth and Sicyon, and that called after-
wards Achæa. On his return from Troy, he was slain
with his companions at a banquet. Mycenæ then de-
clined; and under the Heraclidae was made subject to
Argos. (See ARGOS and ARGÆA.) The Mycenæans
sending 80 men, partook with the Lacedæmonians in
the glory acquired at Thermopylæ. The jealousy of
the Argives produced the destruction of their city,
which was abandoned after a siege, and laid waste in
the first year of the 78th Olympiad, or 466 years be-
fore Christi. Some part of the wall remained in the
second century, with a gate, on which were lions, a
fountain, the subterraneous edifices where Atreus and
his sons had deposited their treasures, and, among other
sepulchral monuments, one of Agamemnon, and one
of his fellow soldiers and sufferers.