As we have already seen, the historical dimension is a prominent feature of Greek myths, and an outline of the historical background to many of the traditional tales will be helpful for a fuller understanding of them. Our knowledge of the early history of Greece and the Aegean is constantly changing, thanks to the fresh discoveries of archaeologists and other scholars. Consequently our view of Greek religion and mythology has been (and will continue to be) modified by new knowledge, not least in the area of traditional tales that cluster around the sagas of Mycenae and Troy. The foundations of modern archaeological work in the Mycenaean world were laid by the brilliant pioneer, Heinrich Schliemann, who, because of his love of Greek antiquity in general and Homer in particular, was inspired by a faith in the ultimate historical authenticity of Greek legend. Certainly archaeology had existed in earlier periods, but it usually meant little more than treasure hunting and tomb robbing; Schliemann has rightly earned the title Father of Modern Archaeological Excavation and Study. In the 1870s he went to Troy, Mycenae, and Tiryns and confirmed the reality of the wealth, grandeur, and power of the cities, kings, and heroes of Minoan-Mycenaean saga. Sir Arthur Evans followed at the turn of the century, unearthing the splendid and grand complex of the Palace of Minos at Cnossus in Crete. A whole new world had been opened up. For a long time it was believed that Greece had not been inhabited before the Neolithic period. But we know today that the country was settled in Paleolithic times (before 70,000 B.c.). [With the present state of excavation and study, the culture of this early period appears tentative and no direct links can be established with the later Greeks. Evidence for the Neolithic period (ca. 6000-3000 B.c.)] is more abundant.

Archaeology has revealed settled agricultural communities (i.e., outlines of houses, pottery, tools, and graves). It is conjectured that the Neolithic inhabitants came from the East and the North. For our purposes it is noteworthy that kvidence of religion seems apparent; particularly significant are little female idols, their sexuality exaggerated by the depiction of swollen belly, buttocks, and full breasts. Male figures also are found (some ithyphallic), although in far fewer numbers. Was a fertility mother-goddess worshiped in this early period, and perhaps already associated with a male consort? The Stone Age gave way to the Bronze Age in Greece, Crete, and the Islands with an invasion from the East (the movement was from Asia Minor across the Aegean to the southern Peloponnesus up into Greece). This people was responsible for the building of the great Minoan civilization of Crete. The Bronze Age is divided into three major periods: Early, Middle, and Late; these periods are also labeled according to geographical areas. The Minoan civilization grew to maturity in the Middle Bronze Age and reached its pinnacle of greatness in the following period (1600-1400). The palace at Cnossus was particularly splendid (although another at Phaestus is impressive, too). The excavations confirm the tradition (as interpreted later, for example, by Thucydides) that Cnossus was the capital of a great thalassocracy and that Minoan power extended over the islands of the Aegean and even the mainland of Greece. Tribute was in all probability exacted from her allies or her subjects; the complex plan of the palace at Cnossus suggests the historical basis for the legend of the Minotaur. The fact that Cnossus had no walls (unlike the fortress citadels of Hellas) suggests that her security depended upon ships and the sea. The sophistication of Minoan art and architecture implies much about the civilization, but more particularly the painting and the artifacts reflect a highly developed sense of religion, for example, the importance of the bull in ritual, the dominant role of a snake-goddess, the sacred significance of the double ax. It seems fairly clear that the worship of a fertility mother-goddess was basic in Minoan religion. About 1400, Cretan power is eclipsed (archaeology reveals signs of fire and destruction) and the focus of civilization shifts to the mainland of Greece.

Did the Greeks overthrow Cnossus and usurp the Minoan thalassocracy? Was an earthquake solely responsible for the eclipse of this island power? Theories abound but there is no general agreement except insofar as scholars may be divided into two groups: those who stress the dominant influence of the Minoans on the mainland civilization and refuse to attribute the downfall of Crete to a Mycenaean invasion as against those who argue for Mycenaean (Greek) encroachment and eventual control of the island. Recent excavations on the island of Thera (modern Santorini about seventy miles northwest of Crete) have indicated signs of destruction by earthquakes in the Minoan-Mycenaean period; it is conjectured that these same earthquakes were responsible for the disintegration of power on the island of Crete. In particular the discovery in the 1960s of a palace at Zakros in eastern Crete has indicated that perhaps it was destroyed at the same time as the disturbances on Thera. Thus archaeologists have turned to the mythical tale about Atlantis (recorded by Plato in his Critias and Timaeus on the authority of Egyptian priests), a great island culture that vanished into the sea; conflict between Atlantis and Attica for control of the sea had broken out when earthquake and flood caused the astonishing disappearance of Atlantis. Does this Platonic legend reflect in any way the actual destruction of Thera, or Crete itself, and the subsequent encroachment of Mycenaean Power. On the mainland of Greece, the Middle Bronze Age (or Middle Helladic period) was ushered in by an invasion from the North and possibly the East. These Nordic Indo-Europeans are the first Greeks (i.e., they spoke the Greek language) to enter the peninsula; gradually they created a civilization (usually called Mycenaean) that reached its culmination in the Late Helladic period (1600- 1100). They learned much from the Minoans; their painting, palaces, and pottery are strikingly similar, but there are some significant differences. Schliemann was the first to excavate at Mycenae, the kingdom of the mythological family of Atreus, corroborating the appropriateness of the Homeric epithet, "rich in gold." Cyclopean walls typically surround the complex palace of the king and the homes of the aristocracy; the entrance to Mycenae was particularly splendid, graced as it was with a relief on which two lions or lionesses flanking a column were sculptured-presumably the relief was of political and religious significance, perhaps the emblem of the royal family. A circle of shaft graves within the citadel, set off in ritual splendor, has revealed a hoard of treasures-masks of beaten gold placed on the faces of the corpses, exquisite jewelry, and beautifully decorated weapons. Larger (and later) tholos tombs (also typical of Mycenaean civilization elsewhere and confirming a belief in the afterlife) built like huge beehives into the sides of hills below the palace complex were dramatically and erroneously identified by Schliemann as both the treasury of Atreus and the tomb of Clytemnestra. Schliemann's discoveries established the certainty of a link between the traditional tales of Greek saga, especially those contained in the Homeric poems, and the actual places named in the poems, for example Mycenae.

Archaeologists have proved that these places were prosperous centers in the Mycenaean age, but the distinction must be maintained between the traditional tales of heroes associated with Mycenaean palaces (Agamemnon at Mycenae, Heracles at Tiryns, Oedipus at Thebes, and Nestor at Pylos, to name four such heroes) and the actual world revealed by archaeologists. Carl Blegen's discovery of the Mycenaean palace at Pylos settled once for all the controversy over its site, and established the plan of the palace with its well-preserved megaron (i.e., central room with an open hearth). However, in giving the title The Palace of Nestor at Pylos to his book, Blegen confused history and mythology. In religion there were important differences between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans. The northern invaders of 2000 B.C. worshiped in particular a sky-god, Zeus, and in general their religious attitudes were not unlike those mirrored in the world of Homer's celestial Olympians. How different from the spiritual atmosphere of the Minoans dominated by the conception of a fertility mother-goddess, with or without a male counterpart! At any rate, Greek mythology seems to accommodate and reflect the union of these two cultures, as we shall see in Chapter 1. Clay tablets inscribed with writing have been found on the mainland (an especially rich hoard was found at Pylos). These tablets were baked hard in the conflagrations that destroyed these Mycenaean fortresses when they fell before the onslaught of the invaders. The key to the decipherment of the Linear B tablets was discovered in 1952 by Michael Ventris, who was killed in 1956 in an automobile accident. His friend and collaborator, John Chadwick, has written for the layman a fascinating account of their painstaking and exciting work on the tablets, one of the most significant scholastic and linguistic detective stories of this or any other age. Important for our study is the finding of the names of familiar deities of classical Greece, Zeus and Hera (listed as a pair), Poseidon, Hermes, Athena, Artemis, Eileithyia (Eleuthia in the tablets), and the name Dionysus (a startling discovery, since it has usually been assumed that the worship of Dionysus did not come to Greece until later); also identified is an early form of the word Paean, which was later applied as a title or epithet for Apollo.

Similarly, Enualios appears, a name identified in classical times with Ares. The word Potnia (mistress or lady) is frequent, and thus support is added to the theory that the Mycenaeans as well as the Minoans worshiped a goddess of the mother-fertility type, and the concept of chthonian deities that this imples was merged with that of the Olympians. The gods are listed in the tablets as the recipients of offerings, which suggests ritual sacrifice and ceremonial banquets, for example, of animals, olive oil, wheat, wine, honey, and so forth.   Schliemann and Wilhelm Dorpfeld were pioneers at Troy. Blegen has continued work at the site and the results have been published in a series of learned volumes. Troy was settled in the Early Bronze Age and survived until the time of Constantine the Great (fourth century A.D.). Nine major settlements can be distinguished, of which Troy 1-5 are of the Early Bronze Age and 6-7 of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Troy 2 is especially interesting because of a series of caches or "treasures" that Schliemann discovered. The remains suggest that this settlement was significantly wealthy-a fact possibly accounted for by trade in pottery, timber, and woolen textiles (8000 to 10,000 terra-cotta whorls or buttons have been unearthed); perhaps tolls also were levied on those who traversed the territory of the Trojans by water or by land. The various settlements in the early period, despite numerous earthquakes and fires, bear witness to the tenacious survival of the inhabitants of the site.   Troy 6 marks the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age; the technique of pottery and the use of the horse indicate that the founders of this settlement were Greeks, the earliest to set foot in Asia Minor, a branch of those invaders who were the first Hellenes to enter the peninsula of Hellas and introduce the culture of the Middle Helladic period.

The monumental fortification walls of Troy 6 are particularly impressive, and Dorpfeld identified this settlement as the great city of King Priam. According to Blegen, however, Troy 6 was destroyed by an earthquake, and it is Troy 7 (Troy 7a, to be exact) that is Priam's city, since (among other things) signs of a siege and fire can be detected, indicative of the Trojan War. The historical date of the fall of Troy is placed around 1250, some years earlier than that of the most commonly accepted tradition, that is, 1184. The destruction of Troy 7b (ca. 1100) marks the troublesome period of transition from the Late Bronze Age to the age of Iron throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Archaeology, then, has established that Troy was destroyed by human agents around the time of the traditional date of the Trojan War. In the epic cycle of saga, the great leaders of the Mycenaean kingdoms banded together to sail against Troy, but the historical facts remain a matter of conjecture. Indeed, some historians now assign the destruction of Troy 7a to invaders from the east and entirely dissociate Troy from the history of Mycenaean Greece. Yet the romance of poetic saga has a reality, too. We have a right to believe that there was once an Agamemnon and a Nestor, an Achilles and a Hector, who lived and died, no matter how fictitious the details of the legend that they inspired. Is it incurably romantic to cling to the belief that handsome Paris and beautiful Helen ran away together in the grip of Aphrodite, providing the inciting cause for a great war that has become immortal? According to the Homeric legend, the Greeks returned from Troy in triumph. As we have seen, this may be no more than legend. There is no controversy, however, over the fact that not long after the destruction of Troy 7a, the Mycenaean age in Greece was brought to a violent end.

The widely held theory, that the destruction was entirely the work of Dorians invading from the North and East, has been questioned. Some historians now associate the destruction of the Mycenaean kingdoms with the "sea peoples" mentioned in an Egyptian inscription put up by the pharoah Rameses I11 in the twelfth century B.c., but there is still no certainty about the details of the end of the Bronze Age in Greece. Darkness descends upon the history of Greece, a darkness that is only gradually dispelled with the emergence of the two great Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. The stories of the earlier period were kept alive by oral recitation, transmitted by bards like those described in the epics themselves. "Homer" almost certainly belongs to Asia Minor or one of the islands (e.g., Chios) off the coast. In the cities of this area in this period, we find that monarchy is the prevailing institution; significantly enough the social and political environment for the bard of this later age is not unlike that of his predecessors in the great days of Mycenae. Most important for the appreciation of the cumulative nature of the growth of the legends is the realization that there were two major periods of creative impetus, respectively before and after the destruction of Mycenaean civilization. The Homeric poems maintain the fiction of the Bronze Age, but they portray far more their own age of iron. To mention but one example, archaeology shows us that burial was prevalent in the Mycenaean age, but in Homer cremation is common. The saga of the Argonauts reflects an interest in the Black Sea that is historical-but was this interest Mycenaean or do the details belong to the later age of Greek colonization (ca. 800-600)? The legend as we have it must be a composite product of both eras. The Theseus story blends in splendid confusion Minoan- Mycenaean elements with facts of the later historical period of monarchy in Athens. The Homeric poems were eventually set down in writing; this was made possible by the invention of an alphabet. The Greeks borrowed the symbols of the Phoenician script and used them to . create a true alphabet, distinguishing by each sign individual vowels and consonants, unlike earlier scripts (such as Linear B) in which syllables are the only linguistic units. This stroke of genius, by the way, is typically Greek in its brilliant and inventive simplicity; surely no one of our countless debts to Greek civilization is more fundamental. Is the invention of the Greek alphabet and the setting down of the Homeric epics coincidental? Presumably the dactylic hexameter of epic cannot be reproduced in the clumsy symbols of Linear B. At any rate, when tradition tells us that Cadmus taught the natives to write, we may wonder whether he is supposed to have instructed them in Mycenaean Linear B or the later Greek alphabet.

  Among the principal ancient sources for classical mythology are the works of Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and the Greek tragedians, all readily available in paperback translations. The Homeric Hymns are also valuable for the legends of the gods, and we have translated extensive passages from them in Chapters 3-12. Excerpts from Herodotus are used in Chapter 4 to illustrate the meaningful connections that are to be found between myth and history; and the profound use of mythology for philosophical purposes is particularly apparent in the selections from Plato's depiction of Eros quoted in Chapter 7. Of later works, far and away the most valuable and influential is Ovid's Metamorphoses, a Latin collection of legends (mostly Greek in origin) written in the time of Augustus (ca. A.D. 8); the translation by Rolfe Humphries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1961) is the most readable. Finally, two late Greek works contain many myths: the handbook ascribed to Apollodorus called Bibliotheca (Library), dating possibly from ca. A.D. 120; and the Periegesis (or Description of Greece) of Pausanias (ca. A.D. 150). Both have been excellently translated and annotated by Sir J. G. Frazer in the Loeb series (Harvard University Press). The modern bibliography on classical and comparative mythology is endless and we offer a few of the more helpful works here.