Thucydides as Archaeologist

Abstract

In i.1–21 Thucydides gives a brief interpretation of early Greek history. This is important not only for the critical standard of its author, but also because in ten instances he says what his evidence is. Twice his evidence is archaeological. The two passages deserve careful study.Mycenae had been destroyed by the Argives in the 460's and was deserted till the third century B.C. Thanks to modern archaeologists and Pausanias we can form some idea of what was to be seen in the time of Thucydides. Much of the Bronze Age wall, including the Lion Gate, should have been above ground; it was anyhow visible to Pausanias, and before him the Hellenistic fortifiers had made use of it. Some of the tholos tombs were open, to judge by finds made in their excavation and by Pausanias's mention of ‘underground treasuries of Atreus and his sons’. Of the Bronze Age palace and houses nothing was left above ground, so the stratification suggests. But the ruins of the city demolished in the 460's must still have survived, and its sanctuaries may have been intact; it would have been natural enough for the Argives to spare them, and there is some positive evidence that the temple on the summit of Mycenae and the sanctuary near the fountain house outside the Lion Gate were both kept in repair and that the Agamemnoneion over half a mile to the south was still visited.