Mycenae

English

Alternative forms

• Mycenæ

Etymology

From Latin Mycenae, Ancient Greek Μυκῆναι (Mukênai), the name of the Ancient Greek city, from Μυκήνη (Mukḗnē), a nymph in Greek mythology who lived around Mycenae. Doublet of Mykines.

Two traditional etymologies exist:

• According to Pausanias, Perseus, the legendary founder of the city, named it either after the cap of the sheath of his sword or after a mushroom he had plucked on the site (either way, the term would derive from Ancient Greek μύκης (múkēs)).
• Homer connected the name to the abovementioned Mycene (or Mykene), daughter of Inachus, first King of Argos (Odyssey, 2.120). Homer was not alone in identifying Inachus as a river god, and thus Mycene as a nymph.

Proper noun

Mycenae

1. An ancient Greek city in the NE Peloponnesus on the plain of Argos, inhabited since about 4000 B.C.E.
   • 1958, Alan John Bayard Wace, Elizabeth Bayard French, The Mycenae Tablets II, American Philosophical Society, page 1,

     The excavators of Mycenae added in 1953 and 1954 important new materials to the small but excellent archives of Mycenae.

   • 1992 [Routledge], Richard Tomlinson, From Mycenae to Constantinople, 2003, Taylor & Francis e-Library, page 31,

     In 479 BC the citizen army of Mycenae marched to Plataea in Boeotia to join the other mainland Greek cities in inflicting the final defeat which terminated Xerxes' invasion of Greece.

   • 2000, Maureen Joan Alden, Well Built Mycenae, Oxbow Books, page 1:

     The Prehistoric Cemetery at Mycenae provides our most coherent glimpse of the Middle Hellenic period at Mycenae.

Related terms

• Mycenaean
• Mycenaean civilization

Translations

ancient Greek city

• Czech: Mykény (cs) f pl
• French: Mycènes (fr) f
• German: Mykene (de) n, Mykenä (de) n
• Greek: Μυκήνες (el) f pl (Mykínes)

  Ancient: Μυκῆναι f pl (Mukênai)

• Hawaiian: Mukānai
• Hungarian: Mükéné
• Italian: Micene m
• Lithuanian: Mikėnai m pl
• Macedonian: Мике́на f (Mikéna)
• Polish: Mykeny (pl) f pl
• Portuguese: Micenas f
• Russian: Мике́ны (ru) f pl (Mikény)
• Spanish: Micenas (es) f
• Swedish: Mykene n
• Turkish: Miken

Latin

Alternative forms

• Mycēna
• Mycēnē

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Μυκῆναι (Mukênai).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /myˈkeː.nae̯/, [mʏˈkeːnäe̯]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /miˈt͡ʃe.ne/, [miˈt͡ʃɛːne]

Proper noun

Mycēnae f pl (genitive Mycēnārum); first declension

1. A city of Argolis and dwelling of the mythical king Agamemnon

Declension

First-declension noun, with locative, plural only.

Case	Plural
Nominative	Mycēnae
Genitive	Mycēnārum
Dative	Mycēnīs
Accusative	Mycēnās
Ablative	Mycēnīs
Vocative	Mycēnae
Locative	Mycēnīs

Derived terms

• Mycēnensis

Related terms

• Mycēnaeus
• Mycēnis

Descendants

• Italian: Micene
• English: Mycenae

Further reading

• “Mycenae”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “Mycenae”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly
• Mycenae in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.