Kingdom of Agamemnon
The Catalogue's description of Agamemnon's kingdom (Iliad, 2.569-575) is both extensive and puzzling. Eleven localities are listed but elsewhere in the poem Agamemnon is described as "lord of many islands and over all Argos" (2.108). Which islands might these have been? Standing beside the palace on the ruins of Mycenae looking down towards the Argolic Gulf, it is hard to believe that the territory of the king of Mycenae did not once extend over Argos. Yet its wealth was drawn from the cities and plains of the Gulf of Corinth.
Of the places listed in the Catalogue, only one is dealt with here.
Mycenae
Homer describes Mycenae as "the well-built citadel” (Iliad, 2.569), and "rich in gold” (Iliad, 11.46; Odyssey, 3.305). Archaeology has vindicated the poet. It is the most spectacular, natural and man-made fortified citadel in what became known as the Mycenaean world. It was occupied from the Neolithic (ca. 4,000 B.C.) to the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1,200 B.C.) when it was destroyed by fire, but not wholly de-populated - it was occupied till 498 B.C. Oddly, Strabo said that "Mycenae was razed to the ground by the Argives, so that today not even a trace of the city of the Mycenaeans is to be found" (8.6.10). The archaeological findings showed its magnificance pre-dated the Homeric poems, but its mythic status outlived it in poetry and literature. The "mask of Agamemnon" discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1876, for example, pre-dates the Trojan War by several hundred years. This was also the case with the spectacular Lion's Gate and the beehive or tholos tombs, the Tomb of Aegisthos, the Tomb of Clytemnestra, and the Treasury of Atreus (Tomb of Agamemnon).
Location: 37.730296°N, 22.75783°E (Archaeological site of Mycenae)
Agamemnon's contingent
Twelve localities, 100 ships, "the most people" (2.580).