The same may be the case, more or less, with the later tragic poets, and at all events it must be so with Euripides, because he knew Mycenæ too well to mistake it for Argos. Thus he calls Mycenæ[122] "the altars of the Cyclopes;" "the Cyclopean Mycenæ";[123] and "the handiwork of the Cyclopes":—[124]
"Do you call the city of Perseus the handiwork of the Cyclopes?"
In other passages he says, "O Cyclopean houses, O my country, O my dear Mycenæ!"[125] Again, "Standing on (or at) the stone steps, the herald calls aloud 'To the Agora, to the Agora, ye people of Mycenæ, to see the portents and the terrific signs of the blessed kings."[126] Again, "O mother-country, O Pelasgia, O my home, Mycenæ."[127] Again, "Dear ladies of Mycenæ, first in rank in the Pelasgic settlement of the Argives.[128] Again, "I will go to Mycenæ; crow-bars and pickaxes will I take to destroy with twisted-iron the town, the foundations of the Cyclopes, which are well fitted together with the chisel and the purple rule."[129]
This description can only refer to Cyclopean walls composed of well-fitted polygons, such as we see in the western part of the great circuit walls.[130] Besides Euripides knew accurately that the Agora, with the Royal sepulchres, was in the Acropolis; and thus it appears certain that Euripides visited Mycenæ, and that the grand Cyclopean walls of the Acropolis, as well as the sacred enclosure of the circular Agora, with the mysterious tombs of the most glorious heroes of antiquity, made a profound impression upon him, for otherwise we cannot explain his so often speaking of the gigantic Cyclopean walls, describing also their structure and mentioning even the Agora situated in the Acropolis (see Chapter V.).
Seneca says of the walls of Mycenæ:
"majus mihi
Bellum Mycenis restat, ut cyclopea
Eversa manibus saxa nostra concidant."
and again—
"cerno Cyclopum sacras