Treasury of Atreus (Tomb of Agamemnon)
About
This beehive-shaped royal tholos tomb had already stood empty for well over a millennium by 117 CE, its corbelled dome rising nearly 13.5 meters above the entrance passage. Pausanias described it and similar structures near Mycenae as the underground treasure-chambers of Atreus and his sons, a detail that shows the tomb's true funerary purpose had been forgotten by his era. No priesthood or cult tended the site; it survived purely as an object of local legend and antiquarian curiosity.
What happened here
Roman burial is a family matter conducted in public. The dead are carried out of town, cremated or laid in the ground, and mourned with formal noise; the funeral of anyone important is a procession with masks of the ancestors carried by hired men. The tomb that follows is designed to be read by strangers on the road: name, age, offices, sometimes a trade shown in relief, often a line addressed directly to the passer-by. Ordinary people appear here as they nowhere else — a baker with his ovens carved on the front, a freedman naming the woman he could finally marry, a child's age given in days. Anniversaries bring the family back with food and wine.
In ancient writing
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.16
Refers to "subterraneous buildings of Atreus and his sons, in which their treasures were deposited" among the ruins of Mycenae — the tholos tombs, misunderstood as treasuries rather than graves.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →