 “In Mycenae, the gods once walked the earth,” said Henry Miller.
And if not the gods then the Cyclopes, who were the mythic builders of this city in Peloponnesus 3500 years ago (according to the mainstream archaeologists) or immensely earlier (according to ancient documents and the esoteric tradition). Even in ruins, Mycenae exudes power: the power of a prehistoric animal, the power of Cyclopean architecture, the power of a race of semi-gods. The terrible power of dark passions. It was here that the goriest myths took place: Atreus serving his brother with the flesh of his own children for dinner; Clytemnestra killing her husband Agamemnon for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia to start the Trojan war; Orestes murdering his mother Clytemnestra to avenge his father—the whole royal family bathed in incestuous blood for several generations. I cannot but think about this as I’m walking the uneven stone causeways, admiring the ragged grandeur of the Lion Gate, letting my eyes soar above the Argive plain that gleams resplendent in the mid-day heat. This land is pulsing with the ghosts of antediluvian times, the earth seeded with bodies and relics of legendary heroes. It is alive in an eerie way, as memories and dreams are alive in our subconscious. Those dream-like memories are embedded in the very DNA of European civilization.
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