ἀρχαῖον τάφον. The poet is thinking of an ancestral tomb, like those “πατρῷα μνήματα” at Athens in which members of the same “γένος” were buried, [Dem. ] or. 57 § 28. He may have conceived that the ashes of Agamemnon, after his corpse was burned (901 “πυρᾶς”), were deposited in a stone vault, above or beside which the tumulus (“κολώνη”) was raised. Pausanias saw ‘in the ruins of Mycenae’ a legendary “τάφος” of Agamemnon, and of others who were slain along with him (2. 16. § 6).
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VI: The Electra. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1894.
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