Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra

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φάσκειν (infin. as imperat.),=‘deem,’ ‘believe’: O. T. 462 n. For the expression cp. Milton, Paradise Regained, 4. 44 f.: ‘The city which thou seest no other deem | Than great and glorious Rome.’

Μυκήνας. This plural form (the prevalent one) occurs in Il. 2. 569, Il. 4. 376; but elsewhere metrical convenience led the Homeric poet to prefer the sing. “Μυκήνη”, which allowed him to prefix “εὐρυάγυια” ( Il. 4. 52), and “πολυχρύσοιο” ( Il. 7. 180, Il. 11. 46: Od. 3. 305).

The site of Mycenae is in a deep recess of the Argive plain, at its northern end,— “μυχῷ Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο” ( Od. 3. 263). Between two peaks of Mount Euboea, a narrow glen runs out towards the plain, terminating in a rocky platform. This acropolis, naturally impregnable on three sides, was surrounded by Cyclopean walls, from 13 to 35 feet high, with an average thickness of 16 feet. Mycenae was to the plain of Argos much what Deceleia was to the plain of Athens,—a stronghold withdrawn from observation, but commanding the country below it.

τὰς πολυχρύσους: the Homeric epithet (see above). It is illustrated by the number of golden cups, cylinders, diadems and other objects found in the graves at Mycenae by Schliemann; who estimated the amount of gold thus discovered at ‘about 100 lbs troy’ (Mycenae, p. 379).

Thucydides (1. 9) notices the old tradition that Pelops had gained his power by means of the wealth (“πλήθει χρημάτων”) which he had brought from Asia to a poor country. Helbig (Das hom. Epos aus den Denkm. erläutert, p. 50) thinks it certain that the precious metals became scarcer in the Peloponnesus after the Dorian conquest. When the Spartans, in the first half of the sixth century, required gold for a statue of Apollo, they had to procure it from Sardis ( Her. 1. 69).