Characters
- Acrisius — dead grandfather (background)
- Megapenthes — son of Proetus; receives Argos
- Perseus — founder of Mycenae; exchanges Argos for Tiryns
- Perseïd sons — heirs of the new Mycenaean seat
- Proetus — father of Megapenthes; earlier divider of the Argolid (background)
Places
- Argos — Perseus’s received stronghold
- Midea — city Perseus founds
- Mycenae — surrendered by Perseus to Megapenthes
Themes
Narrative
After the discus killed Acrisius at Larissa, Perseus buried his grandfather and was ashamed to claim the throne of Argos, the kingdom he had effectively opened by the accidental kin-slaying. He therefore bargained with Megapenthes son of Proetus: Perseus took Tiryns (Proetus’s former share), and Megapenthes took Argos. From Tiryns Perseus founded Mycenae—Pausanias records the folk etymology from the *mykes* (mushroom/pommel) of his scabbard, or from a mushroom at a spring—and fortified Midea as well.
His sons (Alcaeus, Sthenelus, Electryon, and others) peopled the Perseïd houses from which Amphitryon and Heracles later spring. Catalogue the exchange and Mycenae’s foundation apart from Medusa, Andromeda, and Acrisius’s death.