You’ve been waiting for someone to ask that question, haven’t you? Hah.
Just a bit.
There are similarities between them, you are right, but it seems the Mycenaeans got cut short pretty dramatically. “Agamemnon” never got to consolidate his empire like Charlemagne did, and myth (which is often truth distorted by perception and time) hammers home the Trojan War being the reason for it.
Now, this is a far out there theory I won’t deny it. But we know that “Troy” (Wilusa according to some) was a vassal state of another empire: the Hittites. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Trojan War is in fact a dim memory of the Bronze Age’s almighty battle clash between a proto-Achaean Empire under “Agamemnon” and the Hittites. It’s long, it’s bloody, and it winds up crippling both empires to the point that they begin to fall apart with (due to how interconnected trade was at the time) dire consequences for the Bronze Age world.
Cue the Sea Peoples showing up to seal the deal.
Essentially, they came upon Thucydides Trap, crippled each other, and were flattened by outsiders. It would be as if Rome and Carthage completely wore themselves out and thereafter the Celts just strolled in.
Certainly, the
Akhaioí never got the chance to truly consolidate their more unified realm. The plays about the fate of the Atreids are evidently fictional(ised), but the narrative they paint hints at succession struggles and civil strife-- presumably in the context of the worsening situation overall.
As far as the struggle with the Hittites is concerned, Wilusa / Ilion was certainly a client of their empire, and the so-called "Ahhiyawa" to whom they refer are now generally accepted as being those self-same Akhaioí, i.e. what is now generally understood as "Mycenaeans". I personally doubt that at this early stage, the incipient realm of the Atreids was a true threat to the Hittites. It would appear that these instead saw Troy as a proxy against future encroachment by these Western barbarians.
Had there not been "The Great Clusterfuck of 1200 BC and Thereabouts", I imagine that we'd have seen a more
direct show-down between the Mycenaeans and the Hittites later on. (The latter no doubt taking the place of the OTL Persians in the *Greek cultural imagination.)
However, speaking of the Bronze Age Collapse, I do warn against over-stating its magnitude. This was a shake-up, and a profound one, but while its effects were felt far and wide, its truly destructive extent was more regional in nature. In fact, the Hittites were the big victims, because the Assyrians marched in. Which in itself shows that the Assyrians were
capable of doing that. In a truly universal crisis (such as the supposed climatological collapse that is sometimes fervently imagined), that kind of performance would be unattainable for
all contenders.
In short: the collapse was limited both in geographical and in temporal extent. Everyone was hit, some were hit harder than others, some actually made out like winners, the Hittites were the big fatality, and the Greeks took a blow that left them reeling for a while and affected their political unity-- but their culture evolved and ultimately blossomed (like a flower on volcanic soil).
That aside, if the Mycenaeans are the fathers of the Hellenic Age in some respects…would that not make them the fathers of Rome as well? In that case, Spengler’s cycle stretches back a good deal further than he might have thought.
Ancestors, certainly. And although Spengler didn't spell out the analogy in this much detail... that was because much about the Akhaians was not known until after his time. Consider how recent the confirmation of Troy's very historicity is!
Spengler did see the Greeks as the initiators of the "Classical" High Culture; which does make them the leading ancestors -- in that sense -- of Rome, which in its turn
finalised that High Culture.
I would call the Minoans a High Culture, the Apex Culture of Neolithic Europe, cut short by environmental catastrophe and invasion. The sheer effect they had on the region is simply astonishing, from history to myth. Given how bloody old they were, I think the “waning and geriatric” idea is not far off. These are the Sumerians of Europe, with the Mycenaeans being the johnny come lately Akkadians.
Edit: As a symbol of their power, the fact their palaces lacked any defences indicates the sheer strength of the Minoan navy.
And I do think, to a certain extent, they and those who would become the Etruscans had a cultural connection.
But alas, until Linear A is translated we will never know.
It's certainly possible. It's a candidate for sure, but we don't know enough to point at evidence and say: "There! The familiar cycle, once again!"
I agree that they are the Sumerians of the Med-- and in that same vein, I cannot say whether the macro-historical cycle can be applied to the Sumerians, either. Or to the Indus Valley civilisation, for instance. It's
plausible, perhaps even
probable, but we have no proof. We know too little. So I refrain from making claims.
Let's hope that our knowledge will expand, and that our understanding is broadened.
