Tiryns was a Mycenaean city-state and Ancient Greek military fort in present-day Argolis, Greece which was said to have been built by the mythological Cyclopes. The Ancient Greek poet Homer praised Tiryns' massive walls, and, while Tiryns survived the Dorian invasions, Tiryns became an insignificant city during the Classical period. Tiryns contributed 400 hoplites to the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, but, in 468 BC, Tiryns and Mycenae were both destroyed by Argos and their populations transferred to Argos itself. By the time of the Peloponnesian War, a fort was erected at Tiryns, and, in 431 BC, the Spartan mercenary Kassandra infiltrated Fort Tiryns, burned its war supplies, killed all of its soldiers, and slew several mercenaries before forcing its commander, Dymas, to copy Hippocrates' lost notes for him, as Dymas had memorized all of them. Tiryns was excavated from 1884 to 1885 and became a World Heritage Site in 1999.
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