by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare borrows from the history of ancient Greece for the framework of his play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Using the Greek legend of Athens' king Theseus and the Amazonian woman Hippolyta, the play features Theseus as the Duke of Athens, which places the text historically during the twelfth century B.C., at the time of the Mycenaean rule of Greece.

Events in History at the Time the Play Takes Place

Greece during the Bronze Age (1700-1000 B.C.) The progression toward the well-known democratic model of government in fifth-century classical Athens involved a long and gradual process. Prior to this early democracy, the Mycenaeans, who were early Greek settlers, had established a society based on a royal hierarchy. The Mycenaeans ruled primarily in the Peloponnesus, a peninsula of southern Greece that included the towns of Mycenae, Pylos, and Tiryns...