Pausanias Description of Greece (Book 2) gives four different accounts of the origin of the name Mycenae. Which one is correct? Which does he choose? How is this text an example of the challenge of using ancient literary sources?
[2.16.3] So the prediction of the god to Acrisius found its fulfillment, nor was his fate prevented by his precautions against his daughter and grandson. Perseus, ashamed because of the gossip about the homicide, on his return to Argos induced Megapenthes, the son of Proetus, to make an exchange of kingdoms; taking over himself that of Megapenthes, he founded Mycenae. For on its site the cap (myces) fell from his scabbard, and he regarded this as a sign to found a city. I have also heard the following account. He was thirsty, and the thought occurred to him to pick up a mushroom (myces)from the ground. Drinking with joy water that flowed from it, he gave to the place the name of Mycenae.
[2.16.4] Homer in the Odyssey mentions a woman Mycene in the following verse: “Tyro and Alcmene and the fair-crowned lady Mycene.” She is said to have been the daughter of Inachus and the wife of Arestor in the poem which the Greeks call the Great Eoeae. So they say that this lady has given her name to the city. But the account which is attributed to Acusilaus, that Myceneus was the son of Sparton, and Sparton of Phoroneus, I cannot accept, because the Lacedaemonians themselves do not accept it either. For the Lacedaemonians have at Amyclae a portrait statue of a woman named Sparte, but they would be amazed at the mere mention of a Sparton, son of Phoroneus.
[text: http://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias2B.html]
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