This city was the capital of Agamemnon, who was the commander-in-chief of the assembled Greeks, before the walls of Troy. This event took place, B. C. 1184; and the present ruins are supposed to be the ruins of the city before that event. Perseus translated the seat of his kingdom from Argos to MycenÆ. The kings who reigned at MycenÆ, after Perseus, were Erectryon, Sthenelus, and Eurystheus. The last, after the death of Hercules, declared open war against his descendants, apprehending they might some time or other attempt to dethrone him; which, as it happened, was done by the HeraclidÆ; for, having killed Eurystheus in battle, they entered victorious into Peloponnesus; and made themselves masters of the country. But a plague obliged them to quit the country. Three Atreus, the son of Pelops, uncle by the mother’s side to Eurystheus, was the latter’s successor. And in this manner the crown came to the descendants of Pelops, from whom Peloponnesus, which before was called Apia, derived its name. The bloody hatred of the two brothers, Atreus and Thyestes, is known to all the world. Plisthenes, the son of Atreus, succeeded his father in the kingdom of MycenÆ, which he left to his son Agamemnon, who was succeeded by his son Orestes. The kingdom of MycenÆ was filled with enormous and horrible crimes, from the time it came into the family of Pelops. Tisamenes and Penthilus, sons of Orestes, reigned after their father, and were at last driven out by the HeraclidÆ. The length of the Acropolis of MycenÆ, is about four hundred yards, The citadel of MycenÆ is of an irregular oblong form, and is now chiefly an object of curiosity for the gate, or great entrance, to the north and west angle. The approach to this gate is by a passage of fifty feet long, and thirty wide, formed by two parallel and projecting walls, which was a part of the fortification, and were obviously designed to command the entrance, and annoy any enemy who might venture to attack the place. The door is formed of three stones, two upright, and a cross-stone, forming a soffit. This last is fifteen feet long, four wide, and six feet seven inches thick in the middle, but diminishes towards each end. On this stone stands another of a triangular shape, which is twelve feet long, ten high, and two thick. Two lions are cut in relief on the face of this stone, standing on their hind legs, on opposite sides of a round pillar, on which their forepaws rest. The kingdom of the Argives Near it were the remains of a more ancient temple, The cause of the destruction of MycenÆ is said to have been this:—Eighty of its heroes accompanied the Spartans to the defile of ThermopylÆ, and shared with them the glory of their immortal deed. This is said so to have excited the jealousy of their sister city, Argos, that it was never afterwards forgiven. The Argives, stung by the recollection of the opportunity they had thus lost of signalising themselves, and unable to endure the superior fame of their neighbours, made war against MycenÆ, and destroyed it. This event happened about five centuries before Christ. We cannot, however, believe that the Argives, who were an exceedingly mild and benevolent people, could have done such an act of atrocity as this. Strabo could not imagine where MycenÆ could have stood. He says, that not a single vestige remained. Pausanias, however, who lived at a much later period, found its colossal ruins, and described them as they are seen at this very day. “It is not,” says Dr. Clarke, “merely the circumstance of seeing the architecture and the sculpture of the heroic ages, which renders a view of MycenÆ one of the highest gratifications a literary traveller can experience; the consideration of its remaining at this time, exactly as Pausanias saw it in the second century, and in such a state of preservation, that an alto-relievo, described by him, yet exists in the identical position he has assigned for it, adds greatly to the interest excited by these remarkable ruins: indeed, so singularly does the whole scene correspond with his account of the place, that, in comparing them together, it might be supposed, a single hour had not elapsed since he was himself upon the spot.” Everything The walls consist of huge unhewn masses of stone, so fitted and adapted to each other, as to have given rise to an opinion, that the power of man was inadequate to the labour necessary in building them. One of the first things that is noticed is a tumulus of an immense size. This has been opened, and the entrance is no longer concealed. This sepulchre has been erroneously called the “treasury of Atreus;” and the “monument of Agamemnon.” “That this sepulchre,” says Clarke, “could not have been the treasury of Atreus, is evident from Pausanias‘s description, because it was without the walls of the Acropolis; and that it cannot be the monument of Agamemnon, because it was within the citadel.” In regard to the tomb of Agamemnon, the following account has been given by Mr. Turner: “I entered by a subterraneous passage, opened by Lord Elgin, and was surprised to find myself in an immense dome, about ninety feet high, and fifty round the bottom. It had two doors, one into the open air, and another into an interior chamber, which was thoroughly dark, and, I was told, very small. It was built of immense stones, and was in excellent preservation. The tomb being subterraneous, there are no traces above-ground, and you might walk over it for years, without suspecting that you were walking over so interesting a ruin.” The other antiquities must remain for the more |