HISTORY OF MYCENÆ AND THE FAMILY OF PELOPS.

THE SEPULCHRES OF AGAMEMNON AND HIS COMPANIONS.

Traditional foundation of MycenÆ by Perseus—His dynasty succeeded by the Pelopids—The legend of their crimes unknown to Homer and Hesiod—The Homeric story of Agamemnon's murder by Ægisthus and Clytemnestra, avenged by Orestes—Cycle of crimes devised by the later bards—Dominion of Agamemnon—End of the dynasty at MycenÆ with Ægisthus—Orestes and his sons—The Dorian invasion—Part taken by MycenÆ in the Persian wars—The Argives besiege and take MycenÆ—The walls of the citadel preserved from religious reverence—Homeric epithets of MycenÆ—Its "abundance of gold" confirmed by Thucydides—The Treasuries of the Pelopids mentioned by Pausanias—Treasury at the HerÆum, near MycenÆ—Probable existence of another Treasury at MycenÆ.

The Royal Sepulchres described by Pausanias—General misinterpretation of the passage—Experimental shafts sunk there in February 1874—Excavations begun, August 7, 1876—Porter's lodge at the Lions' Gate—The later habitation of the city after 468 B.C.—No coins of MycenÆ known—Remains below this first stratum—Painted archaic vases, like those at Tiryns—The vases almost all made on the potter's wheel—Female idols and cows of terra-cotta—Other idols and animals—Iron knives and curious keys of a later period—Bronze knives and arrow-heads—Stone implements and other objects—A little gold and much lead found—Fragments of a lyre and flute—Plates of ornamented terra-cotta for lining walls—Cyclopean house-walls—A remarkable water-conduit—Twelve tomb-like reservoirs—Two tombstones with bas-reliefs, probably of the same epoch as that over the Lions' Gate.

MycenÆ, August 19, 1876.

Tradition attributes the foundation of MycenÆ to Perseus, son of DanaË and Jove, who had by Andromeda a son Sthenelus, to whom he left the kingdom. Sthenelus married NicippÉ, the daughter of Pelops, by whom he had a son Eurystheus, who succeeded him. The dynasty of Perseus ended with Eurystheus, who was succeeded by his uncle Atreus, the son of Pelops. The latter left the kingdom to his brother Thyestes, who left it to his nephew Agamemnon, son of Atreus.

According to tradition, Atreus and his brother Thyestes contended for the dominion of MycenÆ. Atreus was married to AËropÉ, who was seduced by his brother Thyestes. Atreus, in revengeful fury at this, butchered the two (or three) sons of Thyestes, and served them up at a banquet to their father. When Thyestes learnt the fact, in his horror he overturned the table, vomited the dreadful meal, and ran off, cursing the whole race of the Pelopids.[142] AËropÉ is thrown into the sea. Thyestes consults the oracle how he can revenge himself on his brother, and gets the answer that, if he begets a son by his own daughter, Pelopia, this son will avenge him. To avoid the incest, he intended to leave for Lydia; but when he was sacrificing in the night to Athena at Sicyon, his daughter joined him there, and unwittingly he begat by her the future avenger, Ægisthus, who, exposed by his mother immediately after his birth, was found by shepherds, and was nursed by a goat, whence his name.[143] He was afterwards sought for by Atreus, who brought him up as his son, for Atreus had married Pelopia in the very beginning of her pregnancy and thought the child belonged to him. But Ægisthus killed Atreus when he was sacrificing on the sea-shore, because Atreus, thinking him to be his own son, had ordered him to kill his brother Thyestes. Ægisthus then, with Thyestes, took possession of the realm.

But Homer knows nothing at all of the bloody brawl in the house of the Pelopids, for according to him[144] Jove sent the royal sceptre to Pelops, by Hermes, as a symbol of dominion; Pelops gave it to Atreus, who dying left it to Thyestes; Thyestes left it to Agamemnon, and there is not even an allusion to dispute or violence. Hesiod speaks of the proverbial wealth and the royal majesty of the AtridÆ, but he knows nothing of their crimes. Homer knows only the outrage of Ægisthus and Clytemnestra. During Agamemnon's absence in Troy, Ægisthus had succeeded in seducing Clytemnestra, and he was insolent enough to make thank-offerings to the gods for having succeeded.[145] To avoid being taken unawares by Agamemnon, he stationed a watchman on the shore, and when at length he heard of the king's arrival, he invited him to a meal and, in concert with Clytemnestra, killed him at table.[146] Ægisthus then reigned seven years over MycenÆ, until in the eighth, as the gods had foretold to him,[147] Orestes appeared and avenged his father by killing Ægisthus and his own mother Clytemnestra.[148]

The later Homeric bards, who were followed by the tragic poets, seem to have formed the myths of the horrid deeds of Atreus and Thyestes by carrying back the outrages in the house of Agamemnon into the former generation; and, by the help of other traditions, and particularly from the history of the kings of Thebes, they devised a concatenation of crimes and mischief, which had its first origin in the murder of Myrtilus or in that of Chrysippus.[149]

It appears from Homer[150] that Agamemnon had brought under his sceptre nearly all the Peloponnesus. But according to another passage[151] it would appear that he reigned only over its whole northern part. The dynasty of the Pelopids appears to have ceased in MycenÆ with the death of Ægisthus, for tradition says that Agamemnon's son Orestes reigned in Arcadia and Sparta, but not that he succeeded his father. According to Strabo,[152] he died in Arcadia. Pausanias[153] states that his tomb was at first on the roadside between Sparta and Tegea; at a later time his bones were buried in Sparta.[154] Neither of the two sons of Orestes, Penthilus and Tisamenus, seems to have reigned at MycenÆ. Strabo[155] says that they remained in the Æolian colonies in Asia Minor, which had been founded by their father. According to Pausanias,[156] the invasion of the Dorians had already occurred in the time of Orestes; according to Thucydides,[157] it took place eighty years after the Trojan war.

Pausanias seems probably to be in the right, because only a fearful political revolution and catastrophe can have prevented Orestes from becoming king in MycenÆ, which was the richest and most powerful state of Greece, and which belonged to him as only son to the glorious and universally lamented Agamemnon.

Strabo[158] confirms the statement that the decline of MycenÆ; began with the death of Agamemnon and particularly from the return of the HeracleidÆ. But, though the city had decayed in power and population and had sunk to the rank of a small provincial town, yet it kept up a certain independence; and, inspired by the reminiscences of its glorious past, it equipped eighty men as its contingent at ThermopylÆ,[159] and a year later, in conjunction with Tiryns, it sent 400 men to PlatÆÆ.[160] The name of MycenÆ was engraved, together with those of the other cities which had participated in this glorious campaign, on the brazen column representing three serpents sustaining a golden tripod, which the Spartans dedicated to the Delphian Apollo as a tithe of the booty taken from the Persians. This brazen column stands now on the old hippodrome (the present Maidan) in Constantinople, whither it was probably brought by Constantine the Great. The Argives, who had remained neutral, envied the Myceneans the honour of having participated in these battles, and they feared besides, considering the city's ancient glory, that MycenÆ might usurp the dominion of the whole Argolid.

For these reasons, in league with the Cleoneans and the Tegeatans, they besieged MycenÆ in Ol. LXXVIII. (468 B.C.). The powerful walls of the citadel, behind which the inhabitants had retired, withstood all assaults of the enemy, but at last the Myceneans were forced to surrender for want of food. It appears that, in consideration of the past glory of the city, the victors treated the Myceneans with clemency, for they allowed them to emigrate whither they pleased; and they settled partly at CleonÆ, partly in Cerynia in AchÆa, but principally in Macedonia.[161] But this account is not quite confirmed by Diodorus Siculus,[162] who says that on the surrender of MycenÆ the Argives enslaved all the inhabitants. If this is correct, then it is to be supposed that the Argives forced the Myceneans to settle at Argos, because it was very material to them at that time to increase the population of their city. At all events, as Dodwell says, a religious fear seems to have prevented the Argives from destroying the huge Cyclopean walls of the citadels of MycenÆ and Tiryns, because these were considered as sacred enclosures, and were revered as sanctuaries of Hera, who was worshipped with equal adoration by all the inhabitants of the Argolid. The Argives therefore contented themselves with dismantling only a very small part of the walls of the citadel, whilst they razed those of the lower city completely to the ground.

Homer gives to MycenÆ the epithets of the "well-built city,"[163] "with broad streets,"[164] and "rich in gold."[165] The second of these epithets can only apply to the wide street which led from the Lions' Gate, along the ridge, through the enclosed town, to the bridge over the torrent of the ravine; for all the remaining part of the town as well as the suburb being on slopes, the other streets must have been more or less steep, and cannot have been alluded to by the epithet e???????a. Regarding the third epithet p??????s??, we have the great authority of Thucydides[166] that MycenÆ had immense wealth under the dominion of the Pelopids, for he says: "Pelops, having brought from Asia large treasures to the indigent people (of the peninsula), soon acquired great power, and, though a foreigner, he nevertheless gave his name to the country, and his descendants (the Pelopids, Atreus and Agamemnon) became still much more powerful." Thucydides adds that it appears to him "that the other Greeks joined Agamemnon's expedition to Troy less out of good will than from fear of his power; for not only did he himself bring the greatest contingent of ships, but he also gave ships to the Arcadians, as Homer says, if he can be considered a trustworthy witness. But in speaking of Agamemnon's inheritance of the sceptre, he says that he (Agamemnon) reigned over many islands and over the whole Argolid (p????s?? ??s??s? ?a? ????eÏ pa?t? ???sse??); but as he lived on the continent, he could not have reigned over islands, except those in the immediate neighbourhood (but of these there could not be many) if he had not had a fleet. From this expedition (to Troy) we must therefore form an opinion of the nature of those which preceded it. If MycenÆ was small, and if several other cities of that age do not appear to us now to be considerable, we could not cite this as a valid reason to doubt that the expedition was as great as the poets have represented it and as tradition confirms it to have been."

The port of MycenÆ was not Nauplia, but EÏones (?Ï??e?), which was likewise situated on the Gulf of Argos, to the south-east of Nauplia. It seems to have been destroyed as far back as the Dorian invasion. Strabo[167] mentions that it was entirely destroyed, and was no longer a port in his time. According to Homer,[168] ??Ï??e? took part in the Trojan war, and belonged to Diomedes, the king of Argos and vassal of Agamemnon.

Of the power and riches of the Pelopids we see the most substantial and unmistakable proofs in the many vast subterranean buildings which Pausanias,[169] following the tradition, calls their Treasuries, and which cannot have served for any other purpose than to hoard up the royal wealth.

I must here mention that, besides the Treasuries before described in MycenÆ proper and in its suburb, there is still another Treasury close to the great HerÆum, which is, according to Strabo,[170] 10 stadia, but according to Pausanias,[171] 15 stadia from MycenÆ. Besides, the conformation of the slopes between the Treasury of Atreus and the Lions' Gate leads me to think that there is still one more large treasury hidden about halfway between these two points.

Pausanias[172] writes: "Amongst other remains of the wall is the gate, on which stand lions. They (the walls and the gate) are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who built the wall for Proteus at Tiryns. In the ruins of MycenÆ is the fountain called Perseia and the subterranean buildings of Atreus and his children, in which they stored their treasures. There is the sepulchre of Atreus, and the tombs of the companions of Agamemnon, who on their return from Ilium were killed at a banquet by Ægisthus. The identity of the tomb of Cassandra is called in question by the LacedÆmonians of AmyclÆ. There is the tomb of Agamemnon and that of his charioteer Eurymedon, and of Electra. Teledamus and Pelops were buried in the same sepulchre, for it is said that Cassandra bore these twins, and that, while as yet infants, they were slaughtered by Ægisthus together with their parents. Hellanicus (495-411 B.C.) writes that Pylades, who was married to Electra with the consent of Orestes, had by her two sons, Medon and Strophius. Clytemnestra and Ægisthus were buried at a little distance from the wall, because they were thought unworthy to have their tombs inside of it, where Agamemnon reposed and those who were killed together with him."

Strange to say, Colonel Leake,[173] Dodwell,[174] Prokesch,[175] Ernest Curtius,[176] and all others who have written on the Peloponnesus, have interpreted this passage of Pausanias erroneously; for they thought that, in speaking of the wall, he meant the wall of the city, and not the great wall of the Acropolis; and they therefore understood that he fixed the site of the five sepulchres in the lower city, and the site of the tombs of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus outside of it. But that such was not his intention, and that he had solely in view the walls of the citadel, he shows by saying that in the wall is the Lions' Gate. It is true that he afterwards speaks of the ruins of MycenÆ, in which he saw the fountain Perseia and the treasuries of Atreus and his sons, by which latter he can only mean the large treasury described above, which is indeed in the lower city, and perhaps some of the smaller treasuries in the suburb. But as he again says further on that the graves of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus are at a little distance outside the wall, because they were thought unworthy to be buried inside of it, where Agamemnon and his companions reposed, there cannot be any doubt that he had solely in view the huge Cyclopean walls of the citadel. Besides, Pausanias could only speak of such walls as he saw, and not of those which he did not see. He saw the huge walls of the citadel, because they were at his time exactly as they are now; but he could not see the wall of the lower city, because it had been originally only very thin, and it had been demolished 638 years before his time; nor was he an archÆologist, to search for its traces or still less to make excavations to find them.

The site of MycenÆ presented in the time of Pausanias just the same bare wilderness of rugged pasture land, interspersed with slopes and precipitous cliffs, as at the present day. No change can have taken place there, and the remnants of the lower city wall were undoubtedly in his time as trifling as they are now. Nay, such is their insignificance, that only the traces of the wall on the ridge seem to have been remarked by travellers, and nobody before me appears to have ever noticed the traces of the wall on the opposite side, which runs along the bank of the ravine torrent.

For these decisive reasons, I have always interpreted the famous passage in Pausanias in the sense that the five tombs were in the Acropolis. I proved this in my work 'Ithaque, le PÉloponnÈse et Troie,' which I published in the beginning of 1869, page 97. In February, 1874, therefore, I sank there thirty-four shafts in different places, in order to sound the ground and to find out the place where I should have to dig for them. The six shafts which I sank on the first western and south-western terrace gave very encouraging results, and particularly the two which I dug within 100 yards south of the Lions' Gate; for not only did I strike two Cyclopean house-walls, but I also found an unsculptured slab resembling a tombstone, and a number of female idols and small cows of terra-cotta. I therefore resolved at once on making extensive excavations at this spot, but I was prevented by various circumstances which I need not explain here, and it is only now that I have found it possible to carry out my plan.

I began the great work on the 7th August, 1876, with sixty-three workmen, whom I divided into three parties. I put twelve men at the Lions' Gate, to open the passage into the Acropolis; I set forty-three to dig, at a distance of 40 feet from that gate, a trench 113 feet long and 113 feet broad; and the remaining eight men I ordered to dig a trench on the south side of the Treasury in the lower city, near the Lions' Gate, in search of the entrance. But the soil at the Treasury was as hard as stone, and so full of large blocks, that it took me two weeks to dig only as far down as the upper part of the open triangular space above the door, from which I could calculate that the threshold would be 33 feet lower.

I had also very hard work at the Lions' Gate, owing to the huge blocks by which the passage was obstructed, and which seem to have been hurled from the adjoining walls at the assailants, when the Acropolis was captured by the Argives in 468 B.C. The obstruction of the entrance must date from that time, for the dÉbris in which the boulders are imbedded has not been formed by a series of successive habitations, but it has evidently been gradually washed down by the rain water from the upper terraces.

Immediately to the left, on entering the gate, I brought to light a small chamber, undoubtedly the ancient doorkeeper's habitation, the ceiling of which is formed by one huge slab. The chamber is only 4½ feet high, and it would not be to the taste of our present doorkeepers; but in the heroic age comfort was unknown, particularly to slaves, and being unknown it was unmissed.

No ancient writer mentions the fact that MycenÆ was reinhabited after its capture by the Argives and the expulsion of its inhabitants. On the contrary, Diodorus Siculus, who lived at the time of Julius CÆsar and Augustus, after having described the tragic fate of MycenÆ, adds: "This city, which was in ancient times blessed with wealth and power, which produced such great men and accomplished such important actions, was thus destroyed and remained uninhabited till the present time."[177] That MycenÆ was uninhabited at the time of Strabo (that is, under Augustus), we must conclude from his remark, "So that of the city of the Myceneans not even a vestige can now be found."[178] It was certainly also uninhabited at the time of Pausanias (A.D. 170), who describes its ruins.

But I have brought to light most positive proofs that it had been again inhabited, and that the new town must have existed for a long period, probably for more than two centuries; because there is at the surface of the Acropolis a layer of dÉbris of the Hellenic time, which goes to an average depth of three feet. Though I cannot fix by the fragments of pottery the precise period of the re-occupation of the town, yet as painted pottery of the best Hellenic period is missing, and as the numerous terra-cotta figures and fluted vases which I find are evidently of the Macedonian age down to the second century B.C., I presume that the new colony may have been founded in the beginning of the fourth, and may have been abandoned in the beginning of the second century B.C. These two limits seem to be confirmed by the bronze medals found, nearly all of which show on one side a Hera head with a crown, on the other a column, having to its left a helmet and to its right a . This character is generally thought to be a , and thus the coin is attributed to the Argolic city of Thyrea. But, in the opinion of my worthy friends A. Postolaccas and P. Lampros, which I accept, the is the spiritus asper, and belongs to the still unknown word which records the value of the coin. This coin belongs to the city of Argos, and is of the Macedonian age, which makes it utterly impossible that the sign should be a , the with this meaning having only come into use at the time of the Roman conquest.

There was an entire absence of Roman or Byzantine coins. I may here remark that MycenÆ proper appears to have struck no coins; at least none has ever been found.

Below the comparatively modern Hellenic city I find by thousands the fragments of those splendidly-painted archaic vases, which I have already mentioned when speaking of Tiryns. The type of vase which I most frequently find here is in the shape of a globe with a flat foot, and terminating above in a very pretty narrow neck, without an opening, the top of which is joined on each side by a beautifully-shaped handle to the upper part of the body. The real mouth of the vase is in the shape of a funnel, and always near to the closed neck.[179] These vases always show the most variegated painted ornamentation of horizontal circular bands, spiral lines, or other fanciful decorations, which vary on each vase. In the centre of the flat top of the closed neck is usually a white point, surrounded by three, four, six or more red circles; but sometimes there is a cross painted in the middle of the circles.

Vases of the same form sometimes occur in Attica; some specimens of them have also been found in Cyprus as well as in Egyptian tombs. Mr. Charles T. Newton has called my attention to forty-three vases of exactly the same form, which have been found in a tomb at Ialysus on the island of Rhodes, together with other objects which also occur in MycenÆ; but in the same tomb was also found an Egyptian scarabÆus with the cartouche of Amunoph III., who is thought by Egyptologists to have reigned not later than B.C. 1400.

As there are almost as many varieties of painted ornamentation as there are vases, and as in most instances this ornamentation is most complicated and has never been found before, it would be a vain attempt on my part to describe it, and I therefore simply refer to the engravings.[180] But generally speaking, I may remark that the decoration with spiral lines prevails; that fragments like the so-called Attic vases with geometrical patterns are numerous; that flowers, branches, and leaves occasionally occur; and that bands of wedge-shaped signs, resembling fish-spines, are frequent, as well as zigzag lines and circular bands. The cross with the marks of four nails may often be seen; as well as the ?, which is usually also represented with four points indicating the four nails, thus . These signs cannot but represent the suastika, formed by two pieces of wood, which were laid across and fixed with four nails, and in the joint of which the holy fire was produced by friction by a third piece of wood.[181] But both the cross and the ? occur for the most part only on the vases with geometrical patterns.

Representations of birds and quadrupeds sometimes occur on vases; all are very archaic, particularly the quadrupeds, of which it is sometimes difficult to find out what the artist intended to represent.[182] Thus there often occur animals with very long legs, a body resembling that of a horse and the head like the beak of a stork, but with two horns like those of a gazelle.[183] Usually these animals have a uniform red colour; but sometimes they have an ornamentation of spiral lines. In a few instances animals are represented which perfectly resemble gazelles or he-goats.[184] The bird, in the representation of which the Mycenean artist has succeeded best is the swan.[185] Of the other birds the species is difficult to discern.[186] In the representation of men also the artist may be said to have succeeded; but the vases are broken into so many fragments that there are but few entire painted human figures. The small vase (No. 80) shows warriors with large round shields; and on a fragment (No. 47) is represented a man with a helmet on his head, leading with his right hand a horse, and holding in his left a lance. On other fragments are only the bodies of men without heads. No. 81 is the mouth-piece of a jug, on which a human head is modelled. There is also a human head painted on a fragment of pottery (No. 82); it has a very large eye, and a head-dress in the form of a Phrygian cap. All these representations are very archaic.

The greater number of the vases with a large opening are painted both outside and inside; and in many instances the internal paintings by far exceed those on the outside in originality and profusion of colours. Thus, for example, I found the fragment of a vase decorated outside with representations of deer, and inside with those of men and women.

I often find fragments of tripods of terra-cotta with two large handles, of which the three feet as well as the handles have two, three, four, or even five perforations, which can only have served for suspension with a string. On many vases without feet, the rim of the base is perforated on either side as many times as the handles.

No perforated lids were found, but I have no doubt that they existed, and that, as with nearly all those found in Troy, the perforations in the vases served not only for hanging them up, but also for fastening the lids, so as to secure the contents.

All the painted vases hitherto found have been made on the potter's wheel, except the very small ones, which are evidently hand-made. It is true that I found two fragments of coarse hand-made pottery, which can only be compared to the rudest pottery of the Danish "kitchen-middens" (KjÖkkenmÖddinge); but they had evidently been transported hither from another place.

As at Tiryns, the goblets are for the most part of white clay, and in the shape of large Bordeaux wine-glasses; nearly all have one handle (see No. 83). But there are a great many other goblets of the same form which have a uniform bright red colour, and others which, on a light red dead ground, have an ornamentation of numerous parallel dark red circular bands (see Nos. 84, 88).

No. 83. A Goblet of Terra-cotta. (3 M.) Size 5:8, about.