feel sure that if the assortment were larger we could almost match the similes or their members individually. We see the same attitude of eager and successful attention fixed on the brute creation in the poet and in the artist; we find the same inadequacy of grasp when it is turned on man.

Æsop's fables, again, illustrate the same period in respect to ethical observation. Here the simile and the thing compared run into each other, like the two sides of a stereoscope, and give a moral solidity on which the imagination fastens. The simple artifice consists in investing with such moral traits as lie on the surface of human nature such creatures as are sufficiently familiar and suitable vehicles of them. Thus the fox is the type of cunning, the lion of courage, and the like. And philosophy in its advanced forms has so feeble a hold on the many, that these fables are sure to be popular while the world lasts. For children they have an especial charm. They spring from the infancy of humanity, and therefore speak sympathetically to infancy in all ages.

or

With the one wide exception of the religious element, we see the same general aspect of social life in Mycena and when Homer sang. Instead of the Olympian theomorphism, we find indications of brute worship. Whatever denomination be fixed on the objects called 'cow-idols' or 'Hera-idols' by Dr. Schliemann, they certainly are not human. A number of them, e.g. some on Mycena, p. 106, have heads like geese snakes, while others more resemble the type of the familiar hook-handled umbrella. One on p. 104 has a long stilted neck like a deer, another on p. 101 more resembles a duck. There is no adequate reason for referring all to one intended type, any more than for referring all the idols of Egypt to the form of the Apis bull. It was a bold and to a great extent a successful prophecy of Dr. Schliemann, when, on digging up what he thought was the 'owl-headed Athênê' at Hissarlik, he ventured to say that, if he went to explore Mycenae, he should expect to find the 'cow-headed Hera.' It is the more remarkable because we cannot say we believe he has proved the existence of a single owl-headed form amongst the Hissarlik collection; while, unless his illustrations in his Mycena are unusually imaginative, he has found there an object or class of objects to which the supposed 'cow-headed Hera' and 'owl-headed Athênê' seem alike to have a very close relation. The interpretation which he fixes on these two obscure goddess-epithets seems very likely to be true, and is not the less valuable, although it is less easily provable, because he was led to it by an original error. The owl-head,

which looks suspicious as we glance over the representations in Troy and its Remains, vanishes at once when we come face to face with the originals, as the British public had lately the opportunity of doing at South Kensington. As regards the 'cow-headed Hera,' the bovine type of some at any rate of the smaller images figured in the Mycena seems unquestionable; while that of the large cow-head, ox-head, or bull's head, of bronze plated with silver and gilded at the mouth, and with golden horns, speaks of course for itself. It is indifferent to our argument whether it be bull, ox, or cow. The fact of Mycena being the well-known site of Hera worship in historic times, and of Mycenae being named as one of her favourite cities by Homer, leads us to seek an interpretation of the poet's fixed epithet for her on the spot. This is furnished by the zoömorphic idol forms, as they almost certainly are, brought to light by Dr. Schliemann, and is confirmed by the many testimonies and analogies in ancient literature and legend alleged by him in his note on the subject, Mycena, pp. 19-22. It seems likely then that the "Hpn Bowπis of the poet was originally 'cow-headed,' but that when, under the influence of Olympian anthropomorphism, the original hieratic type was lost, the epithet remained current. And if this be true of the Bowmis epithet, it is a strong presumption in favour of the yλavкôπis having the same solution, even although there be not a single beak traceable in the whole Hissarlik collection.

But to pass from the hieratic question, we find at Mycena the same articies of value in general esteem to which the Homeric Poems testify-a large class of many groups-which makes the evidence the stronger. The social atmosphere seems permeated by the same habits. Besides the warlike articles, which will receive a more detailed notice further on, we find at Mycenæ splendid cups of varied shape, vast size, and sumptuous material, copper tripods, caldrons, and bath-vessels of various make and dimensions, a lavish outlay of gold in weapon-mounting and decorative accoutrements, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and brooch-pins of massive form and rich device, every one of which is a social feature of Homeric life. There are very few articles, if we except those of perishable kind, mentioned in the Iliad and the Odyssey which do not receive illustration from either the Mycenæan or the Hissarlik treasures, or both. The great exception is the shield of Achilles in Iliad xviii., for analogues to which we must look elsewhere. Many indeed have received adequate illustration before, and will claim a briefer notice.

There can be no reasonable doubt that the tombs found are those of princes of a wealthy and presumably powerful line, who ruled earlier than the immigration of the Heraclid Dorians. They seem to have occupied that social elevation which Homer ascribes to the 'princes whom Zeus has reared,' if we may judge by the mass of value expended on their sepulture. We question very much whether there was, before Dr. Schliemann dug, so much gold coin in circulation in the whole of the Morea as the bullion found in the tombs would represent. We seem to see the ascendency of the hero-king over his subjects expressed in the potent factor, gold, scattered broadcast on his mortal remains. When was ever death so larded with solid wealth as here? Animal victims only appear consumed on the pyre of Patroclus. There is nothing in it of the sumptuous destructiveness which commits to the flames, or locks up in the bowels of the earth, articles of current use and high esteem. Such are, in the funeral games of the hero, bestowed with more discernment on his living friends as prizes competed for in honour of his memory. A golden (ie. probably gilded) coffin is mentioned as receiving Hector's bones, and Achilles speaks of a single golden urn (aμipopeùs) as destined to receive the remains of Patroclus and himself.1 At Mycena we find the gold in the form of visors and breastplates, but no trace of any coffin. Further, the Homeric pyre is consumed in the open, and the bones picked out from the ashes for preservation. At Mycena the bodies, if Dr. Schliemann is right, were burned in pits, three and five together, so far as to consume the flesh and leave the bones; while in some remarkable instances they were merely desiccated, leaving the frame dried and scorched, but entire in all its solid elements, to be then crushed flat by weight from above.

We proceed to notice in detail the principal Homeric decorations, weapons, utensils, &c., which appear to be illustrated by the remains found at Mycenæ, Hissarlik, and Cyprus.

The sacred (σTÉμμата) crowns or chaplets of Apollo are used for supplicatory purposes by his priest Chryses in the opening passage of the Iliad. There is no detail as to their material or fashion, but, as they are presented on the top of a golden sceptre,' 2 like the traditional olive bough or wreath, of which we have such frequent notice in the tragedians, and as they are plainly part of the sacred equipment of the shrine, we shall probably be right in supposing them also to be of

1 Il. xxiv. 795; xxiii. 91–2; cf. Od. xxiv. 74. The line, Il. xxiii. 92, was impugned by the ancient critics, being supposed by them to be founded on this from the Odyssey. 2 Il. i. 14-5.

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gold, to which the name Chrysê itself (xpvoén) points. The beautiful and elaborately patterned crowns of golden repoussée work found in the Mycenæan tombs, of which No. 281 is a typical specimen (see for others p. 247), may be cited as possible parallels. In the tomb of three each skeleton had five such diadems of thin gold plate, each 19 in. long, with a maximum breadth of 4 in., but narrowing towards the ends. In the women's tomb the specimen above referred to as No. 281 was even larger, measuring 25 in. in length by II in. in breadth, and profusely ornamented with large shield-like rosettes. Dr. Schliemann names some Cypriote images of Aphroditê in terra cotta and marble, in the British Museum, as having similar diadems on the head. The diadem being assumed to be of gold may explain the epithets 'golden' and 'well-crowned' bestowed by Homer on this goddess.1

The 'sceptre' of the Homeric king or of the 'herald,' his official, is a prominent object in Homer, and is the oldest known symbol of sovereignty. The sacred one produced by the priest, as mentioned above, is called 'golden,' meaning probably 'gold-mounted.' So is that grasped by Odysseus,4 and so in other instances. That of Achilles is 'pierced with golden studs.'5 A similar sceptre is borne by Tiresias as the seer, and by Minos as the judge of the dead. That of Agamemnon is an heirloom given by Zeus to Tantalus and his successors. Its material is not noticed, but it is called ever imperishable,' which epithet is probably to be explained by the perpetual demise, which the poet traces as far as the King of Men. The remains of one or more sceptres of conspicuous richness are figured by Dr. Schliemann. Thus we find three tubes of gold containing the remains of wood, regarded probably as those of such a sceptre; and No. 451, a magnificent golden cylinder of quatrefoiled open work, the quatrefoils touching by their points only, and every leaf glazed with a flake of rock-crystal, was no doubt part of the mounting of another such. In the same tomb, that of the five corpses, was a splendidly executed head of a golden dragon with open jaws, No. 452, which appears to be the handle of this quatrefoiled stem; for the scales of the monster are similarly glazed

1 Xpvoén, évorépavos, Il. iii. 64; Od. iv. 14 et al.; viii. 288. In the shorter hymn to the goddess the force of both epithets seems combined in xpvooσrépavos, Hym. Hom. vi. 1.

Il. ix. 38, 99, 156.

3 i. 15.

6 Od. xi. 91, 569.

4 ii. 268. 5 Il. i. 245. 7 ἄφθιτον αἰεὶ.—Il. ii. 46. 8 Il. 101-7; see Pausan. IX. xl. 11, 12, for a sceptre hallowed with divine honours, as traditionally believed to be this of Agamemnon, at Charonea in Boeotia.

with crystal flakes, of which one only had fallen off. This is perhaps the strongest presumption which the remains offer in favour of the claim of the tomb to be that of the King of Men himself. Some remarkable sceptre—as we may presume it to have been from the careful record-was, according to the poet, a traditional heirloom of the Mycenaan dynasty. The tomb presents us with one which would have been remarkable if found anywhere at any time. The poet bestows on it no descriptive touches, save that the Fire-god wrought it, but in the royal accoutrements he places the dragon as the dominant emblem. Dragon-forms crowd the king's corslet, and are repeated in his shield-belt.1 But this remarkable sceptre becomes little short of marvellous when, after three millenniums probably of entombment 'full fathom five' below the soil of which it symbolised the sway, it starts from its repose, having moulted just one crystal flake in the long period, and reveals precisely the device royal of the Agamemnonian panoply. But on the other hand, of course, our critics will remind us that any king may be buried with his sceptre at his side, that a dragon' is only a

serpent, that the Argolid was rather rife with serpents, being a dry or thirsty region,2 that one became the symbol, later, of the Epidaurian Esculapius, that any king of the dynasty, or region, might easily assume it, and that after all the 'dragon' may turn out to be a fish.

We pass on then to the Homeric belt for shield or sword. As regards the former, no defensive armour was found in any of the tombs. There was an abundance of swords, knives, and arrow-heads, not a few of the latter obsidian; but fire or decay had been fatal to their shafts, as also to the bows probably deposited with them. The 'knife hung close to the sheath of his great sword' on Agamemnon's person;3 and the bifurcate sword-belt, (Mycena, No. 369) may have sustained both weapons. But we find a delineation of the shield and its strap on a vase-fragment. It is broad and traverses the chest. The shield-strap of Agamemnon and that of Achilles were of silver, the former having, as aforesaid, a three-headed dragon of bronze (as we take the doubtful xúavos to be) coiling along it. The marvellous belt of Herakles, before referred to, is of gold, and will therefore bear comparison with many Mycenæan specimens. The figures upon it, as detailed above, may to a large extent be paralleled, although not from the belts discovered, yet from many other samples of figured

1 Il. xi. 26-8, 38-9.

3 Il. iii. 272.

* πολυδίψιον "Αργος, Il. iv. 171. 4 xi. 39-41; xviii. 480.