DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.840#0053
38 KRABATA. MYCENAE.
styled lions, (Porphyry) so that we have the pillar, the balls, and the
lions in each country, a circumstance so singular, that it may lead us
to suspect that the figures related to one and the same object. Fire
and water were the two elements revered by the Persians. The ball
represented the sun in the sculpture of that nation, and that sculp-
ture was borrowed from Egypt, Diodorus, B. 2. It is not a little
curious that balls and those spirals which in all hieroglyphics signify
water, are found at Mycenae in the treasury of Atreus, and at Perse-
polis, as may be seen in the collar round the neck of a bull, engraved
by Le Bruyn, and under the feet, of some figures upon a tomb, as well
as in the miscellaneous plate. The Spartans and Argives were anci-
ently intimately connected. Tzetzes indeed calls the Argives
Lacedaemonians, and the religious rites of the Spartans Avere in the
instance of solar worship the same as those of the Persians, for the
Spartans sacrificed horses to the sun on the top of Taygetus, " as was
the custom in Persia." Bausanias Laconica. They had also at Amyclae
a statue of Apollo, which was absolutely a pillar ; and Meursius cites
authors who assert that he was there represented with four hands
and four ears, to which the four balls might have some allusion.
Though Juno was particularly attached to the cities of Sparta,
Argos, and Mycenae, Iliad 4, 52, yet Agamemnon invokes Jupiter,
Minerva and Apollo, not Juno in the Iliad, and Electra addresses the
sun in the opening of the tragedy. Thucydides, Book 1, Chap. 10,
hints that there were no temples at Mycenae, and the solar worship
was in some countries so notoriously without them, that the Persians
burned in derision those of the Greeks. The Cyclopes, to whom the
styled lions, (Porphyry) so that we have the pillar, the balls, and the
lions in each country, a circumstance so singular, that it may lead us
to suspect that the figures related to one and the same object. Fire
and water were the two elements revered by the Persians. The ball
represented the sun in the sculpture of that nation, and that sculp-
ture was borrowed from Egypt, Diodorus, B. 2. It is not a little
curious that balls and those spirals which in all hieroglyphics signify
water, are found at Mycenae in the treasury of Atreus, and at Perse-
polis, as may be seen in the collar round the neck of a bull, engraved
by Le Bruyn, and under the feet, of some figures upon a tomb, as well
as in the miscellaneous plate. The Spartans and Argives were anci-
ently intimately connected. Tzetzes indeed calls the Argives
Lacedaemonians, and the religious rites of the Spartans Avere in the
instance of solar worship the same as those of the Persians, for the
Spartans sacrificed horses to the sun on the top of Taygetus, " as was
the custom in Persia." Bausanias Laconica. They had also at Amyclae
a statue of Apollo, which was absolutely a pillar ; and Meursius cites
authors who assert that he was there represented with four hands
and four ears, to which the four balls might have some allusion.
Though Juno was particularly attached to the cities of Sparta,
Argos, and Mycenae, Iliad 4, 52, yet Agamemnon invokes Jupiter,
Minerva and Apollo, not Juno in the Iliad, and Electra addresses the
sun in the opening of the tragedy. Thucydides, Book 1, Chap. 10,
hints that there were no temples at Mycenae, and the solar worship
was in some countries so notoriously without them, that the Persians
burned in derision those of the Greeks. The Cyclopes, to whom the