DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0391
338 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
thing happened at Mycenae; the town wall was built simply
because the fortress was an insufficient shelter for the pop-
ulace as times grew threatening j but it could not, and did
not, take in all the villages.
Such briefly is the objective evidence — the palpable
facts — pointing to a race-connection between the Myce-
Homeric uaean and the Greeks of history. We have,
testimony finally, to consider the testimony of the Homeric
poems. Homer avowedly sings of heroes and peoples who
had flourished in Greece long before his own day. Now
it may be denied that these represent the civilization known
to us as Mycenaean ; but it is certainly a marvelous coin-
cidence (as Schuchhardt observes) that " excavations invari-
ably confirm the former power and splendor of every city
which is mentioned by Homer as conspicuous for its wealth
or sovereignty."
Of all the cities of Hellas, it is the now established cen-
tres of Mycenaean culture which the poet knows best and
characterizes with the surest hand. Mycenae " rich in
gold " l is Agamemnon's seat, and Agamemnon is lord of all
Argos and many isles, and leader of the host at Troy. In
Laconia, in the immediate neighborhood of the tomb which
has given us the famous Vaphio cups, is the royal seat of
Menelaus, which is likened to the court of Olympian Zeus.2
Boeotian Orchomenos, whose wealth still speaks for itself
in the Treasury of Minyas, is taken by the poet as a twin
type of affluence with Egyptian Thebes, " where the trea-
sure-houses are stored fullest." 3 Assuredly, no one can
regard all this and many another true touch as mere coinci-
dence. The poet knows whereof he affirms. He has exact
knowledge of the greatness and bloom of certain peoples
1 Iliad, vii. 180, etc. 3 Iliad, ix. 3S1.
ty, iv. 74.
thing happened at Mycenae; the town wall was built simply
because the fortress was an insufficient shelter for the pop-
ulace as times grew threatening j but it could not, and did
not, take in all the villages.
Such briefly is the objective evidence — the palpable
facts — pointing to a race-connection between the Myce-
Homeric uaean and the Greeks of history. We have,
testimony finally, to consider the testimony of the Homeric
poems. Homer avowedly sings of heroes and peoples who
had flourished in Greece long before his own day. Now
it may be denied that these represent the civilization known
to us as Mycenaean ; but it is certainly a marvelous coin-
cidence (as Schuchhardt observes) that " excavations invari-
ably confirm the former power and splendor of every city
which is mentioned by Homer as conspicuous for its wealth
or sovereignty."
Of all the cities of Hellas, it is the now established cen-
tres of Mycenaean culture which the poet knows best and
characterizes with the surest hand. Mycenae " rich in
gold " l is Agamemnon's seat, and Agamemnon is lord of all
Argos and many isles, and leader of the host at Troy. In
Laconia, in the immediate neighborhood of the tomb which
has given us the famous Vaphio cups, is the royal seat of
Menelaus, which is likened to the court of Olympian Zeus.2
Boeotian Orchomenos, whose wealth still speaks for itself
in the Treasury of Minyas, is taken by the poet as a twin
type of affluence with Egyptian Thebes, " where the trea-
sure-houses are stored fullest." 3 Assuredly, no one can
regard all this and many another true touch as mere coinci-
dence. The poet knows whereof he affirms. He has exact
knowledge of the greatness and bloom of certain peoples
1 Iliad, vii. 180, etc. 3 Iliad, ix. 3S1.
ty, iv. 74.