DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0414
THE MYCENAEAN AGE
looking and forth putting. It had in it the promise and
m potency of what Europe and America have now
The duel r J -11
with the wrought out in the complex or modern civiliza-
tion. But the Orient over against it had a long
lead and yet kept its vigor. It was in the necessity of
things that the new order should clash with the old; and
the story of the Iliad is as true to the conditions now
known to be historical as any passage in accredited history.
The old Greek power intrenched in the Aegean is the mis-
tress of the Mediterranean, the one great pathway of sea-
trade. But seated on the opposite shore of the Aegean,
commanding the ferry between the continents and with it
the overland trade of the age, is a rival power—an opulent
strong1 city which can no longer be whistled down
l he protaj;- 1 • i mi 1 i-i pit
onistsofthe the wind. 1 hanks to Dorpteid, we can now at
last go round her walls and count her towers.
As long as we had in evidence only Schliemann's Burnt
City—strong and opulent, indeed, but insignificant in
size, and with everything to show an indefinitely earlier
stage of culture — it required a truly eclectic fancy to set
the Epic antagonists face to face. To-day, however, that
Burnt City is important mainly as a witness that perhaps a
thousand years before Mycenae was built the Hissarlik hill
was already a seat of ancient power, so that the larger,
stronger Troy we now know was at once the heir of the
hoary East, and flourishing at the very moment when we
find Mycenae in her golden prime.
Paris may or may not have run away with Helen, hut
rapes and reprisals were inevitable incidents of the situa-
tion. The sea power in the Aegean and the land power on
the Hellespont could no more avoid an Eastern Question
then than can England and Russia to-day. Troy must
have been a standing temptation like her last successor on
looking and forth putting. It had in it the promise and
m potency of what Europe and America have now
The duel r J -11
with the wrought out in the complex or modern civiliza-
tion. But the Orient over against it had a long
lead and yet kept its vigor. It was in the necessity of
things that the new order should clash with the old; and
the story of the Iliad is as true to the conditions now
known to be historical as any passage in accredited history.
The old Greek power intrenched in the Aegean is the mis-
tress of the Mediterranean, the one great pathway of sea-
trade. But seated on the opposite shore of the Aegean,
commanding the ferry between the continents and with it
the overland trade of the age, is a rival power—an opulent
strong1 city which can no longer be whistled down
l he protaj;- 1 • i mi 1 i-i pit
onistsofthe the wind. 1 hanks to Dorpteid, we can now at
last go round her walls and count her towers.
As long as we had in evidence only Schliemann's Burnt
City—strong and opulent, indeed, but insignificant in
size, and with everything to show an indefinitely earlier
stage of culture — it required a truly eclectic fancy to set
the Epic antagonists face to face. To-day, however, that
Burnt City is important mainly as a witness that perhaps a
thousand years before Mycenae was built the Hissarlik hill
was already a seat of ancient power, so that the larger,
stronger Troy we now know was at once the heir of the
hoary East, and flourishing at the very moment when we
find Mycenae in her golden prime.
Paris may or may not have run away with Helen, hut
rapes and reprisals were inevitable incidents of the situa-
tion. The sea power in the Aegean and the land power on
the Hellespont could no more avoid an Eastern Question
then than can England and Russia to-day. Troy must
have been a standing temptation like her last successor on