DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0415
THE MYCENAEAN WORLD AND HOMER 361
the Golden Horn. Thus it appears the most natural thing
in the world to see Greece mustering her forces in the
name of a common interest and against a common menace;
and to see at the head of those forces the monarch of the
fullest coffers and the widest sway. Whoever has mused
upon Mycenae, even in its ruins, needs no unreined imagi-
nation to feel how fitting it was as a point of departure for
the struggle with the East. The Achaean capital faces the
West; over the lofty mountains at its back the sun rises but
late. The stately palace that crowned the castle-hill, the
mighty walls that still encircle it, could have belonged to
no petty prince. Out of no nobler gateway than that
guarded by the royal lions could a King of Men have fared
forth to war. Homer has given us no picture of Mycenae
except as condensed in an epithet or two, which we have
found singularly confirmed in fact; but the portrait of
Agamemnon has every feature touched in and, as we study
the " much-golden city " in its actual survivals, we recog-
nize the self-same features. The individual is likewise the
civic portrait. We can accept Homer's chief because we
know that chieftain's castle and so much of his belongings
— quite enough to accredit him as a man instead of a
myth, if not to justify a prose version of his achievements
and his fate.
If the European protagonist is worthy of the Epic fame,
not less so is the Asiatic. Agamemnon would find himself
before walls as strong as his own — we may even say, still
more impregnable.1 Troy is not a mountain fortress, like
Mycenae, but its elevation above the plain is nearly twice
1 See Dorpfeld (Atk. Mitth. xix. 384) : "Die ganze Mauer ist so solide mid
sorgfsiltig gebaufc dass sie sich an Starke und Festigkeit mit den Mauern an-
derer Burgen der Mykenischeit Zeit messen kaim ; in Bezng auf Banart und
aussere Beaibeitung sie abor alle iibertrifft."
the Golden Horn. Thus it appears the most natural thing
in the world to see Greece mustering her forces in the
name of a common interest and against a common menace;
and to see at the head of those forces the monarch of the
fullest coffers and the widest sway. Whoever has mused
upon Mycenae, even in its ruins, needs no unreined imagi-
nation to feel how fitting it was as a point of departure for
the struggle with the East. The Achaean capital faces the
West; over the lofty mountains at its back the sun rises but
late. The stately palace that crowned the castle-hill, the
mighty walls that still encircle it, could have belonged to
no petty prince. Out of no nobler gateway than that
guarded by the royal lions could a King of Men have fared
forth to war. Homer has given us no picture of Mycenae
except as condensed in an epithet or two, which we have
found singularly confirmed in fact; but the portrait of
Agamemnon has every feature touched in and, as we study
the " much-golden city " in its actual survivals, we recog-
nize the self-same features. The individual is likewise the
civic portrait. We can accept Homer's chief because we
know that chieftain's castle and so much of his belongings
— quite enough to accredit him as a man instead of a
myth, if not to justify a prose version of his achievements
and his fate.
If the European protagonist is worthy of the Epic fame,
not less so is the Asiatic. Agamemnon would find himself
before walls as strong as his own — we may even say, still
more impregnable.1 Troy is not a mountain fortress, like
Mycenae, but its elevation above the plain is nearly twice
1 See Dorpfeld (Atk. Mitth. xix. 384) : "Die ganze Mauer ist so solide mid
sorgfsiltig gebaufc dass sie sich an Starke und Festigkeit mit den Mauern an-
derer Burgen der Mykenischeit Zeit messen kaim ; in Bezng auf Banart und
aussere Beaibeitung sie abor alle iibertrifft."