DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0417
THE MYCENAEAN WORLD AND HOMER 363
marble lyre-players from Ainorgos. In the camp before
Troy Achilles is the only hero who soothes his
soul with its notes, and a fellow-feeling would
commend his tale to the minstrel. Thus an Achilleid of
Thessalian origin may well have been the kernel of the
Epic.1
Meantime the glory of bygone days — the good old
times — is cherished the more fondly as the vanquishers of
the East feel more and more the pressure from the Dot^
the rude North. Even golden Mycenae finds her misratioB
wealth melting away in the long resistance; the fact is
attested by the cheap and slovenly character of the more
recent repairs in the palace, as if economy were the first
consideration. By the irony of fate the Achaean capital
came to repeat the experience of her great antagonist, as
Hector mournfully recounts it in the tenth year of the
war:2 —
" Of old time all mortal men would tell of this city of
Priam for the much gold and bronze thereof, but now are
its goodly treasures perished out of its dwellings and much
goods are sold away to Phrygia and pleasant Maionia, since
mighty Zeus dealt evilly with us."
How long the struggle wore on we cannot say; but at
last the Dorian prevailed. The citadel was mastered; the
palace given to the flames, thus bringing home to his own
1 There is also something to be said for a Laconian Achilleid. For in hol-
low Laeedaemon we can trace a primitive and widespread Aehilleian cult as
well as a great clan that claimed to be of the hero's lineage. We may thus
conceive a Menis sung in the halls of Achilles' own posterity settled on
Achaean soil and in vassalage to Achaean lords. In the Epic punishment is
visited on Achaean pride and presumption, while the Myrmidons are avenged
of the humiliations which as a subject people they might have actually had to
bear.
3 Iliad, xviii. 288 ff.
marble lyre-players from Ainorgos. In the camp before
Troy Achilles is the only hero who soothes his
soul with its notes, and a fellow-feeling would
commend his tale to the minstrel. Thus an Achilleid of
Thessalian origin may well have been the kernel of the
Epic.1
Meantime the glory of bygone days — the good old
times — is cherished the more fondly as the vanquishers of
the East feel more and more the pressure from the Dot^
the rude North. Even golden Mycenae finds her misratioB
wealth melting away in the long resistance; the fact is
attested by the cheap and slovenly character of the more
recent repairs in the palace, as if economy were the first
consideration. By the irony of fate the Achaean capital
came to repeat the experience of her great antagonist, as
Hector mournfully recounts it in the tenth year of the
war:2 —
" Of old time all mortal men would tell of this city of
Priam for the much gold and bronze thereof, but now are
its goodly treasures perished out of its dwellings and much
goods are sold away to Phrygia and pleasant Maionia, since
mighty Zeus dealt evilly with us."
How long the struggle wore on we cannot say; but at
last the Dorian prevailed. The citadel was mastered; the
palace given to the flames, thus bringing home to his own
1 There is also something to be said for a Laconian Achilleid. For in hol-
low Laeedaemon we can trace a primitive and widespread Aehilleian cult as
well as a great clan that claimed to be of the hero's lineage. We may thus
conceive a Menis sung in the halls of Achilles' own posterity settled on
Achaean soil and in vassalage to Achaean lords. In the Epic punishment is
visited on Achaean pride and presumption, while the Myrmidons are avenged
of the humiliations which as a subject people they might have actually had to
bear.
3 Iliad, xviii. 288 ff.