cle, and the orator stood in the center, as we see in Homer and in Sophocles; and just in the center of this inclosure at Mycenaæ I found a rock forming a slight elevation, which might well have served as the platform (ẞñua) from which the speakers addressed those sitting on the circular bench.*

As in the case of many another anticipated discovery, it is really surprising how much confirmatory evidence, previously unnoticed, turns up. We may pass by the incidental references made by the later poets and tragedians to the circular shape of the Agora and the bench surrounding, as of less importance in establishing the pre-Homeric conditions, and take but one out of many passages of Homer himself upon which a flood of light is thrown by Dr. Schliemann's discovery. On one of the compartments of the Shield of Achilles, the divine artificer wrought a marvelously graphic picture of an agora, the scene of a judicial trial before the elders of the city, (Iliad, xviii, 497–508 :)—

Λαοὶ δ ̓ εἶν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἀθρόοι· ἔνθα δὲ νεῖκος, κ. τ. λ.

"Meanwhile a multitude

Was in the forum, where a strife went on-
Two men contending for a fine, the price
Of one who had been slain. Before the crowd
One claimed that he had paid the fine, and one
Denied that aught had been received, and both
Called for the sentence which should end the strife.
The people clamored for both sides, for both
Had eager friends; the heralds held the crowd
In check; the elders, upon polished stones,

Sat in a sacred circle. Each one took,

In turn, a herald's scepter in his hand,
And, rising, gave his sentence. In the midst
Two talents lay in gold, to be the meed

Of him whose juster judgment should prevail."

We have used Bryant's rendering because, although slightly inaccurate in one or two points, it expresses the meaning of οἱ δὲ γέροντες

the

εἶατ' ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις, ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ

better than the "On polished chairs, in solemn circle," etc., of Derby, or "On chairs of polished stone, ranged in venerable circle," etc., of Gladstone. Evidently Homer had such a locality as that of Mycena in his mind's eye when composing "Mycenæ," p. 125.

these verses, with the elders seated on the bench around a clear space, where the herald moved about from one to the other, holding the scepter or staff; where, also, the prosecutor and defendant stood with the gold lying between them. Only around the circle, which was more properly a ẞovλevtýplov in the midst of a larger agora, there were broader spaces than at Mycenae, spaces which were, on the occasion of the trial, crowded with partisans of either side of the quarrel.

The "circular agora" contained, however, yet greater wonders within its bounds, and a store not merely of antiquarian wealth, but of actual precious metal such as the most excited imagination could not have figured to itself. Far down below the surface, at depths varying from about twenty-five to thirtyfive feet, Dr. Schliemann discovered five tombs, the contents of which compare with the most valuable of treasures coming down to us from antiquity, and quite cast into the shade even the famous "Treasury of Priam," the wonder and admiration of the readers of "Troy and its Remains." A brief description is all that we can here give, referring for further information to the very full account in the volume before us, and especially to the magnificent illustrations it gives of almost every object discovered.

Each of the five tombs had been dug through the earth, and a short distance, sometimes even as much as fifteen or eighteen feet in the underlying rock. They were all quadrangular, and of considerable dimensions: the first, twenty-one feet five inches long by ten feet four inches broad; the second, twentyone feet three inches (nineteen feet eight inches on the opposite side) by eleven feet eight inches; the third, sixteen feet eight inches by ten feet two inches; the fourth, twenty-four feet by eighteen and a half feet; and the fifth, eleven and a half feet by nine feet eight inches. In all but the last the four sides had been lined with walls (in three, by slanting walls) of stone; in the case of the last, and smallest, there was merely a lining of large pieces of schist placed in a slanting position against the low border of the tomb. Upon the bottom, in every tomb, there was first a layer of pebbles; resting upon these were human bodies that have evidently (as proved by the calcined condition of the pebbles, the smoke upon the walls, etc.) been burned on the very spot; though the fire does

not appear to have been hot enough to reduce them to ashes, but only to burn off their clothing and slightly affect their metallic ornaments. In the five tombs there were altogether fifteen bodies, three in each of the first three, five in the fourth, and only one in the fifth. Those in the third tomb, Dr. Schliemann supposes, from the profusion of jewelry, to have been bodies of women. All the bodies were buried with the head to the east, with the exception of two of the five in the large "fourth" tomb, for which room could not be obtained in that way, and which were, consequently, placed with their heads to the north. All the bodies were, of course, reduced to such a condition that, whatever bones remained quickly disintegrated on exposure to the air, although of one a species of mummy, hideous enough no doubt, has been obtained by the speedy application of a solution of gum-sandarac in alcohol. By the immense pressure upon these remains, continuing for so long a period, even the best preserved of the bodies had been reduced to a thickness of only an inch, or an inch and a half!

In honor of the illustrious dead, their corpses were laid out, or rather laden, with a mass of precious utensils and ornaments that is unexampled in the case of any tomb opened in recent times, whether in Greece, Italy, or elsewhere. And yet these sepulchers had (with the exception to be immedi ately noted) retained inviolate, in the midst of the poverty of the present inhabitants of this portion of Argolis, for thousands of years-an advantage assuredly due to no other cause than the utter ignorance of the fact of their exist ence. Of the fifteen skeletons, only one had ever been tampered with; namely, the middle one of the first tomb. This one was found to have been stripped of most of its ornaments, while those in immediate proximity on the right and left had not been touched. Dr. Schliemann comes to the conclusion, from an examination, that it had been reached by making a shaft directly down, and that the deed was perpetrated before the destruction of the city in 6 B. C. The haste of the rob

The total weight of the gold objects found in the five tombs is stated by Mr. Gladstone, in the preface, p. xxxvi, and by the index, p. 379, at about one hundred pounds Troy weight, or nearly that of five thousand British sovereigns (say $24,000 to $25,000!)

bers is evidenced by the fact that they left so much booty behind them, scattering many gold buttons, etc., through the earth with which they refilled the excavation. About one half of the corpses had their faces covered and protected by "massive" masks of gold, of which not less than seven were found, all of them but one much injured by the pressure of the superincumbent earth. One seems to have been a child's mask, though of other traces of the burial of the child there were none. Another had a lion's face, according to Dr. Schliemann, though, it must be confessed, the resemblance is difficult to make out in the plate on page 211, and Dr. Schliemann admits that "at first sight its engraving resembles more a jacket than any thing else; but, on closer examination, we find that it represents a lion's head, whose ears and eyes are distinctly seen." Page 222. The other five are men's faces. Dr. Schliemann believes them likenesses of the wearers, and is astonished that any goldsmiths could have been obtained at Mycena able to execute them in the brief interval allowed to elapse in Greece and other warm countries between death and interment. There is this to be said in favor of the theory that they were portraits: each differs from the rest, and there is nothing conventional in their treatment. On the other hand, they are by no means handsome. Only one (that on page 289, and marked "Massive Golden Mask of the body at the south end of the First Sepulcher") presents a really heroic cast of countenance. It has well-marked features, clear cut eyebrows, a long, straight nose, compressed lips, indicative of great decision, and a full beard. Some of the dead had also "ornamented breast covers of massive gold." One of these (see plate on page 301) measures one foot nine inches in length by one foot two and three fifths inches. Upon and about the dead were great numbers of gold "plates" of various sizes, particularly over the supposed women of the third tomb, where there were not less than seven hundred and one collected. Many of these are of exquisite execution in repoussé work, as may be judged from the eight splendid samples on pages 166-169. Then there were quantities of "leaves," "but-* tons," "stars," etc., of the same material. These are thought to have been intended, at least in part, to be fastened to the dress by glue, or otherwise. In some of the sepulchers, along

with great and costly goblets, and other vessels of gold and silver, caldrons of bronze, etc., there were swords of copper, or bronze, a golden "telamon," or sword-strap, and rows of graduated gold disks, lying in a row, where they had been left, when the wooden and perishable sheath, which they had undoubtedly adorned, rotted away and disappeared. Nor ought the really splendid "diadems" and "crowns," in some cases placed upon the dead, to be omitted from this very imperfect enumeration. That on page 185 was a little over two feet in length, and six inches broad immediately above the forehead, highly wrought with shield-like ornaments, and provided with a singular fringe, or border, of gold leaves of many different patterns.

It is important to notice that on not a single object was a trace of writing of any kind to be found-not even such rudimentary writing as was discovered at Troy. Thus a civilization is revealed so far like that portrayed in the Iliad and Odyssey, that it possessed in a very high degree the arts of working in the precious metals, in ivory, in bronze, in rock-crystal, etc. The story of Vulcan's skill in the fabrication of the famous shield appearing not to be altogether a poetical invention, but the reproduction, possibly on a grander scale, of what the poet was really familiar with. At the same time, the remains of Mycenæ agree with the poems in the total absence of indications of literary culture among the heroes.

As to the progress indicated by the remains, some interesting facts come to light. The vexed question respecting the true meaning of the Homeric chalcos is answered by the statement that the term covered both copper and bronze; for while the weapons and a few of the vases contained as large a proportion as from ten to thirteen per cent. of tin, doubtless with a view to strength, the kettles and other domestic utensils had a mere trace of tin, and were almost pure copper. (P. 367.) Copper was employed, also, as a medium in plating. Being apparently unacquainted with any method of overlaying silver directly with gold, the artisans of Mycenae were wont to put a coating of copper upon a silver base and then impose the gold upon this. (P. 158, et al.) We say the artisans of Mycena, for there is every reason to think that the work which is revealed to us in the contents of the five tombs of the agora (as well as in