Mycenæ: a narrative of researches and discoveries at Mycenæ and Tiryns

by Heinrich Schliemann

1. Upon the situation chosen for the interments, Dr. Schliemann opines that they were not originally within the Agora, but that it was subsequently constructed around the tombs (p. 340). His reasons are that the supporting wall, on which rest, in double line, the upright slabs, formerly, and in six cases still, covered by horizontal slabs as seats for the elders, is careless in execution, and inferior to the circuit wall of the Acropolis. But, if it was built as a mere stay, was there any reason for spending labour to raise it to the point of strength necessary for a work of military defence? Further, he finds between the lines of slabs, where they are uncovered, broken pottery of the prehistoric period more recent than that of the tombs. But such pottery would never have been placed there at the time of the construction; with other rubbish, it would only have weakened and not strengthened the fabric of the inclosure. Nor can we readily see how it could have come there, until the work was dilapidated by the disappearance of the upper slabs. If so, it would of course be later in date than the slabs were.

It appears to me that the argument of improbability tells powerfully against the supposition that the Agora was constructed round the tombs, having previously been elsewhere. The space within the Acropolis appears to be very limited: close round the inclosures are 'Cyclopean' houses and cisterns. When works of this kind are once constructed, their removal would be a work of great difficulty: and this is a case, where the earliest builders were followed by men who aimed not at greater, but at less, solidity. Besides which, the Agora was connected with the religion of the place, and was, as will be shown, in the immediate neighbourhood of the palace. In addition to these material attractions, every kind of moral association would grow up around it.

It can be clearly shown that the ancient Agora was bound down to its site by manifold ties, other than those of mere solidity in its construction. It stands in Mycenæ, says our author (p. [341]), on the most imposing and most beautiful spot of the city, from whence the whole was overlooked. It was on these high places that the men of the prehistoric ages erected the simple structures, in many cases perhaps uncovered, that, with the altars, served for the worship of the gods. In Scheriè, it was built round the temple, so to call it, of Poseidon (Od. VI. 266). In the Greek camp before Troy the Agora was in the centre of the line of ships (Il. XI. 5-9, 806-8). There justice was administered, and there "had been constructed the altars of the gods." Further, it is clear, from a number of passages in Homer, that the place of Assembly was always close to the royal palace. In the case of Troy we are told expressly that it was held by the doors of Priam (Il. II. 788, VII. 345, 6). In Scheriè, the palace of Alkinoös was close to the grove of Athenè (Od. VI. 291-3); and we can hardly doubt that this grove was in the immediate vicinity of the Posideïon, which was itself within the Agora. In Ithaca (Od. XXIV. 415 seqq.), the people gathered before the Palace of Odysseus, and then went in a mass into the Agora. While it was thus materially associated with those points of the city which most possessed the character of fixtures, it is not too much to say, considering the politics of early Greece, that it must, in the natural course, have become a centre around which would cling the fondest moral and historical associations of the people. Into the minor question whether the encircling slabs are the remains of an original portion of the work or not, I do not think it needful for me to enter.

But, while I believe that the Agora is where it was, the honour paid to the dead by the presence of their tombs within it is not affected by either alternative; but only the time of paying it. If this be the old Agora, they were honoured by being laid in it; if it is of later date, they were honoured by its being removed in order to be built around them; if at least this was done knowingly, and how could it be otherwise, when we observe that the five tombs occupy more than a moiety of the whole available space? We know, from the evidence of the historic period, that to be buried in the Agora was a note of public honour; we cannot reasonably doubt, with the five graves before us, that it was such likewise in the historic age.

It was a note of public honour, then, if these bodies were originally buried in the Agora. If we adopt the less probable supposition that the Agora was afterwards constructed around them by reason of their being there, the honour may seem even greater still.

2. Next, the number of persons simultaneously interred, when taken in conjunction with the other features of the transaction, offers a new problem for consideration. An argument in p. [337], to show that the burials were simultaneous, seems quite conclusive. They embraced (ibid.) sixteen or seventeen persons. Among the bodies one appears to be marked out by probable evidence as that of the leading personage. Lying in the tomb marked as No. 1, it has two companions. Now Agamemnon had two marshals or heralds (Il. I. 320), whose office partook of a sacred character. There might, therefore, be nothing strange in their being laid, if so it were, by their lord. The most marked of the bodies lay to the north of the two others, all three having the feet to the westward. It was distinguished by better preservation, which may, at least not improbably, have been due to some preservative process at the time of interment. It carried, besides a golden mask (p. [296]), a large golden breastplate (15⅗ by 9½ in.), and other leaves of gold at various points; also a golden belt across the loins, 4 ft. long and 1¾ in. broad. By the side of the figure lay two swords, stated by Dr. Schliemann to be of bronze (p. [302]), the ornamentation of one of them particularly in striking accordance with the description in the Iliad of the sword of Agamemnon (Il. XI. 29-31). Within a foot of the body, to the right, lay eleven other swords (p. [304]), but this is not a distinctive mark, as the body on the south side has fifteen, ten lying at the feet, and a great heap of swords were found at the west end, between this and the middle body.

The entire number of bodies in the five tombs (p. [337]), which is stated at sixteen or seventeen, seems to have included three women and two or three children. The local tradition recorded by Pausanias (inf. p. 59) takes notice of a company of men with Agamemnon, and of Cassandra, with two children whom she was reported to have borne. This is only significant as testifying to the ancient belief that children were buried in the tombs: for Cassandra could only be taken captive at the time when the city of Troy was sacked, and the assassination immediately followed the arrival in Greece. But it is likely enough that these children may have been the offspring of another concubine, who may have taken the place Briseïs was meant to fill. This is of course mere speculation; but the meaning is that there is nothing in these indications to impair the force of any presumptions, which the discoveries may in other respects legitimately raise.

3. Like the site in the Agora, so the character of the tombstones, which is in strict correspondence with the style of many of the ornaments,[13] and the depth of the tombs, appear with one voice to signify honour to the dead. As I understand the Plans, they show a maximum depth of 25 feet (see, e.g., p. 155) below the surface, hollowed for the most part out of the solid rock. But then we are met with the staggering fact that the bodies of full-grown, and apparently (p. [295]) tall, men have been forced into a space of only five feet six inches in length, so as to require that sort of compression which amounts almost to mutilation.

We seem thus to stand in the face of circumstances that contradict one another. The place, the depth, the coverings of the tombs, appear to lead us in one direction; the forcing and squeezing of the bodies in another. But further, and stranger still, there seems to have been no necessity for placing the bodies under this unbecoming, nay revolting, pressure. The original dimensions of the tomb (p. [294]) were 21 ft. 6 in. by 11 ft. 6 in. These are reduced all round, first by an inner wall two feet thick, and secondly by a slanting projection one foot thick (at the bottom) to 5 ft. 6 in. and 15 ft. 6 in. Why, then, were the bodies not laid along, instead of across, it? Was not the act needless as well as barbarous? And to what motive is a piece of needless barbarism, apparently so unequivocal, to be referred? I hardly dare to mention, much less, so scanty is the evidence, to dwell upon the fact that their bodies lie towards the west, and that the Egyptian receptacle for the dead lay in that quarter.[14] The conflict of appearances, at which we have now arrived, appears to point to a double motive in the original entombment; or to an incomplete and incoherent proceeding, which some attempt was subsequently made to correct; or to both. But let us pay a brief attention to the remaining particulars of the disclosures.

4. We have next to observe (a) that fire was applied to these remains; (b) that the application of it was only partial; (c) that the metallic deposits are said to show marks[15] of the action of it (pp. [158], [165], [188], [198], [201], [208], [215], [218], [260], [266], [321], [330]): so do the pebbles (p. [294]). We see, therefore, that the deposition of the precious objects took place either at the same moment with the fire, or, and more probably I suppose, before it had entirely burned out.