Suppositos cineri doloso."[16]
Let us place clearly before our eyes the account given by the Shade of Agamemnon, in the Eleventh Odyssey (405-434), of the manner of his death. No darker picture could be drawn. It combined every circumstance of cruelty with every circumstance of fraud. At the hospitable board, amid the flowing wine-cups, he was slain like an ox at the stall, and his comrades like so many hogs for a rich man's banquet; with deaths more piteous than he had ever known in single combat, or in the rush of armies. Most piteous of all was the death of Cassandra, whom the cruel Clytemnestra despatched with her own hand while clinging to Agamemnon; nor did she vouchsafe to her husband the last office of mercy and compassion, by closing his mouth and eyes in death. Singularly enough, Dr. Schliemann assures me that the right eye, which alone could be seen with tolerable clearness, was not entirely shut (see the engraving at p. [297]); while the teeth of the upper jawbone (see the same engraving) did not quite join those of the lower. This condition, he thinks, may be due to the superincumbent weight. But if the weight had opened the jaw, would not the opening, in all likelihood, have been much wider?
Now, as we are told that Ægisthus reigned until Orestes reached his manhood, we must assume that the massacre was in all respects triumphant. Yet there could hardly fail to be a party among the people favourable to the returning King, who had covered his country with unequalled glory. There might thus be found in the circumstances a certain dualism, a ground for compromise, such as may go far to account for the discrepancies of intention, which we seem to find in the entombments. There was this division of sentiment among the people, in the only case where we know the return of the prince from Troy to have been accompanied with a crisis or conflict, I mean the case of Ithaca.
The assassins proceeded in such a way, that the only consistent accomplishment of their design would have been found in casting forth the bodies of the slain like the bodies of enemies. But this may have been forbidden by policy. In the Julius Cæsar of Shakespeare, Brutus says (III. 1.)—
"We are contented Cæsar shall
Have all due rites and lawful ceremonies.
It shall advantage more than do us wrong."
Ægisthus was not Brutus. Even fury was apparent in the incidents of the slaughter. Yet there might be a desire to keep up appearances afterwards, and to allow some semblance of an honourable burial. There is one special circumstance that favours the idea of a double process, namely, that we readily find the agents for both parts of it; the murderers for the first, with necessity and policy controlling hatred; Orestes on his return for the second, with the double motive of piety and revenge.
We are now on the road not of history, but of reasonable conjecture. I try to account for a burial, which according to all reasonable presumption is of the heroic age, and of royal and famous personages, but which presents conflicting features of honour and of shame. That there is no conflicting hypothesis, is not a good reason for precipitate assent to the hypothesis which we may term Agamemnonian. Conjecture, to be admissible, ought to be consistent with itself, to meet the main demands of the known facts, and to present no trait at actual variance with any of them. In this view I present the hypothesis of a double procedure, and a double agency: and I submit, that there is nothing irrational in the following chain of suppositions for the First Tomb, while the others are probably included in the argument. That the usurping assassins, from the same policy, granted the honour of burial in the Agora; hewed the sepulchre deep and large in the rock; and built the encircling wall within it. That honour stopped with the preparation of the tomb, and the rest, less visible to the public eye, was left to spite or haste. That the bodies were consequently placed in the seemingly strange and indecent fashion, which the tomb has disclosed. That, as they were protected by the rock, and by the depth from the surface, their decomposition was slow. That Orestes, on his return, could not but be aware of the circumstances, and, in the fulfilment of his divinely ordered mission, determined upon reparation to the dead. That he opened the tombs and arranged the means of cremation. That, owing to the depth, it was imperfect from want of ventilation; we may remember that in the case of Patroclos the winds were specially summoned to expedite the process (Il. XXIII. 192-218). In calling it imperfect, I mean that it stopped short of the point at which the bones could be gathered; and they remained in situ. That the masks, breastplate, and other leaves of gold were used, perhaps, in part with reference to custom; in part, especially as regards all beside the masks, to replace in the wasted bodies the seemliness and majesty of nature, and to shelter its dilapidation. That the profuse deposits of arms and valuables were due to filial piety. That the same sentiment carried the work through even to the careful sculpturing of the four tombstones (others have been found (p. [100]), but without sculpture); and sought, by their means, to indicate for renown and reverence, and to secure from greedy violation, the resting-place of the dead.
A complex solution, perhaps; but one applicable to very complex facts, and one of which the ground at least is laid in those facts; one also, which I offer as a contribution to a most interesting scrutiny, but with no claim or pretension to uphold it against any other, that may seem better entitled to fill the vacant place.