No. 473. Massive Golden Mask of the body at the north end of the First Sepulchre. Size 1:5, about.[367]
CHAPTER X.
CONNECTION OF THE FIVE TOMBS WITH THE ROYAL HOUSE OF PELOPS; AND DATE OF THE AGORA.
Discussion of the identity of the five tombs with those mentioned by Pausanias as the tombs of Agamemnon and his companions—Opinions of scholars about the Trojan War—The ancients unanimous for its reality—The author's faith in the traditions led to his discovery of Troy and of the five Royal Tombs at Mycenæ—The civilisation of Mycenæ higher than that of Troy—The pottery of both very primitive—Alphabetic writing known at Troy, but not at Mycenæ—The different civilisations may have been contemporaneous—The appearances in the tombs prove the simultaneous death of those interred, certainly in each tomb, and probably in all the five—Traditional veneration for the sepulchres—Monuments repeatedly placed over them—No tombs between the two circular rows of slanting slabs which formed the enclosure of the Agora and its benches—Agora probably erected when the tombstones were renewed, and the altar built over the fourth tomb, under the influence of the enthusiasm created by the Rhapsodists—These monuments buried in the course of time, but the memory of the site was fresh by tradition long after the destruction of the new city of Mycenæ—Testimony of Pausanias—The enormous treasures prove the sepulchres to be royal, but royalty at Mycenæ ended with the Dorian invasion—This must have been much earlier than the received date, 1104 B.C.—An objection answered—Honours paid to the remains of murdered princes even by their murderers—Custom of burying the dead with their treasures—The sepulchral treasure of Palestrina—The sepulchre of Nitocris at Babylon—Case of Pyrrhus and the royal sepulchres at Ægeæ—The sepulchre at Corneto.
Having in the preceding pages described the five great sepulchres and the treasures contained in them, I now proceed to discuss the question, whether it is possible to identify these sepulchres with the tombs which Pausanias, following the tradition, attributes to Agamemnon, to Cassandra, to Eurymedon, and to their companions.
The Trojan war has for a long time past been regarded by many eminent scholars as a myth, of which, however, they vainly endeavoured to find the origin in the Rig-Vêdas. But in all antiquity the siege and conquest of Ilium by the Greek army under Agamemnon was considered as an undoubted historical fact, and as such it is accepted by the great authority of Thucydides.[368] The tradition has even retained the memory of many details of that war which had been omitted by Homer. For my part, I have always firmly believed in the Trojan war; my full faith in Homer and in the tradition has never been shaken by modern criticism, and to this faith of mine I am indebted for the discovery of Troy and its Treasure.