Further, I call the special attention of archæologists to the immense number of idols in the form of cows or of women with cows' horns or heads, which I collected at Mycenæ (see, for example, figs. 2-11, 111-119, 212, 327-330, 531). These are beyond contradiction the most ancient types of idols which have been found in Greece. All of them are discovered down as far as the surface of beds of archaic débris; it is therefore very certain that they were still in use at the time of the taking of Mycenæ. But it seems to us quite impossible that here the tutelary divinity of Mycenæ should have been represented as late as the fifth century B.C., under the form of a cow or of an idol showing the characteristic features of a cow.
It is evident that in the Homeric poems Hera is a woman, without any of the attributes of a cow; the only trace of them that she has preserved is in the epithet βοῶπις, consecrated to her by the usage of centuries, but certainly not signifying in Homer more than "the large-eyed" goddess.
DATE OF THE CAPTURE OF MYCENÆ.
It seems certain that at the time of Homer the habit of representing Hera under the form of a cow, or with the attributes of a cow, had fallen into disuse and been abandoned; and that, consequently, the catastrophe of the complete destruction of Mycenæ should be referred to an ante-Homeric epoch. In fact, considering the character of the monuments I have discovered, I see no objection whatever to referring it to the period of the invasion of the Heraclides. And indeed, the destruction of Mycenæ by the Heraclides would explain also the singular fact that Orestes never reigned at Mycenæ.
I cannot discover any trace of Egyptian influence in the art of Mycenæ; but the multitude of objects which certainly came from Egypt—like the immense golden cow-heads, the ostrich egg, the sphinx (see fig. 277), and the pieces of Egyptian porcelain—forces us to the conclusion that there must have been relations between the city and that country. The strongest testimony that such relations existed is the worship of the lunar divinity Hera under the form of a cow—a divinity whom I have proved (see the note on Hera Boöpis at the end of Chapter I.) to be identical with the Egyptian goddess Isis, who was similarly worshipped in Egypt in the form of a woman with the horns of a cow. Further, I may recall the fact that Isis was said to have been born at Argos (Diodorus Sic., I. xxiv. 25; Apollodorus, II. i. 3), and that Apis, grandson of the Argive river-god Inachos, and nephew of the cow-faced lunar goddess Io, was at first king of Argos; that from his name this town and the whole Peloponnesus was called Apia; that Apis at length made over to his brother his Grecian dominion, and became king of Egypt (Eusebius, Chron. I. 96, 127, 130, edit. Aucher; Augustine, de Civ. Dei, xviii. 5); that after his death he was worshipped in Egypt under the name of Serapis and the form of a bull. In the same way the Greek myth makes the Argive cow-faced goddess to migrate to Egypt, where she brings into the world Epaphos, which is only a second name for the bull Apis. But, according to Diodorus Sic. (I. xxiv. 25), Apollodorus (II. i. 3) and Hygin (145), Io was identical with Isis. All these Greek myths seem to prove, not that the worship of the cow-faced moon-goddess came into Argos from Egypt, but that, on the contrary, it was carried into Egypt from Mycenæ or Argos; and perhaps Egyptologists, by determining the period at which the worship of Isis began in Egypt, can give us an idea of the antiquity of the relations between that country and Mycenæ. In fact, the worship of the moon-goddess under the form of a cow could not have been brought from Egypt to Mycenæ, but necessarily must have been introduced from Mycenæ into Egypt, since Io was distinctly a Pelasgian goddess; she had a celebrated temple at Byzantium, and the legend even attributes the foundation of that city to her daughter Keroessa, also called "she who wears horns." The worship of Io seems to have been brought from Asia by the Pelasgians; at all events they introduced it at a very remote epoch into Argolis. I would note also that even in classic times the name of Io continued to be given to the moon in the religious mysteries of Argos, and that this name is purely Greek (see the note on Hera Boöpis at the end of Chapter I.).
In conclusion, let me call attention to the fact that in consequence of the discovery of a sixth tomb in the Agora of Mycenæ, after my departure, there has been an attempt to deny the identity of these tombs with those which the tradition reported by Pausanias points out as the burial-places of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon, and their companions. But one need only re-read the famous passage of Pausanias (II. xvi. 6) to see that it does not clearly give the number of the tombs. It speaks distinctly of six; but one may admit that there were even more than six, and yet do no violence to Pausanias's text:—τάρος δὲ ἔστι μὲν ᾽Ατρέως, εἰσὶ δὲ καὶ ὅσους συν ᾽Αγαμέμνονι ἐπανήκοντας ἐξ ᾽Ιλίου δειπνίσας κατεφόνευσεν Αἴγισθος.
DATE OF THE CAPTURE OF MYCENÆ.
My esteemed friend, the celebrated Orientalist, M. Émile Burnouf, honorary director of the French school at Athens, writes to me:
"I do not think it would be difficult to prove that the tombs at Mycenæ are certainly those of the Pelopides; their position in the Acropolis and the quantity of precious objects with which they were filled show clearly that they are the burial-places of royal and not of private personages. The circular enclosure, built on a higher level than its surroundings, at a time when these princes had fairly become tutelary heroes, proves the same thing; it may have served as an agora, as the texts indicate; but it was certainly also a burial enclosure where sacrifices were celebrated in honor of the dead buried below. You have found traces of these national ceremonies. I do not think that the skeletons found can be considered the remains of members of dynasties earlier than the Pelopides; these have no historic character, and belong altogether to the mythology of the Aryan races. It may be objected that a very considerable part of the legend of the Pelopides is itself mythological; but this is common to all the prehistoric dynasties of the Aryan peoples—dynasties whose real existence is nevertheless not contested by any scholar. Besides, this particular one actually touched the historic period; for it was brought to an end by the Dorian invasion, the date of which can be very closely approximated.