Strabo[158] confirms the statement that the decline of Mycenæ; began with the death of Agamemnon and particularly from the return of the Heracleidæ. But, though the city had decayed in power and population and had sunk to the rank of a small provincial town, yet it kept up a certain independence; and, inspired by the reminiscences of its glorious past, it equipped eighty men as its contingent at Thermopylæ,[159] and a year later, in conjunction with Tiryns, it sent 400 men to Platææ.[160] The name of Mycenæ was engraved, together with those of the other cities which had participated in this glorious campaign, on the brazen column representing three serpents sustaining a golden tripod, which the Spartans dedicated to the Delphian Apollo as a tithe of the booty taken from the Persians. This brazen column stands now on the old hippodrome (the present Maidan) in Constantinople, whither it was probably brought by Constantine the Great. The Argives, who had remained neutral, envied the Myceneans the honour of having participated in these battles, and they feared besides, considering the city's ancient glory, that Mycenæ might usurp the dominion of the whole Argolid.
For these reasons, in league with the Cleoneans and the Tegeatans, they besieged Mycenæ in Ol. LXXVIII. (468 B.C.). The powerful walls of the citadel, behind which the inhabitants had retired, withstood all assaults of the enemy, but at last the Myceneans were forced to surrender for want of food. It appears that, in consideration of the past glory of the city, the victors treated the Myceneans with clemency, for they allowed them to emigrate whither they pleased; and they settled partly at Cleonæ, partly in Cerynia in Achæa, but principally in Macedonia.[161] But this account is not quite confirmed by Diodorus Siculus,[162] who says that on the surrender of Mycenæ the Argives enslaved all the inhabitants. If this is correct, then it is to be supposed that the Argives forced the Myceneans to settle at Argos, because it was very material to them at that time to increase the population of their city. At all events, as Dodwell says, a religious fear seems to have prevented the Argives from destroying the huge Cyclopean walls of the citadels of Mycenæ and Tiryns, because these were considered as sacred enclosures, and were revered as sanctuaries of Hera, who was worshipped with equal adoration by all the inhabitants of the Argolid. The Argives therefore contented themselves with dismantling only a very small part of the walls of the citadel, whilst they razed those of the lower city completely to the ground.
HOMERIC EPITHETS OF MYCENÆ.
Homer gives to Mycenæ the epithets of the "well-built city,"[163] "with broad streets,"[164] and "rich in gold."[165] The second of these epithets can only apply to the wide street which led from the Lions' Gate, along the ridge, through the enclosed town, to the bridge over the torrent of the ravine; for all the remaining part of the town as well as the suburb being on slopes, the other streets must have been more or less steep, and cannot have been alluded to by the epithet εἐρυάγυια. Regarding the third epithet πολύχρυσος, we have the great authority of Thucydides[166] that Mycenæ had immense wealth under the dominion of the Pelopids, for he says: "Pelops, having brought from Asia large treasures to the indigent people (of the peninsula), soon acquired great power, and, though a foreigner, he nevertheless gave his name to the country, and his descendants (the Pelopids, Atreus and Agamemnon) became still much more powerful." Thucydides adds that it appears to him "that the other Greeks joined Agamemnon's expedition to Troy less out of good will than from fear of his power; for not only did he himself bring the greatest contingent of ships, but he also gave ships to the Arcadians, as Homer says, if he can be considered a trustworthy witness. But in speaking of Agamemnon's inheritance of the sceptre, he says that he (Agamemnon) reigned over many islands and over the whole Argolid (πολλῇσιν νήσοισι καὶ ῎Αργεï παντὶ ἀνάσσειν); but as he lived on the continent, he could not have reigned over islands, except those in the immediate neighbourhood (but of these there could not be many) if he had not had a fleet. From this expedition (to Troy) we must therefore form an opinion of the nature of those which preceded it. If Mycenæ was small, and if several other cities of that age do not appear to us now to be considerable, we could not cite this as a valid reason to doubt that the expedition was as great as the poets have represented it and as tradition confirms it to have been."
The port of Mycenæ was not Nauplia, but Eïones (Ηïόνες), which was likewise situated on the Gulf of Argos, to the south-east of Nauplia. It seems to have been destroyed as far back as the Dorian invasion. Strabo[167] mentions that it was entirely destroyed, and was no longer a port in his time. According to Homer,[168] ᾿Ηïόνες took part in the Trojan war, and belonged to Diomedes, the king of Argos and vassal of Agamemnon.
Of the power and riches of the Pelopids we see the most substantial and unmistakable proofs in the many vast subterranean buildings which Pausanias,[169] following the tradition, calls their Treasuries, and which cannot have served for any other purpose than to hoard up the royal wealth.
I must here mention that, besides the Treasuries before described in Mycenæ proper and in its suburb, there is still another Treasury close to the great Heræum, which is, according to Strabo,[170] 10 stadia, but according to Pausanias,[171] 15 stadia from Mycenæ. Besides, the conformation of the slopes between the Treasury of Atreus and the Lions' Gate leads me to think that there is still one more large treasury hidden about halfway between these two points.
PAUSANIAS ON THE ROYAL SEPULCHRES.
Pausanias[172] writes: "Amongst other remains of the wall is the gate, on which stand lions. They (the walls and the gate) are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who built the wall for Proteus at Tiryns. In the ruins of Mycenæ is the fountain called Perseia and the subterranean buildings of Atreus and his children, in which they stored their treasures. There is the sepulchre of Atreus, and the tombs of the companions of Agamemnon, who on their return from Ilium were killed at a banquet by Ægisthus. The identity of the tomb of Cassandra is called in question by the Lacedæmonians of Amyclæ. There is the tomb of Agamemnon and that of his charioteer Eurymedon, and of Electra. Teledamus and Pelops were buried in the same sepulchre, for it is said that Cassandra bore these twins, and that, while as yet infants, they were slaughtered by Ægisthus together with their parents. Hellanicus (495-411 B.C.) writes that Pylades, who was married to Electra with the consent of Orestes, had by her two sons, Medon and Strophius. Clytemnestra and Ægisthus were buried at a little distance from the wall, because they were thought unworthy to have their tombs inside of it, where Agamemnon reposed and those who were killed together with him."
Strange to say, Colonel Leake,[173] Dodwell,[174] Prokesch,[175] Ernest Curtius,[176] and all others who have written on the Peloponnesus, have interpreted this passage of Pausanias erroneously; for they thought that, in speaking of the wall, he meant the wall of the city, and not the great wall of the Acropolis; and they therefore understood that he fixed the site of the five sepulchres in the lower city, and the site of the tombs of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus outside of it. But that such was not his intention, and that he had solely in view the walls of the citadel, he shows by saying that in the wall is the Lions' Gate. It is true that he afterwards speaks of the ruins of Mycenæ, in which he saw the fountain Perseia and the treasuries of Atreus and his sons, by which latter he can only mean the large treasury described above, which is indeed in the lower city, and perhaps some of the smaller treasuries in the suburb. But as he again says further on that the graves of Clytemnestra and Ægisthus are at a little distance outside the wall, because they were thought unworthy to be buried inside of it, where Agamemnon and his companions reposed, there cannot be any doubt that he had solely in view the huge Cyclopean walls of the citadel. Besides, Pausanias could only speak of such walls as he saw, and not of those which he did not see. He saw the huge walls of the citadel, because they were at his time exactly as they are now; but he could not see the wall of the lower city, because it had been originally only very thin, and it had been demolished 638 years before his time; nor was he an archæologist, to search for its traces or still less to make excavations to find them.