SOPHOCLES, Electra, 1-10.
PREFACE.
It has been with much reluctance that, at the persevering request of Dr. Schliemann, I have undertaken to write a Preface to his Mycenean volume. I have managed perhaps, though with long intermissions of the pleasant labour, to maintain a tolerable acquaintance with the text of Homer; and the due establishment of the points of contact between that text and the remains from Mycenæ is without question one of the essential aims, to which comment on this work requires to be addressed. But I have a horror of all specialism which travels beyond its proper province; and in this matter I am at best no more than a specialist, probably, too, not one of very high pretensions. I have not that practised skill, that comprehensive outlook over the whole field of Hellenic, and other than Hellenic archæology, which has conferred upon Mr. Newton his well-earned fame. The just conclusion from these premises appears to be, that I ought to have declined a charge quod ferre recusent humeri.[1] But there was, in ancient poetry, a Destiny stronger than the will of gods. To me, on this occasion, Dr. Schliemann is the vicegerent and organ of that Destiny. In view of the splendid services which he has conferred upon classical science, a power, that thrusts argument out of court, brings me to perceive, that I cannot but accede to his desire. I have however given the reader fair warning where and why he should be on his guard: and I shall make all the use I can of the landmarks laid down in the report which Mr. Newton, after an ocular inspection of these remains, published in the Times of April 20, 1877; and of the valuable papers of Mr. Gardner in the Academy (April 21 and 28). I believe that the interest, excited by Dr. Schliemann's discoveries, has been by no means confined to classical scholars. I shall therefore endeavour to be as little technical as possible, and to write, so far as may be, for a circle wider than that of the persons among us who are acquainted with the Greek tongue.
When the disclosures at Tiryns and Mycenæ were announced in England, my own first impression was that of a strangely bewildered admiration, combined with a preponderance of sceptical against believing tendencies, in regard to the capital and dominating subject of the Tombs in the Agora. I am bound to say, that reflection and a fuller knowledge have nearly turned the scales the other way. There are indeed, not only gaps to be supplied, but difficulties to be confronted, and to be explained; or to be left over for future explanation. Yet the balance, I will not say of evidence, but of rational presumption, seems as though it might ultimately lean towards the belief that this eminent explorer has exposed to the light of day, after 3000 years, the memorials and remains of Agamemnon and his companions in the Return from Troy. But let us endeavour to feel our way by degrees up to this question, gradually and with care, as a good general makes his approaches to a formidable fortress.
I find, upon perusing the volume of Dr. Schliemann, that the items of evidence, which connect his discoveries generally with the Homeric Poems, are more numerous, than I had surmised from the brief outline, with which he favoured us upon his visit to England in the spring.
1. He presents to us the rude figures of cows; and upon a signet ring (No. 531) and elsewhere, cow-heads not to be mistaken. He then points to the traditional worship, from the first, of Hera in Argolis; and he asks us to connect these facts with the use of Boöpis (cow-eyed) as a staple epithet of this goddess in the Poems; and he might add, with her special guardianship of Agamemnon in his interests and his personal safety (Il. I. 194-222).
This appears to me a reasonable demand. We know that upon some of the Egyptian monuments the goddess Isis, mated with Osiris, is represented in human figure with the cow's head. This was a mode of exhibiting deity congenial to the spirit of an Egyptian immigration,[2] such as might, compatibly with the text of Homer, have taken place some generations before the Troïca. But it was also a mode against which the whole spirit of Hellenism, according to the authentic type of that spirit supplied in the Poems, utterly revolted. We find there a Hera, who wore, so to speak, the mantle of Isis, besides carrying the spoils of one or more personages enrolled in the Golden Book of the old Pelasgian dynasties. Nothing could be more natural than a decapitation of the Egyptian Isis, not penally but for her honour. She might consequently appear with the human head; but, not to break sharply with the traditions of the people, the cow-head, and even the cow figure, might nevertheless be retained as symbols of religion. And the great Poet, who invariably keeps these symbols so to speak at arms' length, in order that he may prevent their disparaging the creed of which he was the great doctor, might nevertheless select from the bovine features that one which was suited to his purpose, and give to his Hera, who was never a very intellectual deity, the large tranquil eye of the cow. The use of the epithet for Hera in Homer is not, indeed, exclusive, and I admit that he may have inherited that use. But, though not exclusive, it is very special, and this speciality is enough to give a sensible support to the doctrine of our famous explorer.
2. The buildings improperly called Cyclopean, and still more improperly endowed with the alternative name of Pelasgian, have long been known, more or less, to exist in Argolis; but Dr. Schliemann has thrown some light on what I may perhaps be allowed to call their diversity of style. He admits three forms found in this kind of building. I have objected to the current names, the first because it does not inform; the second because it misleads, for these buildings have no true connection with the Pelasgian tribes. What they indicate is the handiwork of the great constructing race or races, made up of several elements, who migrated into Greece, and elsewhere on the Mediterranean, from the south and east, and who exhibit an usual, though perhaps not an invariable connection with the Poseidon-worship, a worship, with which the Cyclopean name is, through the Odyssey, perceptibly associated, and which is one of the main keys, as I have long been persuaded, wherewith in time to unlock, for Hellenic and Homeric regions, the secrets of antiquity. The walls of Troy were built by Poseidon; that is, by a race who practised the worship of the god. How far those walls conform to any of the minuter points of the descriptions of 'Cyclopean' architecture by Dr. Schliemann, (pp. 42, 123), I cannot say. But if he is right, as seems probable, in placing Troy at Hissarlik, it is important to notice that this work of Poseidon had a solidity, which bore it unharmed through the rage of fire, and kept it well together amidst all the changes which have buried it in a hill of rubbish and promiscuous remains. And of course the modes, used by the very same race in the business of building, could not but vary much with the circumstances of each case, and especially with the material at hand. I am tempted, at least until a better name can be found, to call this manner of building Poseidonian; at any rate, whatever it be called, to note it as a point of correspondence between the Poems and the discoveries, admitting at the same time that the matter is not sufficiently developed to warrant me in laying upon it any considerable stress.