We have now before us, as is not improbable, the choicest samples of what the two cities had to boast of; and the question is, can we account for the difference in opulence, and stage of art, between them? I conceive that we can, at least in a considerable degree; but it is only by that acknowledgment, which some are still indisposed to make, of the broad vein of historic reality, that runs through the delineations of the Iliad and Odyssey.
Three passages of the Iliad, in particular, convey to us that the city of Troy was suffering great impoverishment by the War. Indeed, if there be a grain of fact in the tale, it could not be otherwise. For the means of resisting the truly national attack of the Achaians, she was dependent neither on a good cause, nor on a soldiery commensurate with theirs. She had to seek strength from without; first from the grudging support of Dardania, secondly from the neighbouring tribes both of Europe and of Asia. It might even be inferred from the text that nine-tenths of the fighting power (Il. II. 123-33) were other than strictly domestic. But this support from without could only be got by paying for it. Accordingly Hector, in the Seventeenth Book speaks with the authority (220-32) of a general addressing allies, who are duly compensated for their services. So also we know that the great Eurupulos and his Keteians,[6] or Hittites (Od. XI. 520), fall in numbers on the plains of Troy, "serving for gifts." "I wear out the Trojans," says Hector, "with presents and with victualling for you." Again in the Twenty-fourth Book, Achilles, compassionately addressing Priam, says, "We hear that you once were prosperous, and exceeded in wealth, as well as in the number of your sons, all the neighbouring countries" (543-6). The inference is obvious; that at the time, though the city had not been captured, it was becoming comparatively poor. But the most express testimony is that of Il. XVIII. 288-92, when Hector stimulates his countrymen to sally out, by reminding them that they are already well-nigh ruined. Once, he says, all men were wont to celebrate the wealth of Troy; "but now the fine valuables have utterly disappeared from our mansions."
νῦν δὲ δὴ ἐξαπόλωλε δόομων κειμήλια καλά
And, under the wrath of Zeus, multitudes of their possessions had been sent in exchange to Phrygia and Mæonia; in exchange, that is, as I presume, for necessaries. But the great Mycenean deposit, if Schliemann be right in his view, was made before the time of any sack or depopulation of the city. Upon such an issue of life and death, as that offered to the Trojans, the best objects would naturally be parted with, as the most effective for their purpose (see Il. XXIV. 234-7); and accordingly, if we are comparing Troy and Mycenæ at all, we are comparing Troy in its exhaustion with Mycenæ in its prosperity.
We have among the remains in the precious metals from Hissarlik, I believe, no representation of an animal, either chased or in the round. But the Poems give us several examples of such works in the possession of Greeks; though commonly under presumptions of foreign production, as it would not be difficult to show.
It is true, indeed, that Troy, in immediate contact with the large fertile districts of Asia Minor, had means of material growth by land-trade, which Greece, split by her mountain chains into comparatively narrow tracts of cultivable soil, did not possess. But it seems likely that even in those days the maritime commerce, stimulated by Phœnician ships and settlements, may have compensated, or more than compensated, for this disadvantage. Of the trade in metals and in corn, carried on by their race, we have distinct information in the Poems (Od. I. 183-4, XIV. 333-5). They had, in all likelihood, already been followed by the Greeks. The voyage of the ship Argo seems to have been of a mixed character. The ships of the armament against Troy could hardly have been supplied by a people, who had not made a substantial beginning in maritime trade. The navigation of the coasts, without reference to purposes of war, is evidently a familiar idea in the Odyssey. But, in the Iliad, the construction of the ships of Paris is noted as the remarkable work of a remarkable man (Il. V. 59-64); nor do we, except in this one ill-omened case, ever hear of Trojan navigation.
Once more. We are given to understand[7] that signs of the art of writing have been discovered at Hissarlik; whereas the new volume supplies us with nothing of the kind for Mycenæ. But nothing, I apprehend, can be affirmed of its existence either in Greece or Troas during the Homeric age, except as the secret of a few; in Greece it was manifestly exotic, and perhaps it may have been the same in Troas. As long as the evidence remains in this state, we cannot infer from it with confidence any important proposition as to comparative advancement.
I now resume the list of points of contact between the Mycenean discoveries and the Poems, by noticing such of them as are found in movables.
1. As the first of these I take the free use of copper for large utensils (pp. [274]-[277]). We have also the analysis supplied by Dr. Percy of a sword and a vase-handle of bronze (pp. [372]-[5]). In my judgment, we have no sign whatever from the Poems of the fusion of metals together as a domestic practice; while we have abundant proof of the importation and foreign production of works of art and implements in bronze. This vase, then, may probably have been foreign. The same is likely with respect to the sword. We know that swords were exported and imported between different countries. Thrace was a seat of manufacture both for fine works of art (Il. XXIV. 234) and for weapons (Il. XXIII. 808): and we find a sword, "beautiful and long," from Thrace, in the possession of the Trojan Prince Helenos (Il. XIII. 577). Moreover, copper was an abundant metal, tin a rare one. Bronze weapons, therefore, must have been expensive. And the swords of bronze found in the tombs, in conjunction with all other costly objects, are just where we should have expected them. Even so at Hissarlik, two battle-axes found in the Treasure, and presumably belonging therefore to distinguished persons, were of bronze.[8] But axes made of pure copper may be seen in the Museum of the Irish Academy; and the great layer of copper-scoriæ at Hissarlik, without any tin, seems effectually to show that copper was the staple metal of the heroic period, and that our archæologists will have to insert a copper age in their lists, between their age of stone and their age of bronze. If weapons of copper were to be discovered in the tombs at Mycenæ, no circumstance could more enhance the proofs afforded by the Poems of the general use of copper; because the weapons in the tombs are weapons of the persons most likely to be able to command the use of bronze. I hope that the analysis, already begun, will be applied to a much larger number of objects. In the meantime, as to large utensils, I find the discoveries already in close correspondence with the Poems.
2. The most remarkable, perhaps, in themselves, of all the objects discovered at Hissarlik, were the two elaborate head-dresses of gold, which for the first time enabled us to construe, with reasonable confidence, the entire passage in the Iliad (XXII. 468-72), which describes the head-dress cast away by Andromachè in the agony of her grief. The print will not have been forgotten, which exhibits the plektè anadesmè.[9] It was a series of gold plaits, hanging down, over the forehead and the ears, from the broad band (ampūx) which ran round the head, and which constituted as it were the base of the ornament. With these objects, and with the Poems, Schliemann associates, incontestably as it would appear, the ornament No. [357] (p. [248]); a band or frontlet adorned "with rosettes and crosses. It has two perforations in the rim, a little way from either end, from one of which is still hanging the fragment of a very fine chain." The only variation in the fashion of the thing seems to be, that the plaits have not been continued over the forehead.