IT needs some courage to undertake an article on what many people will consider the interminable Homeric controversy. But the undertaking, though bold, is not rash, if one believe that the controversy is not interminable. It was so, as long as we had nothing to guide us but intrinsic probabilities and the statements of ancient writers. Grote, summing up with his usual clearness and vigour the evidence before him, decided that the date of the Homeric poems could not be fixed within four centuries. But, since Grote wrote, the evidence has been extended, and the new arguments are of a more satisfactory character than the old. If, for brief

ness sake, we may use a metaphor, we will say that historical science has let slip after the Homeric hare two hounds, philology and archæology. As yet they have not secured the prey, but they are fast approaching it. The question is now no longer whether the quarry will escape, but rather how soon it will be captured, and to which of the hounds the merit of the capture will accrue. This paper contains a brief account of recent advances in Homeric archæology. Mycenae and Tiryns have now furnished such an archæological commentary to the Homeric text as before did not exist. The able text-book of Dr. Helbig 1 has sketched out a grammar of Homeric archæology which may hereafter be extended and amplified; the time has already come when we can point out clear landmarks and set forth the indications furnished by certain new truths.

The theories of those who saw in the overflowing wealth of the tombs of the kings of Mycenae the spoil accumulated by Gauls or Goths of a later age are entirely exploded. Archæo

1 'Das Homerische Epos aus den Denkmälern erläutert.' Leipzig, 1884.

logical opinion is fast settling in the conviction that there is one explanation, and one only, which will account for the discovery in a goldless land like Greece of rich gold treasures of prehistoric date, the explanation that the precious metal came from the other side of the Egean, where the sands of Pactolus literally ran with gold, so that the kings of Phrygia and Lydia became the richest monarchs in the world. As soon as the Mycenæan treasures came to light, Mr. Newton declared the style of their decoration to be like that of the Phrygian royal tombs at Doganlu, and other archæologists have frequently since published the same discovery. The fact is undeniable, and establishes the Phrygian character of the Mycenaean gold-work. When, then, tradition tells that Pelops came from Phrygia to reign over Argolis, and when the sober history of Thucydides records that Pelops became master of Peloponnesus in virtue of the abundant gold which he brought with him from his native country, it seems unreasonable any longer to doubt that we have really found the tombs of the Pelopid kings of Argolis.

This view will be further confirmed if we consider the fashion in which the gold is worked. The goldsmiths who fashioned the diadems, the swordbelts, the gold-plates of Mycena were no tyros trying a prentice hand on a material new to them, but men displaying a practised, probably a hereditary, skill in dealing with gold and displaying its lustre to the best advantage. These workmen cannot have been trained in Greece, but must have come from Asia Minor. most extraordinary of all the gold signets of Mycena, that which represents a female figure seated under a tree to receive the homage of worship

The

pers,1 seems also to point to Phrygia, if we may accept the ingenious explanation of Milchhoefer,2 who sees in the scene an act of adoration offered to Cybele, who sits to receive it under her sacred tree, the pine. Cybele is precisely the deity of the district around Mount Sipylus whence Pelops was said to have come.

Besides what is Phrygian there is much which appears to be Hellenic, or at least proto-Hellenic, in the art of Mycena. The best instance we can cite is the wonderful sword-blades adorned with scenes inlaid in them, scenes which were concealed by rust and oxide from discovery by Dr. Schliemann, but afterwards brought to light by the patience and ingenuity of Kumanudes. The style of the most remarkable, a hunt of three lions by a body of warriors armed with shield and spear, is very distinctive. The proportions of the figures and the general plan are Egyptian. But the scene has a life which belongs to Greece only the figures are lithe and in motion, not fixed and mechanical. And the central touch of the picture, a man lying stretched under the fierce attack of a lion who turns on his pursuers, is a motive for which one might in vain seek a prototype amid all the sculptures of Egypt and Assyria. If in them a man is defeated by animal or monster, that animal or monster is an embodiment of a demon, and not a mere quadruped. In Egyptian battle-scenes not one of the Egyptian soldiers is represented as falling; but the Greeks saw that the fall of a few men while their comrades are victorious is a touch which adds pathos and a human interest to a battle. And it was in virtue of keen and true perceptions like this that Greek art at a later time rose to so high a level.

1 "

24

p. 35.

3

Mycenae,' p. 354.
Anfänge der Kunst in Griechenland,'

3 This remark is due to Mr. R. S. Poole, who made it in a lecture at the Royal Institution, 9th Feb. 1886.

No. 323.-VOL. LIV.

Several of the gold signets found in the tombs at Mycena show us a style identical with that of the swords; the men on them are armed in the same way, and carry the same sorts of shields. And these signets again lead us to the intaglios of early date which are found in Crete and other Greek islands as well as at Mycenæ, the peculiar style of which has offered a basis to the very remarkable theories recently put forth by Milchhoefer as to the existence of a native and local style of art in Greece at least as early as the twelfth century before the Christian era.

These intaglios are cut upon small stones of lentoid shape, which are pierced with a hole for suspension, and probably served the owners as seals or amulets. They are not found in Asia, but frequently in the Greek islands, Crete, Rhodes, Melos, and Cyprus, and sometimes in the mainland of Hellas Their subjects are distinctive, and it is remarkable that they display but little Oriental influence; Oriental creatures, the lion, the griffin, and the sphinx, seldom appear on them. Nearly always they present to us either animals of European character, bulls, goats, stags, dogs, and the like, or subjects derived from Indo-European mythology. Among the latter, beings with the head of a horse are conspicuous, and Milchhoefer tries with all the resources of learning to show that horse-headed monsters belong to the mythology of Greece rather than of any other country, and to connect them with the tales of the Harpies, of the Gorgon who gives birth to the winged horse Pegasus, and the horseheaded Demeter worshipped at Phigalia and Thelpusa. These gems the writer considers to be the work of the Pelasgic race in the islands of the Egean. We regret that we have not space to give a fuller account of the theories of Milchhoefer. They are the result of long observation and much travel, and no mere theories of the study. It is probable that he carries them too far, but that he has done

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much to prove the existence of a very early indigenous Greek art must be freely conceded.

Thus we are able to identify among objects found at Mycenae many specimens of native Greek art, as well as much work which reveals a Phrygian origin. A third element at Mycenæ, the Semitic or Phoenician, is far less plentifully present. Here and there amid the treasures engraved in 'Mycenae ' we find objects which were certainly imported from Phoenicia. Such is the figure of Aphrodité with a dove resting on her head, and the gold plate which bears a representation of a temple of the same goddess with doves seated on it. Through the Phoenicians, too, must have come the tassel made of Egyptian porcelain, which was found in one tomb. objects prove that Phoenician trade existed at the time of the Pelopid kings, but their rarity proves that Phoenician commerce had not yet reached the fulness of development which belonged to it at a later time. In the Mycenaean age the Greeks could hold their own against any people, except perhaps the Egyptians, in the richness and beauty of their handiwork. Nor do the few Phoenician productions from Mycenae show any of that elaboration of design and complication of scene which belongs to the Phoenician art of the eighth and succeeding centuries.

These

The excavations carried on during the last few years by Dr. Schliemann at Tiryns carry us back to the same age as those at Mycena. But the -point of interest is quite different at the two places. At Mycena we have a revelation of Greek prehistoric art; at Tiryns we come within sight of the details and arrangement of a Greek palace of prehistoric times. We now know why the walls of Tiryns, which in their massive solidity have been a wonder to travellers of all ages, were built so high and so thick. We know that they inclosed and protected a splendid royal palace, of which the ground-plan can still be traced and

the architectural principles recovered. The general arrangement of the palace was simple it consisted of two parts, of which one seems to have been appropriated to the men, the other to the women of the royal race. Each part contained a large forecourt, avλý, surrounded by colonnades, and a main hall or living room, approached from the forecourt through a vestibule. Around these two nuclei were grouped smaller rooms, which served as bedchambers, rooms for storage and the like; one chamber seems clearly to have been devoted to purposes of bathing. Stairs led to an upper story, but this, of course, has entirely disappeared. On the walls of some of the chambers were very interesting remains of patterns wherewith they had been painted patterns imitated from Egyptian models, but strangely altered in the copying: in one room were fragments of a course of alabaster carved in patterns, which had been varied and adorned with fragments of blue glass let into it at intervals; a course which has generally been regarded as an instance of what is termed in the Homeric poems Optykòs κυάνοιο.

In the general arrangements of the forecourt and men's hall, the position of the hearth and the altar of Zeus Herceius, and in many other respects, the palace which existed at Tiryns seems to have been exactly like the palaces of which Homer was thinking. Only in one point does a notable divergence seem to exist. In the Tirynthian palace the women's apartments were, as we have said, apart from the men's, whereas it seems that in the palace of Odysseus at Ithaca the women's rooms were close to or behind those of the men; from many passages it appears that access from the one set to the other was easy and immediate. If we may suppose that at Tiryns an ὀρσοθύρη, or door raised above the floor, existed for communication between the two sets of apartments, this difficulty will be removed; and there is nothing whatever in the

remains discovered which is inconsistent with such a supposition. If one peruses the Homeric passages which describe the construction and arrangement of the palaces of the Achæan kings with the plan of the Tirynthian palace before one, the coincidences between the two are so many and so striking as to show that these palaces must belong to the same race and the same age. In some respects the plan of the palace at Tiryns fits the Homeric narrative better than even the fancy plans which commentators had made with the sole object of fitting it.

Those who have studied the early history of Greece are aware that it offers an extraordinary gap between the supposed time of the Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus and the first Olympiad. The date of the Dorian invasion according to the received reckoning is 1104 B.C.; the Olympiads begin in 776 B.C. We have thus a period of three centuries and a quarter which is almost an absolute blank as regards events of which we have any knowledge. Yet the state of Greece as represented in the mythic legends so entirely differs from the state of Greece as it appears in the dawning of history, that we are compelled to believe that there is a gap of time between. This gap is supposed to be filled with obscure events and inglorious names. It is supposed that exhausted Greece was in those centuries recovering from the benumbing effects of the Dorian conquest, and rising by slow degrees to the height of civilisation from which she had fallen during the wandering of the tribes. But it would appear that this blank space of time held the seeds of the rapid development of after ages. It was then that wealthy and prosperous Greek colonies grew up along the whole Asiatic coast, and Cumæ arose as the first outpost of Hellas towards the west. this period falls the legislation of Lycurgus, which laid the foundation of the greatness of Sparta, and the

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rise of the Homeric and Hesiodic schools of poetry, which fixed for all time the main outlines of Greek mythology and the Greek language.

It is not a little remarkable that in the archæological record of Greece there is a gap which closely corresponds to the gap in Greek history. The objects found at Mycenæ, and the kindred objects found in the excavations at Sparta and Menidi, as to which our limits forbid us to speak, belong to the time before the Dorian invasion. We have scarcely any remains which can be given to the next three centuries. We can scarcely suppose that the Greeks suddenly lost the power of producing utensils and works of art; the productive arts must have been in use, in however degraded a form. But it is probable enough that the Dorians were slow in acquiring the use of the arts, not being naturally æsthetic. And it may be that the conquered Ionians and Achæans had small chance, amid their struggles for bare existence, to continue or develop their artistic activity. So while it is possible that carefully conducted excavations amid the ruins of the cities of Æolis and Ionia might bring to light the traces of an art linked on one side to the art of Mycenæ, and on the other side to the art of historical Greece, yet it will scarcely be wonderful if that art, when discovered, disappoints us by its meagreness and want of energy. But of course this is a question to which the final answer can only come from the spade.

It is in the eighth century before the Christian era that Greek history, and indeed the history of Europe, may be said to begin. The eighth century witnessed the colonising of Sicily and lower Italy by Greeks, and the rapid spread of Milesian trading stations in the Euxine, the conquest of the Messenians by Sparta, the rise of lyric poetry, and the establishment of the Olympic festival, to be for a thousand years a tie to bind Hellas together. And the eighth century saw a revival

of art, which had its origin in the East and thence spread over the islands of Greece into the mainland. The spread of the use of writing, and the gradual introduction of coins, accompany henceforth the slow development of sculpture out of mere decoration; so that at any later time we have means for assigning a date within fairly narrow limits to any objects of Greek art which we may find.

We must very briefly follow this new wave of art which passed westward from Phoenicia along the shores of the Mediterranean. Especially in the case of two materials, metal and pottery, we can trace stage by stage the spreading influence. Let us begin with metal-work. In one of the palaces of Nimroud excavated by Sir H. Layard there were found a number of bowls of bronze, with designs of repoussé work, which now form a chief ornament of the Assyrian galleries of the British Museum. The palace in which they lay was not built by King Sargon, but he is believed to have used it. And as the bowls in question do not exhibit the style which we recognise as Assyrian, but are, on the contrary, of distinctly Egyptian type, it seems clear that they were importations from abroad. It is regarded by archeologists as almost certain that they were some of the spoils brought home by Sargon in the course of his conquest Phoenicia about B.C. 720. then give us a view of Phoenicia at that time. here give any detailed description of them;1 it must suffice to say that they show throughout an intelligent appreciation of the ideas and customs of Egyptian art, but in imitating that art they adapt; they add, perhaps, more than they lose in copying. But they introduce few forms and ideas foreign to the art of Egypt. Babylonia and Assyria contribute nothing distinctive to them.

of

These vases

the art of We cannot

1 Layard, 'Nineveh,' second series. Perrot et Chipiez, Hist. de l'Art,' vol. ii. pp. 736, &c.

Other metal bowls of silver and bronze, which are also ascribed to Phoenician workshops, have been found in various countries of the Mediterranean, more particularly in Etruria and Cyprus. These bowls have been repeatedly published 2 and discussed. Their most remarkable characteristic lies in the way in which they combine the representations of Egyptian and Assyrian art. In alternate bands, sometimes in alternate groups of the same band, we may discern, mingled together, Egyptian kings slaying their foes, Assyrian monarchs hunting lions, the scarabæus of Egypt, the sacred tree of Assyria, scenes of ritual such as figure on the walls of Egyptian tombs, and incidents of court life such as we see depicted on the walls of the palaces of Nimroud. These vessels of thoroughly eclectic or mixed art belong to a later period than the vases of Nimroud, which show Egyptian influence only. They must belong to the seventh and the sixth centuries before the Christian era; and this date will well suit the objects found with them in Cyprus and in Etruria.

There can be no doubt that works in metal so finished and effective as these engraved Phoenician bowls must have had great influence in Greece and Italy, more especially because they came at a time when the old art of Greece was nearly extinct, and no new art had arisen yet to take its place. In Etruria we find careful and well-executed copies of some of the more usual and mechanical designs on these bowls. We might have imagined that the importation of works so complete into Greece would have produced in that land also mere imitations more or less perfect. But careful copying did not suit the Greek nature. Hellenic artists were at all periods original and productive. So though Phoenician metal-work stimulated them into activity, the line taken by that activity was original and

2 L. P. di Cesnola, Cyprus,' pl. xix. Perrot et Chipiez, Hist. de l'Art,' vol. iii. pp. 759, 769, 779, &c.