prominent in the Iliad. The splendour of the Mykenæan epoch was therefore still fresh in the memory of the Æolians and Ionians when the Epos arose.

'If the life thus pictured in the Epos thus shows many kindred features to that of Mykenæ, the Doric life of the Peloponnesus stands in harsh contrast. Not in strong fortresses, but in open camps, do we find the Dorian conquerors. The nobles do not fight on chariots in the van, but serried infantry decides the combat[vii:1].

'It was about from 1550 to 1150, that Mykenæan culture prevailed, and was then replaced, as the legends asserted, by the Dorian invaders.'

Let us note that the earlier and ruder civilisation of Troy may be contrasted with that of Mycenæ, though both of them show successive stages—the later stage of the (second) city of Troy approaching to the intermediate stage of Tiryns, and indeed, forming an unbroken chain with this, Mycenæ, and even the later and more finished

relics of prehistoric art found at Menidi and at Vaphio (Amyclæ). The whole series is homogeneous. The long-misunderstood palace of Troy is of the same kind in plan and arrangement as that of Tiryns and that of Mycenæ; the gold ornaments of Mycenæ are akin to those of Amyclæ; we stand in the presence of an old and organised civilisation which was broken off or ceased in prehistoric days, and recommenced on a different basis, and upon a somewhat different model, among the historical Greeks. And yet the prehistoric dwellers at Tiryns and Mycenæ had certainly some features in common with the later race. Not to speak of details such as the designs in pottery, or in the architecture of the simpler historic temples, they were a mercantile and a maritime people, receiving the products of far lands, and sending their own abroad; above all, they show that combination of receptivity and originality in their handicrafts which gives a peculiar stamp to their successors. While the ruder Trojan remains are said to show no traces of Phœnician importation, the Mycenæan exhibit objects from Egypt, from northern Syria, and from Phœnicia; while on the other hand all the best authorities now recognise in much of the pottery, and of the other handicrafts, intelligent home production, which can even be traced in exports along a line of islands across the southern Ægean and as far as Egypt. This latter fact, and the closer trade-relations with Hittite Syria than

with Egypt or Phœnicia, are brought out by Busolt in his new Introduction.

In what relation do these facts, now reduced to some order, stand to the Homeric poems? According to Schuchardt they vindicate for our Homer an amount of historical value which will astonish the sceptics of our generation. In the first place, however, it is certain that Homer (using the name as a convenient abstraction) has preserved a true tradition of the great seats of culture in prehistoric days. He tells us rightly that Tiryns had gone by when Mycenæ took the lead, and that the civilisation of this great centre of power in Greece was kindred to that of Troy, an equally old and splendid centre, which however was destroyed by fire before it had attained to the perfection of the later stages of Mycenæan art. Homer also implies that seafaring connections existed between Asia Minor and Greece, and that early wars arose from reprisals for piratical raids, as Herodotus confirms.

Some advanced kinds of handicraft, such as the inlaying of metals, which have been brought to light in Mycenæan work, are specially prominent in the Homeric poems. It is hard to conceive the nucleus of the poems having originated elsewhere than in the country where Mycenæan grandeur was still fresh. The legend which