The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-12-19
The Tomb of Agamemn0n,

DR.. Schlemann has gone far toward estab-
fishing historical foundation for one of the
fairest fabrics of Grecian story. His discov-
cries in the great mound of Hissarlik proved
that the topless towers of Ilium had other ex-
lstence than in the poets dream, and that
the windy plains once shook to the roll of the
War-chariot and the tread of Greeks and Tro-
jams in combat. Under his searching investi-
CATION great Hector, and the son of white
footed Thetis, and the Greek Woman bring
Ing dole ceased to be myths and became his
torcal probabilities. Men like DR.. Schlie-
mann leave no work half done. Since the
treasure of Priam was brought to light from
its hiding place under many-centuried ruins
the brave enthusiast and explorer has prose-
cuted his search in other lands, and as the
reward of patient faith and endeavor has
found the tomb of the king of men.
For twenty centuries the lion gate has
guarded the neglected tombs ofArgive Kings.
Mycene was city of the heroic age, city
which fell from its high estate so long ago
that the story of its power had ceased to be
historic and had become mythic even in the
time OF the Roman empire, whose last enter
prise OF note was undertaken before the re-
turn of the Heraclid@, and whose walls were
ruins five hundred years before the birth of
Christ. Within its dismantled walls were,
tradition said. the ashes of the Atrida, and
its ancient palace had witnessed the tragedy
whose record has come down to US in the
mighty lines of Euripides and Sophocles, had
seen Agamemnon, and the cruel Clytemnes-
tire and the fate-driven Orestes. But the
skeptical scholars of a later age smiled
at all this, and no man thought it
wise to search the ruins for confirma-
tion of an idle tale. There are no explorers
of the past but the Germans, and the Ger
man students had invented the theory of the
sun myth by which they accounted for every
thing from the procession round the may
pole to the noblest of epics. To this theory
they tenaciously clung, and passed hours of
laborious ease in shaping every new discov-
cry to it. Each freshly-found mound in the
uew world, each exhumed tomb in the old
was made to furnish confirmation. The rude
traditions of long-forgotten races, the shapely
legends of once mighty but now extinct peo-
pies were all variations of one theme, the
worship of the Sun-God. So unquestioningly
accepted was the theory that newspapers had
long and learned articles on the Sun myth
whenever bit of pottery was unearthed
in the neighborhood.
But one man kept his faith, while with
most the story of Ilium was becoming dim
mer than dim tradition. DR.. Schliemann
after years of loving labor rehabilitated Troy
in the belief Of men. He is now minded to
follow the Greek chiefs on their troubled re-
turn to the Hellenic land. In the ancient
Mycen@ he has found the tomb of Agamem-
non. Fifty feet below the Acropolis, beneath
many strata of sculptured stones, he came up
on relics of the old Argiye Life and worship.
Weapons, articles of splendid ornamentation,
septres of crystal, sacred objects of silver and
bronze, images of the cow-headed goddess
were found with the bones of the Atride.
The evidence was complete, and the man
who had restored the siege of Troy to history
has now given verify 10 the somberest tras-
edy of the Greek dramatists.