* * * * * "No one seems to have found any difficulty in the statement of Diodorus, which Pausanias repeats, that the town of Mycenæ was destroyed by the people of Argos _after the Persian Wars_, though I fancy most scholars, when they first come to attend to it, are surprised that the ancient city of Mycenæ should have lasted so long in close neighbourhood to Argos, and made so little figure in Greek history. I suppose any doubt of this kind is allayed by the recollection that Herodotus mentions eighty Mycenæans as having joined the Greeks at Thermopylæ, and that he also enumerates both Tirynthians and Mycenæans among the cities or tribes of Greeks which were inscribed on the pedestal of the tripod at Delphi as joining in the repulse of the Persians. The actual pedestal at Constantinople confirms him, for we read in the list Μυκᾶνες, and thus the existence of Mycenæans up to the year 470 B.C. is beyond all doubt. "I have, nevertheless, grave suspicions whether either historian has given us a true account of the matter, and therefore propose the following hypothesis, to invite discussion. If I have overlooked any decisive evidence, I hope it will be put forth in refutation of my conjecture. I will first quote all Pausanias' statements on the point, but will group them into two classes, irrespective of their order, for the sake of more convenient discussion:-- [Sidenote: DATE OF THE CAPTURE OF MYCENÆ.] II. 15, 4. "ἐγὼ δὲ αιτιαν τε γράψω τοῦ οἰκισμοῦ, καὶ δι᾽ ἥντινα πρόφασιν Αργεῖοι Μυκηναιους ὕστερον ἀνέστησαν. 16, 5. Μυκήνας δὲ᾽ Αργεῖοι καθεῖλον ὑπὸ ζηλοτυπιας. ἡσυχαζόντων γὰρ τῶν ᾽Α. κατὰ τὴν ἐπιστρατείαν τοῦ Μήδου, Μυκηναῖοι πέμπουσιν εἰς Θερμοπύλας ὀγδοήκοντα ἄνδρας οἱ Λακεδαιμονιοις μετέσχον τοῦ ἔργου [inaccurate]. τοῦτο ήνεγκε σφισιν ὄλεθρον παροξῦναν ᾽Αργείους. "Then follows the famous passage about the ruins, and about the tombs of Agamemnon and his party, which M. Schliemann has brought into such fresh notoriety. V. 23, 2. "[In the list of cities inscribed on the monument of the victory over the Persians, which Pausanias saw at Olympia, and which appears not to have been an exact duplicate of that at Delphi.] "ἐκ δὲ χώρας τῆς ᾽Αργειας Τιρύνθιοι, Πλατ. δὲ μόνοι Βοιώτων, καὶ ᾽Αργείων ὁι Μυκήνας ἔχοντες. 3. τούτων τῶν πόλεων τοσαίδε ἦσαν ἐφ᾽ ἡμῶν ἔρημοι. Μυκηναιοι μὲν καὶ Τιρύνθιοι τῶν Μηδικῶν ὕστερον ἐγένοντο ὑπὸ ᾽Α. ἀνάστατοι. VII. 25, 5.