"I think my theory is perfectly consistent with the critical residue which may be extracted from this passage. It is probably true that the Argives chose the opportunity of a Messenian war to make this conquest, but it was the second, not the third, Messenian war. It is probably true--nay, I should say certainly true--that they levelled Mycenæ with the ground in the 78th Ol.; but this was not their first conquest of it. If they enslaved the then inhabitants, this harsh measure was probably by way of punishment for the impertinence of a subject town in sending an independent contingent to a war in which the sovereign city had determined to maintain a strict neutrality. That the facts related by Diodorus should have caused no general comment throughout Greece, or that no echo of it should have reached us, seems to me almost incredible. There is a possible corroboration of Diodorus' statement that Mycenæ was the last conquered of the subject cities in the Homeric catalogue, where Tiryns is mentioned as already subject to Argos, while Mycenæ is the capital of Agamemnon. But even when that catalogue was compiled, Argos had conquered all the seaboard of the Argolic peninsula, and Mycenæ lies at the extreme south of the territory (chiefly Corinthian and Sicyonic) which is assigned to Agamemnon. Possibly the traditions were still too strong for the poet to make Mycenæ subject to Argos, but he plainly denies any hegemony of Mycenæ over the Argive plain." [Sidenote: DATE OF THE CAPTURE OF MYCENÆ.] Mr. A. H. Sayce further directs my attention to a passage of Homer, which, in my opinion, also seems to favor this hypothesis, and which seems categorically to contradict the stories which Pausanias and Diodorus have borrowed from Ephorus.[407] This last has seemingly made an error as to the epoch of Pheidon. The passage pointed out by Mr. Sayce is in the Iliad, IV., 50-56: "Τὸν δ´ ἠμείβετ´ ἔπειτα βοῶπις πότνια ῞Ἡρη: ῎Ητοι ἐμοὶ τρεῖς μὲν πολὺ φίλταταί εἰσι πόληες, ῎Αργος τε Σπάρτη τε καὶ εὐρυάγυια Μυκήνη· τὰς διαπέρσαι, ὅτ´ ἄν τοι ἀπέχθωνται περὶ κῆρι· τάων οὔτοι ἐγὼ πρόσθ´ ἵσταμαι οὐδὲ μεγαίρω. Εἴπερ γὰρ φθονέω τε καὶ οὐκ εἰῶ διαπέρσαι, οὐκ ανύω φθονέους´, ἐπειὴ πολὺ φέρτερός ἐσσι." "To whom the stag-eyed Juno thus replied: 'Three cities are there dearest to my heart; Argos and Sparta and the ample streets Of rich Mycenæ; work on them thy will; Destroy them, if thine anger they incur; I will not interpose nor hinder thee; Mourn them I shall; reluctant see their fall, But not resist; for sovereign will is thine.'"[408]