Gathered there in a small museum are the less splendid and precious of the relics which modern discovery has brought to light on Mykênaian soil. And there too is one relic, torn from a rifled tomb on the akropolis, which to the eye of faith must be more precious even than the treasury and the lion-gate. There lies the nearly perfect skeleton which those who have trodden doubts and difficulties under their feet believe to be the very bones of Agamemnôn. The more cautious Greek antiquary is less rash in committing himself. Mr. Stamatâkês, the learned and zealous guardian of the Mykênaian treasury, points to it with a wise qualification. The rest of his explanation is given in the tongue which is alike his own and Homer’s. But, to express his doubts, the Hellenic lips have learned to form a Teutonic genitive. He does not commit himself to the belief that they are the bones of “Agamemnôn,” pure and simple; they are the bones of “Schliemann’s Agamemnôn.” Yet primæval Hellas, primæval Mykênê, has a history which may well live through alike unreasonable doubts and undiscerning faith. Call him what we will--Agamemnôn or anything else--the name matters little. It is a marked moment in one’s life when one looks on the bones of one who, we need not doubt, was, in days long before Hekataios wrote or even before Homer sang, a lord of many islands and of all Argos. The position of the akropolis at Mykênê differs widely from that of either of the neighbouring akropoleis of Tiryns and Argos. The hill of Tiryns is a mere mound in the plain. The loftier hill of Argos, though far outtopped by the mountains behind it, still stands out as a marked object. But the akropolis of Mykênê, though we find it to be in a manner isolated, when we come to it, seems like an outpost of the far loftier hills immediately behind it. On one side the rock rises precipitously above a narrow gorge whose limestone cliffs at once, to an eye familiar with the West of England, suggest the gorges of Mendip, and, above all, the great pass of Cheddar. In the early days of fortifications, when there was no missile to be feared but darts and arrows, a fortress was not deemed to be in greater danger by reason of being thus overlooked. Indeed, to be overlooked by high and inaccessible mountains was in itself a kind of shelter. The Mykênaian akropolis thus stands upon the rocks and among the hills in a way in which its fellows at Tiryns and Argos do not. For that same reason it does not stand out in the same way as an object in the distant view. Its true form and position grow gradually upon us as we rise from the modern village along the paths--paths only of the shepherd and his flock--which are now all that represent the wide streets of the city beloved of Hêrê. More than one path may be chosen, and each will lead by one or more of the wonderful remains of the city itself, the so-called treasuries, as distinguished from the remains of the akropolis.