Agamemnon, we are told, triumphed over Troy; and the historical evidence to the fact is large. But the Grecian poets themselves universally acknowledge that it was a dear-bought, a mournful triumph. Few of the princes, who survived to partake of it, had any enjoyment of their hard-earned glory in their native country. None expecting that the war would detain them so long from home, had made due provision for the regular administration of their affairs during such an absence. It is indeed probable that the utmost wisdom and forethought would have been unequal to the purpose. For, in the half-formed governments of those days, the constant presence of the prince as supreme regulator was necessary towards keeping the whole from running presently into utter confusion. Seditions and revolutions accordingly remain recorded almost as numerous as the cities of Greece. Many of the princes on their return were compelled to embark again with their adherents, to seek settlements in distant countries. A more tragical fate awaited Agamemnon. His queen, Clytemnestra, having given her affection to his kinsman Ægisthus, concurred in a plot against her husband, and the unfortunate monarch on his return to Argos was assassinated; those of his friends who escaped the massacre were compelled to fly with his son Orestes; and, so strong was the party which their long possession of the government had enabled the conspirators to form, the usurper obtained complete possession of the throne. Orestes found refuge at Athens; where alone among the Grecian states there seems to have been then a constitution capable of bearing both the absence and the return of the army and its commander without any essential derangement.