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Schliemann's collection, we must add that recent researches have also brought to light the remains of a little temple dedicated to Pallas Athene and referred to in history, as well as those of a large Doric temple erected by Lysimachus, and of a magnificent theatre capable of holding six thousand spectators, and which probably dates from the end of the Roman Republic.
Schliemann's Troy; the yearlings in the meadow alternately gaze and graze; the guinea-fowl now and then honors the shout over a good shot with its harsh but well-meant rattle; the rifle speaks at measured intervals; the prizes thin off to the remainder gobbler; and so, with the quiet characteristic of rifle-matches, the evening draws toward the dew.
But it was older even than Varro. A Chicago business man visiting Mycenae picked up and brought home a bit of rubbish from Schliemann's excavations of the ancient masonry: lying on his office desk it attracted the attention of an engineering friend who exclaimed, "That is one of the best samples of the new gravel concrete I have seen. Did it come out of the Illinois tunnel?"
There was much disappointment on the hilltop. Then one day a spade grated on gravel. Once before that had happened, and they had found gold below. They called out to Dr. Schliemann. He and his wife came quickly. Fire leaped into Schliemann's eyes. "Stop!" he said. "Now I will dig. Spades are too clumsy." So he and his wife dropped upon their knees in the mud. They dug with their knives.
Schliemann's discoveries at Mount Athos, Mycenæ, Ithaca and Tiryns turned a searchlight upon prehistoric Hellas and revolutionized prevailing ideas concerning the rise and the development of Greek Art. His Trojan treasures were presented to the city of Berlin.
He presents several arguments to prove the trustworthiness of the text of Homer. In 1877, Mr. Gladstone wrote an article on the "Dominions of the Odysseus," and also wrote a preface to Dr. Henry Schliemann's "Mycenae." One of his most remarkable productions bore the title of, "The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance; a Political Expostulation."
We see all the beautiful work in gold and silver and gems and ivory, and we think, "Those men of old Mycenae were artists." Digging within this circle, Dr. Schliemann found the famous treasure of golden gifts to the dead, which he gave to Greece. In the Museum at Athens you can see these wonderful things. This picture is taken from Dr. Schliemann's own book on his work.
He was a guest, and a privileged guest at that. Besides, the music had already begun. Bruder Schliemann's long white fingers were caressing the keys to some purpose. He subsided into his chair and smoked with half-closed eyes that yet saw everything. But the shudder had established itself in his being, and, whether he would or not, it kept repeating itself.
In the same hillside as the Treasury of Atreus, but some 400 yards north of it, stands the tomb known as the 'Tomb of Klytemnestra, or 'Mrs. Schliemann's Treasury' the latter title being due to the fact that it was partially excavated in 1876 by Dr. Schliemann's wife.
Admiration turned to incredulity, and even to undeserved ridicule of the enthusiastic explorer; but the lapse of time has made critics less inclined to mock at Schliemann's eager belief, and it is largely conceded now that while perhaps the tombs may not be actually those of the great King of the Achæans and his friends, they are at least those which were long held to be such by tradition, and which Pausanias intended to denote by his descriptions.
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