E PEES us, CYPRUS, AND MYCENAE. 657 



Samothrace, Davis at Carthage, and Burton in the laiidof Midian — constitute 

 a body of discover}^ of such vast importance and absorbing interest, that 

 the civilized world seems scarcely yet fully to credit its possession. It is 

 a skeptical age, and, when it sees so many men, who at first sight appear to 

 be guided only by an intense, unreasoning belief in their object, actually 

 finding what they sought, the natural tendency is to doubt and question 

 and seek for antagonistic views. All the precious material so recently 

 acquired must first be classified and relegated to its proj^er place in our 

 ordered knowledge of the human past, before the world shall clearly recog- 

 nize its importance. Its influence on the class of intelligent thinkers is 

 already very perceptible. 



Almost every one of the great discoveries I have enumerated has beeri 

 due to faith iii the trustworthiness of the ancient authorities. Since Hero- 

 dotus and Ptolemy, so long suspected of having been fabulists, have been 

 wholly rehabilitated as careful and conscientious guides, Strabo, Pliny, Pau- 

 sanias — indeed nil descriptive passages of classic authors — receive an 

 authentic stamp, which they scarcely possessed before. But the belief- 

 which instigated such labors and trials of patience as e\QYj exj)lorer must 

 undergo, v,'as not a mere uninstructed enthusiasm. Mr. Wood believed that 

 there had been a Temple of Diana at Ephesus, and hence that its remains 

 were not past finding out; General di Cesnola believed that there had beeK 

 stately temples at Idalium, Golgos, Amathus, and Paphos ; and Dr. Schlie- 

 mann, in turning to prehistoric Mycense, depended far more upon the state- 

 ment of Pausanias than upon the strophes of ^Eschylus. Although in the 

 story of each there may seem to be an element of lucky accident, it will 

 prove to be hardly more than the luck which, in the end, rewards persistent, 

 enthusiasm. There was a point in the labors of each when a doubting 

 explorer would have stopped short, discouraged; and "the triumpb lay 

 beyond that point. The narratives of the three last-named archffiologi&l&' 

 have appeared during the past year, and they form, in conjunction with 

 Dr. Hirschfeld's report on the explorations at Olympia, such a contribu- 

 tion of recovered knowledge as should make the year forever memorable. 



Beginning with Mr. Yv'ood's first excavations at Ephesus, in 1863, and 

 closing with Dr. Schliemann's discovery of the royal tombs at Mycenae in 

 JS'ovember, 1876, the labors of the three gentlemen are included within a 

 period of thirteen years. Their tasks were wholly distinct in character, 

 and their methods of labor,'therefore, had but a general resemblance. Mr. 

 Wood's Avas the simplest, his one aim being to discover the Temple of Diana, 

 the situation of which was indicated by nothing upon the present surface 

 of the soil. Dr. Schliemann's was the easiest, since his explorations were 

 fixed within circumscribed and rather contracted limits; and General di 

 Cesnola's was, at the same time, the most arduous, and the most uncertain 

 in its probable results. 



I shall take the three in the order of their labors, and .endeavor to 

 detach, in each case, the clear and simple storj^ from the somewhat irreo-u- 



