conceive themselves oppressed believe that a government that is powerless to give such relief is unworthy their support. Then, all of us have been more or less indignant at the plunder of the national treasury in the interests of certain railroads, and at the watering of stocks upon which the public pay the dividends. But the unreflecting mind is liable to identify all corporations with those that are justly subject to complaint, or even to go further and condemn all that have capital as robbers and plunderers, because a few of the most conspicuous have been so. A charter of government that the people in some period of madness may tear to shreds is poor security, if such notions become prevalent. Property is safe when it is generally possessed, so that the people can perceive that they participate in the benefits of existing institutions; and it is not safe otherwise. The tendency of events at this time is unmistakably in the direction of larger importance to organized labor in the management of public affairs; and this looks to a control of business by law in a manner that may threaten disaster. It is a dangerous tendency, because it falsely assumes a necessary antagonism in the interests of employer and employed; and the assumption brings about conflict where the real interests are substantially identical. Then strikes and lock-outs occur, which stagger the prosperity, not of the business merely, but of the state. The remedy for such a state of things is not so manifest as the evils; it will never be found until employers recognize how intimately they are concerned with the welfare of those whose labor they employ, and how important it is that their relations should be on a basis satisfactory to both. In some cases this has been accomplished by giving labor some share in the control, as well as in the profits, of business; but this is not likely to become general, so as to embrace all grades of labor. In some cases, tribunals of arbitration have been established for the determination of controversies between laborers and their employers. This, to the extent that it is acted upon and made effectual, secures what is of the very highest importance in every occupation-self-rule by a government in which all who are interested participate. It may be a long time before the idea of true self-rule will be readily accepted by either side; but every instance of it is a positive gain to the state, and has a humanizing as well as an educating influence. It does some thing to bridge an opening chasm, and constitutes a pledge of peace for which the family of every man concerned would be surety. It should do something also toward protecting laboring classes against the kites and vultures of society, which now take advantage of labor troubles to prey upon them. And perhaps it should do even more toward giving assurance that, from the discontent and confusion of mind springing from labor controversies, and their attendant privations and suffering, nothing that is radically mischievous shall be formulated and at length put in force by our law-makers, the people. T. M. COOLEY. THE PALACE OF THE KINGS OF TIRYNS. THE traveler that goes from Nauplia to Argos, passes, on his right, several rocky heights that lie in close proximity to one another and stand forth like islands from the marshy ground. On the lowest and flattest of them, at a distance of hardly a mile from the gulf, is the most ancient citadel of Tiryns, now called Palæocastro, the mythic birthplace of Hercules, and the residence of many mighty legendary kings. The origin of Tiryns belongs to a remote prehistoric period. In the time of Homer, the city was very old, deprived of its autonomy, and a vassal to Argos. My excavations have proved that the palace of the ancient Tirynthian kings, which occupies the whole upper citadel, had been destroyed in prehistoric times. Its ruins lay buried in the débris, its site had remained uninhabited, and the ancient acropolis had stood desolate and deserted in the midst of the small and insignificant lower city that surrounded it. Nevertheless, Homer expresses his admiration of the citadel-walls by the epithet xióssa ("walled ") that he gives to Tiryns. Throughout classical antiquity, these walls were considered a marvel. Pausanias (ix., 36) places them, as a miraculous work, on a level with the Pyramids, for he says: "The Hellenes are bent on admiring foreign things much more than those they have in their own country, and thus it has occurred to ancient authors to describe minutely the Pyramids of Egypt, whilst they have not deigned to write a syllable of the treasury of Minyas (at Orchomenus), or the walls of Tiryns, which deserve the same admiration." Farther on he says (ix., 36), regarding the walls of Tiryns: "The wall, which is the only remainder of Tiryns, was built by the Cyclopes. It consists of rude stones, each of which is so large that a team of two mules cannot move even the smallest of them from the spot. The interstices are filled up with small stones in order to consolidate the large blocks still more in their position." These stones are, on an average, about six feet six inches long, and three feet broad, and, judging by the remains, the height of the wall seems to have been about forty-eight feet. According to Apollodorus (ii., 2, 1), Pausanias (ii., 16, 4), and Strabo (viii., 372), Prœtus, King of Tiryns, sent for the Cyclopes, seven in number, who came from Lycia to build him the walls of Tiryns. By these or other Cyclopes, according to the legend, many other similar buildings in Argolis must have been erected, and especially the walls of Mycenæ, in consequence of which Euripides ("Orestes," 965) calls the whole of Argolis the Cyclopean land, and designates the houses of Mycena ("Iphigenia in Tauris," 845), and Mycenæ itself ("Iphigenia in Aulis,” 152, 265, 1500, 1501), as Cyclopean edifices. Tiryns is also called by Pindar (fragmenta, 642, ed. Boeckh) xvxháñia пρódupa (“Cyclopean courtyard"). But it is especially remarkable that we find in Hesychius apúverov hívdeʊya, that is to say, "the Tirynthian brickbuilding," for, as we shall see, this is in curious accordance with the construction of the grand prehistoric palace that I have brought to light at Tiryns. Tiryns being near the sea, and in a plain so low that the road on the west side of the citadel is ten feet above sea-level, it makes on all travelers the impression that in classical times it must have been washed by the sea, and that the marshy tract of land that now separates the citadel from the gulf must be alluvial accession of comparatively modern date. But this is a mistake, as is proved by the Cyclopean remains of a prehistoric city and its mole on the sea-shore, about a mile and a quarter from Tiryns. It is true that the ancient port has now grown shallow, being hardly one foot deep; but it seems impossible that the ancient mole could have extended, three thousand years ago, more than three hundred feet farther into the sea than it does now. There can be no doubt that the rock of Tiryns has once been washed by the sea, but at a remote prehistoric time. The myth of Hercules' birth at Tiryns, and of the twelve labors imposed upon him by Eurystheus, King of Mycenæ, finds its explanation in his double nature as Sun-god and hero. It is but natural that he, the strongest of all heroes, should be fabled to have been born within the most powerful walls, which were considered to be the work of supernatural giants; and as Sungod he must have had, in the plain of Argos, at least as many sanctuaries as his successor, the prophet Elias, now has, who ascended to heaven in a chariot of flames, and who, therefore, cannot be anything but a Sun-god, for in antiquity, as now, the marshy lowlands engendered pestilential fevers, and could only be cultivated by incessant human labor and by the beneficial influence of the sun. According to the legend, the first king of Tiryns was Protus, brother of Acrisius, King of Argos. Having been expelled by Acrisius, Protus went to Iobates, King of Lycia, whose daughter Antea he married, and who sent with him an army, to be crowned King of Tiryns. The legend of this mythic king, whose date would be about 1400 B. C., is confirmed by Homer (Iliad, VI., 157–170), who informs us that Bellerophon of Corinth came to the court of Prœtus at Tiryns. Here he met with an adventure similar to one that befell Joseph in Egypt; for Queen Antra fell deeply in love with the stranger, whom, as Homer says, the immortals had given beauty and graceful manly strength. Pope translates the passage thus: "For him Antea burned with lawless flame, And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame: Then met in arms the Solymaan crew (Fiercest of men), and those the warrior slew. Next the bold Amazon's whole force defied; And conquered still, for Heaven was on his side. VOL. CXXXIX.-NO. 337. 38 |