Early Archaeology

David Stone Potter again: “Homeric archaeology did not begin with Calvert or Schliemann. It was a feature of life in the second and third centuries AD, when ancient monuments were recognized as such and attached to the world of the poems. There is no reason to doubt that the scepter of Agamemnon that Pausanias reported as being the most revered object at Chaeronea in Boeotia was still there in the time of Philstratus, or that the spear of Achilles had departed from its privileged position at Phaselis in Lycia. So too we may well suppose that the letter that Sarpedon sent from Troy to Xanthus and Lycia was just as readily available for inspection by famous people as it had been in the first century AD, when Vespasian’s associate, Mucianus, saw it.”

Everything fit perfectly: “The spear that was at Phaselis was of bronze, and so was the sword of Memnon that was in the temple of Asclepius at Nicomedia, proving that Homer was correct to say that the heroes fought with bronze weapons. The tomb of Ajax in the Troad was huge, as befitted the hero, and the tomb of Agamemnon said to be within the ruined walls of Mycenae was said to be rich in gold.”