TIRYNS AND MYCENAE.

Professor Dorpfeld gave the fourth in his series of lectures last night on Tiryns and Mycenae. The attractiveness of these lectures was again proved by the size of the audience. As on Thursday evening, the lecture-room was filled to overflowing.

Mycenae, the citadel of Agamemnon, and the other strongholds of the Argive Plain, which all belong to the heroic times sung by Homer, had already fallen into ruin in the historical period. The traveller Pausanias visited them in the second century, A. D., and his description might well have been written in the first half of the present century, so exactly does it describe their condition before Schliemann and the Greek Archaelogical Society began their excavations. Today one may pass through the great gateways into the courts and halls of the palaces that were seats of royal residence in the time of Homer, and recognize their original splendor even in their ruins.

Professor Dorpfeld, with the aid of many pictures, first described Tiryns-its mighty walls and galleries; its richly adorned palace, which recalls the descriptions of Homer; and finally the destruction of the citadel. Passing to Mycenae, he carried his audience through the well-known gate of the Lions to the graves of its ancient kings, and described the marvellous treasure found there by Schliemann, and then mounting to the summit of the citadel gave a brief account of the royal palace. He next described the bee-hive tombs, outside the citadel, whose massive proportions rouse the wonder of the modern traveller as to what manner of men these later kings of Mycenae may have been, and recounted the final fate of the citadel. Mideia and Argos, the two other ancient citadels in the Argive plain, still wait for the spade of some enterprising excavator.

In closing, Professor Dorpfeld called attention to the remarkable correspondence between what we know Tiryns and Mycenae to have been and Homer's description of the palaces of heroic times, and confirmed the truth of the comparison by certain conspicuous and convincing examples. This fact is of importance in determining the date of the Homeric poems. They belong to the same age with Tiryns and Mycenae, and are not the creation of a poet's fancy, but trustworthy descriptions of the life and art of the Heroic Age.

Professor Dorpfeld spoke strong words of commendation for the excavations made by the Archaeological Society of America at the Argive Heraeum, the seat of worship of all the inhabitants of the Argive Plain. His discriminating and friendly words were appreciated by his hearers, many of whom had made substantial contributions to the success of these excavations.

This morning in Harvard 1, at 12 o'clock, Professor Dorpfeld will discuss the situation of Enneacrunus, the famous fountain of Athens which Thucydides tells us, in the fifteenth chapter of the second book of his History, was beautified and adorned by the tyrant Pisistratus. His interpretation of this famous passage will give members of the University a capital opportunity to observe his method.