account of the transmission of the sceptre, he calls him

Of many an isle, and of all Argos king.

Now Agamemnon's was a continental power; and he could not have been
master of any except the adjacent islands (and these would not be
many), but through the possession of a fleet.

And from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier
enterprises. Now Mycenae may have been a small place, and many of
the towns of that age may appear comparatively insignificant, but no
exact observer would therefore feel justified in rejecting the
estimate given by the poets and by tradition of the magnitude of the
armament. For I suppose if Lacedaemon were to become desolate, and the
temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as
time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to
refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power. And yet
they occupy two-fifths of Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak
of their numerous allies without. Still, as the city is neither
built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and
public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion of
Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas, if Athens
were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference
from the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to
have been twice as great as it is. We have therefore no right to be
sceptical, nor to content ourselves with an inspection of a town to
the exclusion of a consideration of its power; but we may safely
conclude that the armament in question surpassed all before it, as
it fell short of modern efforts; if we can here also accept the
testimony of Homer's poems, in which, without allowing for the