ON THE TRACK OF
ULYSSES
TOGETHER WITH
AN EXCURSION IN QUEST OF THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS
TWO STUDIES IN ARCHÆOLOGY, MADE DURING A CRUISE AMONG THE GREEK ISLANDS
BY
W. J. STILLMAN
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1888
Copyright, 1887,
By W. J. STILLMAN.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge:
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
To
WENDELL PHILLIPS GARRISON.
In times when the feverish ambition of our people sogenerally climbs to distinction by ways offensive to thetrue intellectual and moral life, and when we find the oldstandards of human dignity so often forgotten; it renewsone’s faith in the future of humanity to meet a manwhom neither the “Olympian dust” nor that of Californiahas been able to deflect from that line of perfectrectitude of life which, if existence is to be anything butan indecent scramble, we must recognize as entitling theman who holds it, to the highest respect of his fellow-men.When besides this claim to our respect he has been ableto maintain undimmed the lustre of a name such asyou bear, the distinction is still brighter. If thereforemy insignificant tribute were only as the dust which,catching the sunshine, males it visible, let me offer thisdedication in recognition of the true standard of nobilityas I know it in your father’s son.
W. J. STILLMAN.
PREFACE.
The series of papers herewith committed to the more orless permanent condition of book form were originally (lesssome development of their arguments) printed in the Centurymagazine, being the results of an exploring visit to Greeklands taken as a commission for that periodical. I havesought in them to solve, in a popular form, certain problemsin archæology which seemed to me to have that romanticinterest which is necessary to general human interest; andwhile necessarily, in such a study, dealing much with conjecture,I have not ventured to assume anything which I amnot satisfied is true. The problem of the so-called Venus ofMelos is one of those which archæology has fretted over fortwo generations, and I cannot pretend to have offered a solutionwhich will command assent from the severely scientificarchæologist; but I have an interior conviction, stronger thanany authority of ancient tradition to my own mind, thatthat solution is the true one. I do not wish it to be judgedas a demonstration, but as an induction in which a kind ofartistic instinct, not communicable or equally valuable to allpeople, has had the greatest part; and, for the rest, I amsatisfied to let it be taken by the rule of “highest probability,”by which we solve to our satisfaction, more or less complete,proble