Page 376 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

accounts of trading expeditions to the Caucasus and the Crimea
and wars against the nomads of the great plains who sat their
horses so one might think that they were half man and half
horse.

The great castle of Mycenae seemed dark and damp and
depressing when the expedition returned, and the winter tasks
of tithe collecting and caulking of the ships and arranging for

REPRESENTATION OF ACHAEAN INFANTRY (SURELY A CARICATURE)
FROM A VASE FOUND AT MYCENAE AND DATED TO APPROXIMATELY

THE TRADITIONAL DATE OF THE TROJAN WAR.

renewals of weapons and rigging and supplies were boring in the
extreme. Only the evening sessions in the great hall, where the
bards sang of adventures long ago and far away, could bring back

to a degree the fascination of the summer campaign.
Thereafter scarcely a summer passed without the young

princes sailing forth, on diplomatic or warlike missions, or on un­
disguised plunder and slave raids. Most years they visited Asia