Atreus, remains in an admirable state of preservation, especially as
regards the interior. This consists of a space of circular plan, 15 m.
in diameter, and of the same height, formed like a pointed vault.
(_Fig._ 121.) Its walls begin to curve from the floor, which is of
stamped clay pisé. Upon this the first circular course of masonry
immediately reposes. The walls then rise, in parabolic outline, to a
pointed apex. They are not constructed upon the principle of a
vault--that is to say, with wedge-shaped stones, and with the direction
of joints to a common centre--but are laid in horizontal beds, each
course so projecting over the one beneath it that, by this diminution of
the concentric circles, they finally unite at the summit. They were
smoothly cut upon the jointing surfaces, while the face was not
chiselled until after the completion of the masonry. The blocks were
rectangular, and the joints, which consequently increased radially in
plan, were filled with the same pisé used for the floor; the interstice
between the wall door and the rock-cut inner chamber upon one side being
also cemented with this substance. An entrance-passage, the dromos, led
from the valley to the tholos in a gently inclined ascent. It was
bordered by walls of cut stone, but nowhere ceiled. Its floor, 6.20 m.
broad and 36 m. long, was paved with pisé. Thisentrance-passage was
terminated without by a terraced retaining-wall, and within by an
elaborate portal façade. The recent investigations of Stamatakis and
Thiersch have given sufficient information concerning the composition
and details of this front to permit a restoration of its chief masses.
(_Fig._ 122.) The lower part was constructed of long stones, carefully
cut and jointed. The stepped jambs of the opening, peculiar to all
antique doors, were probably cut after the blocks were in position. Upon
either side were decorative engaged columns, which are so entirely
similar to the one represented upon the Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ that
it is possible completely to understand their nature by that general
guide; by the help of fragments which still exist, and others drawn in
former publications, though now lost; by traces upon the wall, and
especially by the sockets cut for the swallowtail clampings of the bases
and capitals. The shaft, instead of being diminished, increases as it
ascends, as does also the column upon the relief over the Gate of the
Lions. Its base, from this analogy, and from the narrow space left for
it by the clampings, seems to have consisted of a simple tore. The
abacus and parts of the mouldings beneath it still exist; the coronation
was formed by two roundlets, separated by a scotia, the lower being
considerably smaller in height and diameter than the upper. (_Fig._
123.) Without the lower member, there is a certain similarity of the
capital to a Doric echinos, which is increased by the proportions of the
boldly projecting abacus; but the whole is so similar to an Asiatic
(Ionic) base that it was not natural to believe it a capital, and the
fragment published by Donaldson has hitherto been believed to be the
foot of the shaft. The columns were entirely covered with an
ornamentation in relief of zigzag lines alternating with the well-known
spiral wave; they stood upon rectangular pedestals, of which the triply
stepped plinths have been preserved. The existence of bronze ornaments
upon the lintel of the door is evident from the traces of nails; five
lion-heads can be distinctly recognized. An epistyle extended from
capital to capital across the entire front of the portal; it projected
far beyond the lintel, upon which it partly reposed. Above this
entablature was a surface, like an attica, which masked the triangle
formed by the relieving blocks over the lintel. The upper walls were not
originally visible, having been reveted by thin slabs of stone, secured
in position by dowels. Fragments from Mykenæ deposited in the British
Museum, in the Munich Antiquarium, and in Athens appertained to this
upper façade; they all show spiral ornaments between horizontal grooves,
and are similar to many other decorations of the same age. The borders
of the casing over the relieving triangle and its extreme upper corner
were patterned in like manner, as is plain from the mitre-joint of some
of the slabs, and from a small fragment exactly fitting the upper angle
of the opening. The entire triangle was probably closed by some light
stone carving, since it could have had no function as a passage for
light. The door, as may be seen from traces of pivots upon the sill and
lintel, had two wings, which, from their bolt-holes, appear to have been
so large that, when closed, they considerably overlapped. Upon the
exterior jambs a broad strip of metal was affixed, still to be traced by
two vertical rows of nail-holes, in which fragments of bronze
occasionally remain. This work leads to the supposition that the wings
of the door were themselves overlayed with metal, and, with the
characteristic forms of the decoration upon the monument, points to the
peculiarities of Asiatic art. It is natural to attribute this to the
influence of Phœnicia; indeed, the effect of the civilization of that
country upon early Greece can hardly be overestimated. A broad,
horizontal strip of metal sheathing existed also upon the exterior, and
small fragments of it are repeatedly met with in the rubbish filling the
tholos; similar vestiges are found in a second monument of the kind near
by. This overlaying of walls with sheet copper was by no means uncommon
in ancient Greece. The subterranean bronze chamber of Danae may be
explained as a tomb sheathed with metal. In mythical ages, in the
sanctuary at Delphi, as well as in later times, in the Chalkioicos of
Athene at Sparta, this wall-treatment appears employed for temples, even
as Homer described it in palaces at Sparta and the Island of the
Phæacians. The Tholos of Atreus was itself subterranean; the exterior of
the conical mass of masonry was covered with a hill of earth. In
consideration of the almost perfect preservation of the interior, it is
evident that some remains of a strictly architectural exterior would
have been recognizable, had it existed. A tumulus covered and protected
the structure; though its earth is now, for the greater part, washed
away, to it must still be ascribed the good condition in which the
kernel has remained.
The recently discovered grave at Menidi, in Attica (Lolling), is a
parallel construction. As regards beauty of execution and richness of
ornament, it is far inferior to the Tholos of Atreus; it is also much
smaller, having an average diameter of 8.35 m. and 9 m. original height.
Its only peculiarity is that the relieving blocks over the lintel,
instead of projecting one over the other so as to form a triangle, are
so placed as to leave four voids between as many horizontal beams, in a
manner similar to the arrangement for relieving the ceiling of the
principal chamber of the great pyramid of Gizeh.
The Tholos of Atreus offers a welcome commentary upon the thesauros of
the royal palace at Ithaca, but only in respect to its construction. The
purpose of the circular buildings still existing in Greece seems to have
been entirely different from that of the treasure-house described in the
Odyssey. It is true that eminent authorities deny this difference--and
the analogies of the round Homeric building, of the treasure-vaults at
Mykenæ mentioned by Pausanias, and of the treasury of Minyas in
Orchomenos, lend their arguments some weight, and, at least, a greater
probability than the suppositions that the structures of tholos form
were intended for spring-houses (Forchhammer) or places of worship
(Pyl). But there are reasons against all these assumptions. The
treasure-houses of the Pelopidæ must have been upon the acropolis,
inside the fortification walls, not at various distances outside their
limits, as is the case with those of Mykenæ. Still less could such
vaults for hoarded valuables have been as distant from the city as was
the Tholos of Baphio from the ancient Amyclæ, which stood entirely
isolated in the midst of an open plain, without the possibility of
communication with any royal residence. The tumuli of earth above the
crypts would have but ill suited them to form a part of the palace
building; while for a cell which was only to receive precious goods--for
a magazine of deposit--the rich overlaying of the interior walls with
sheet metal, and especially the elaborate carving of the portal front,
seem out of place. These peculiarities, not to mention some of less
importance, point to another purpose, for which they are, one and all,
fitted--namely, the destination of the structures as tombs. Their
position, before the acropolis and without the city walls; the covering
of the chamber with earth in a tumulus form; the impossibility of their
having had any communication with other buildings; the elaborate
decoration of the entrance, and the princely wealth of metals in the
interior--all support, with the striking analogies beyond the Ægean,
this conception of the tholos buildings advocated by Welcker and Mure.
It is possible that it is to these structures that Pausanias refers as
the treasure-houses of the Atridæ; but Pausanias, like us, knew Mykenæ
only by its ruins. That patron of all _ciceroni_ upon classic ground
was not exacting for proofs of their legends. The hypothesis of Pyl may
in so far be correct that the tholos itself did not serve as the place
of sepulchre, which was provided by the small side chamber, but was a
chapel for the funeral worship naturally to be assumed in connection
with an heroic dynasty.
It is not possible to assign these tombs to individuals, like those of
the early Persian monarchs, or even to dynasties: the questionable
identification of the graves discovered in the agora of the acropolis,
ventured by Schliemann, would here be inadmissible. It is reasonably
certain, however, that the best-preserved tholos, that known by the name
of Atreus, is about contemporaneous with the Gate of the Lions, and
dates from the most flourishing period of the heroic age--before the
downfall of the Atridæ upon the return of Agamemnon.
A small chamber, only of sufficient size to receive the cinerary urn, in
the centre of an upheaval of earth, was sufficient for the graves of the
heroes who fell before Troy. Several of these tumuli exist. The larger
of them, those of Hector and of Achilles, had a considerable elevation,
and, standing upon a low promontory, were visible far at sea. They were
without architectural features or decoration, mere cones of earth and
stones; terminated, as Homer relates concerning those of Ilos, Sarpedon,
and Elpenor, by a monument like a column, which must have resembled the
piers upon Lydian tumuli. It is questionable whether the trees which
grew in later times upon the mounds of Protesilaos before Troy, and of
Alcmæon in Arcadia, were originally and intentionally there placed, and
are to be deemed characteristic of such works. Those planted upon the
tumulus of Augustus in Rome may certainly be referred to his individual
desire. From the account given by Pausanias of the tumulus of Æpytos at
Pheneos, in Arcadia; from foundations remaining upon the island of Syme,
and from later ruins at Kyrene--not to mention a well-preserved tumulus
of very considerable dimensions, reveted with stone, which, from its
situation in Algerian territory, might perhaps be ascribed to the
Carthaginians, or even to the Romans--from all these examples, it is
evident that such mounds, like the tumuli of Lydia and Etruria, were,
for the greater part, elevated upon cylindrical foundations. But
whether the interior were chambered or solid, whether the cone of earth
rose directly from the earth or from a drum substructure, the tumulus
appears to have been, in primitive times, the most customary form of
monumental tomb for persons of high rank.
The common man was probably buried in pits, as at the present day, the
grave being marked by an upright stone, with or without some slight
ornament. Schliemann’s discoveries in the agora of Mykenæ show that,
under certain circumstances, this procedure was adopted even for
princes. The kingly importance of these sepulchres is assured by their
position, and by the immense quantity of gold and valuables found within
them. The decorative style of these objects dates them conclusively to
the heroic age; but the assignment of the different graves to Agamemnon
and his associates is a mere hypothesis.
[Illustration: Fig. 124.--Pyramid of Kenchreæ.]
A pyramidal form was only in isolated instances substituted for the
tumulus. Of a pyramid, described by Pausanias as existing between Argos
and Epidauros, there now remains a mass of masonry measuring 12 m. in
the line of the diagonal. A second, near Kenchreæ, between Argos and
Tegea, is better preserved. (_Fig._ 124.) Its plan is oblong, 14.5 m.
long and nearly 12 m. broad; the two chambers of the interior are at
present unroofed. The structure appears to have served as a common
place of sepulchre for the fallen, and, at the same time, as a memorial
of victory. This destination is also evident in two further pyramidal
remains, in Laconia and near Lessa, which are described by Curtius and
by Ross. The Greeks adopted both Asiatic and Egyptian forms for their
funeral monuments; but in the construction of both tumulus and pyramid
they introduced comparatively large chambers, early striving for ends
foreign to those despotic lands:--a wise economy of material and labor
and a gain of space.
Mausoleums and sepulchres are always among the first traces of
civilization, and the most ancient examples of architectural art. In
Greece, however, there are contemporaneous remains significant of other
purposes. Chief among these are the fortifications of towns, although in
general these works enclosed only the acropolis, which contained the
residences of the rulers and the sanctuaries of the people. The true age
of these defences can by no means be surely determined. Not all
Cyclopean masonry is to be attributed to the earliest ages of Hellenic
antiquity, for this manner of polygonal jointing remained in use long
after a time when cut and squared stones were generally employed. On the
other hand, immense rectangular blocks, laid in horizontal courses,
frequently occur in city walls which are known to be of the greatest
antiquity and even to have been totally ruined in the historical period,
such monoliths being regularly used upon corners, the jambs of gates,
etc., where especial strength and independent firmness were called for.
When the surface of Cyclopean walls is perfectly smooth and exactly
jointed, these may confidently be regarded as not of primitive
antiquity; the erection of such masonry is a subtlety of greater
difficulty than that of square blocks and horizontal beds. But walls
built of enormous boulders, unhewn, and roughly piled up without
calculation, the larger interstices being filled with smaller stones,
are of extreme age. Such masonry appeared to later generations to be the
work of giants, of Cyclops, and hence a name which might more fittingly
be changed to Pelasgic than to Poseidonic, as suggested by Gladstone.
The walls of Tiryns (_Fig._ 125) are of such gigantic blocks--bulwarks
mentioned by Homer and Hesiod, and admired in their ruins by Pausanias.
They are built upon a ridge of rock, which is over 190 m. long, only 70
m. broad, and elevated 10 m. above the surrounding plain. The masonry is
from 7 to 15 m. thick; of its original height, estimated as 18 m., there
remains from 10 to 12 m. The enormous stones vary from 2 to 3 m. in
length and 0.9 to 12. m. in thickness. In its greatest breadth the wall
is provided with galleries, roofed by projecting stones laid in
horizontal beds and cut to the outline of a pointed arch. Such spaces
are provided with loopholes upon the exterior, and, without doubt,
served as magazines and casemates. Within these fortifications must have
stood the royal residence, famed in the legends of Heracles and
Eurystheus; of it no recognizable traces remain.
[Illustration: Fig. 125.--Plan of the Acropolis of Tiryns.]
The walls of Mykenæ are not of equally gigantic masonry, but are fully
as old, and are especially interesting because of the city having been a
complete ruin in the earliest historical times. Besides casemate
galleries in the walls, there are in Mykenæ a number of highly important
gateways and portals; those of the fortifications at Tiryns were
entirely destroyed, an inclined plane leading to the eastern side of the
acropolis is there alone to be recognized as an approach.
[Illustration: Fig. 126.--Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ.]
[Illustration: Fig. 127.--Smaller Gate of Mykenæ.]
The doors were naturally of greater technical perfection than the long
line of bulwarks; having been created for both admittance and defence,
they required a certain constructive calculation, and permitted the
employment of more exterior ornament. The simplest possible form of a
gateway is the combination of three stones--the two jambs and the
lintel--observable in two examples at Mykenæ. (_Figs._ 126 and 127.)
Such a construction had the disadvantage that the upright blocks could
not be joined to the wall, and that the lintel, which necessarily lay
clear for a considerable length, could not immediately receive the
massive continuation of the masonry above it. Notwithstanding the
convergence of the jambs upon the great gate of Mykenæ, the beam has a
length of 4.6 m., with a span of 3.05 m.; the bottom of the door being
3.2 m. wide, and its height 3.25 m. A relieving gable was consequently
constructed, similar to that common in Egypt during the age of the
Pyramids, and to that described in the consideration of the Tholos of
Atreus. A triangular opening remained above the lintel, by which the
efficacy of the wall as a fortification was considerably impaired. The
orifice was closed by one or two slabs, which did not press heavily upon
the lintel; but they could not have been sufficient to escape fracture
by heavy missiles, or to resist the blows of a battering-ram. The attack
was therefore diverted from this vulnerable point by moral means. The
panel received a certain consecration by some protecting sacred symbol
being carved upon it--such, for instance, as a Gorgon’s head--a recourse
which was effective in times when the slightest desecration of a divine
emblem was deemed more impious than the bloodiest deed of human
violence. Such a carving has been preserved over the gateway of Mykenæ,
which has received its name from the lions represented upon it. As a
work of sculpture, it will be considered below. The column between the
animals has, however, a bearing upon the architectural forms of the
epoch. It is the same shaft, diminishing from summit to base, which has
been noticed upon the portal front of the Tholos of Atreus. A second
gate of Mykenæ resembled the Gate of the Lions, but was smaller and
simpler. (_Fig._ 127.)
[Illustration: Fig. 128.--Portal upon Samos.]
[Illustration: Fig. 129.--Gate of Phigalia.]
The form of three blocks appears to have been soon changed, the wall
itself serving in place of an especial jamb. The span of the lintel was
decreased by two or four boldly projecting blocks as brackets. Examples
of this development are offered by portals of Samos and Phigalia.
(_Figs._ 128 and 129.) But in the same measure as the danger from the
great span of the lintel was diminished, that of the brackets being
pressed downward and disjointed was increased. A third manner of
covering the opening, by stones leaned against each other at an angle,
was a still further advance. (_Fig._ 130.) When the side thrust could be
well borne--and for this the walls were always sufficient--such a gable
could support any pressure that could possibly be imposed, while
allowing a great breadth of passage. Finally, a triangular construction
could be obtained by a gradual projection of horizontal stones, laid as
they had been in so many instances for the relief of a lintel beneath
them. This construction occurs in two varieties, differing in
appearance, though not in principle: the projection of the horizontal
courses of stone either began directly from the ground (_Fig._ 130), as
has been noticed in the Tholos of Atreus (_Fig._ 122), or commenced at
some height, the jambs being carried up vertically. (_Fig._ 132.) In
both these varieties the line of the gable frequently appears concavely
curved, as in the parabolic walls of the tholos, and the outline of a
pointed arch was thus obtained. (_Figs._ 133 and 134.) In spite of their
early familiarity with the abstract principle of the arch, as shown in
_Fig._ 130, the Greeks refused to adopt the true arch, with its
wedge-shaped stones, even in late historical ages, when they assuredly
were acquainted with its construction. An illustration of their feeling
in this respect is given by the aqueduct adjoining the Tower of the
Winds in Athens, where the semicircles are cut from monoliths.
[Illustration: Fig. 130.--Portal upon Delos.]
The influence of the gateways upon the masonry is evident from the more
frequent adoption of the rectangular blocks, which had at first only
been employed to give the portals an independent strength, both for the
ramparts and for the out-works and protecting towers which these
openings necessitated. Such a fortification, erected for the defence of
a gate, still stands in Tiryns--the city to which succeeding ages
ascribed the invention of tower-building (Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ vii. 56);
it reaches a height of 13 m. Thetower which defended the gate of Mykenæ
was even larger. Homer mentions such structures at Troy, Thebes, and
Calydon, and is also familiar with casemates and battlements. The latter
are shown by paintings upon archaic vases to have been of the normal
rectangular shape.
Schliemann’s excavations in Mykenæ have proved that in this city the
agora was situated just within the principal gate. Some of the stone
benches encircling the agora were found in almost perfect preservation;
they were constructed of slabs standing erect in concentric rows to
receive the horizontal seats. They lend a new confirmation of Homer’s
truthful characterization of locality, illustrating a passage which
occurs in the description of the shield of Achilles, which describes
the judgment scene upon the marketplace:
“On polish’d chairs, in solemn circle, sat
The rev’rend elders.”
[Illustration: Fig. 131.--Gate of Missolonghi.]
[Illustration: Fig. 132.--Gate of Messene.]
Though the remains of these prehistoric ages show in some degree the
form of an ancient Greek acropolis, with its royal dwelling of courts
and halls, and the sepulchral monuments before its gates, they are yet
insufficient to complete even the main outlines of the picture by giving
any understanding of the temple--that structure destined to become the
ideal of Hellenic architecture. While the life and customs contemporary
with the Homeric poems are, in other respects, represented with
incomparable truth and distinctness, the epics are entirely silent upon
this subject. It appears that the temples were neither of great size nor
of artistic importance; among the ruins of Tiryns and Mykenæ there are
no vestiges of columns or entablatures. The symbolical images of the
deities were placed upon cliffs, in caverns, among the branches of
sacred trees, or in the hollows of their trunks, and simple altars were
erected before them. Frequently the worship of a deity was merely
connected with a grove, or with some other locality fitted by nature for
this purpose, and was there performed without an image or other dead
symbol. It was thus with the most primitive god of Greek mythology, Zeus
of Dodona. When a building was provided at all, it was, in the heroic
ages, restricted to the cella, a ceiled chapel of oblong plan, which
stood in the centre of a consecrated area, the temenos. This original
form--the whole of the primitive shrine--is recognizable even in the
developed peripteros, as the kernel within the outstanding columns. It
does not appear strange that we should be acquainted with so few of
these chapels when it is considered that hardly greater traces remain of
the entire architecture of the Teutonic races during the first seven
Christian centuries. It is natural, in the development of civilization,
that sanctuaries exemplifying different phases of advancement should
seldom stand next to each other; after the destruction of the old, the
new arises in its place, upon its consecrated site. Examples of such
original cellas are not, however, entirely wanting. Several remains
published by Dodwell and Stackelberg are to be explained as chapels. A
structure upon Delos, designated by Thiersch as a tomb, is quite
comparable to a columnless temple cella. There is less probability that
the ruins upon Mount Ocha and near the village Stoura, upon Eubœa,
were temples. They are chambers sheltered from above by slabs of stone,
inclined like a gable. (_Fig._ 135.)
[Illustration: Fig. 133.--Gate of Thoricos.]
[Illustration: Fig. 134.--Gate of Ephesos.]
This method of roofing could not have been generally practised in early
times, when simple and natural constructions utilized the materials at
hand best adapted to the purpose. The builders, among the bald mountains
of Eubœa, were forced to such a manner of covering their chamber by
lack of wood. The south of the island produces no trees which could
provide the timber for roof-beams; while, on the other hand, open
quarries in the neighborhood furnished a kind of slate-stone which is
easily split into large slabs like joists and boards. So clumsy a
ceiling construction as that upon Mount Ocha was not natural in
countries of dense forests, such as was the original home of the
Dorians. In other parts of Hellas than the rocky and sterile islands of
the Ægean, the chapels must have been roofed with wood. The most obvious
considerations make it evident that ceiling and roof of the primitive
cella were originally of wood. In the later marble architecture of
Greece this assumption is confirmed by numerous reminiscences of
timbered construction, sufficient even to explain the methods and form
of the original carpentry.
[Illustration: Fig. 135.--Interior of a Structure upon Mount Ocha,
Eubœa.]