PLAIN OF ARGOS
[Illustration]
We journeyed down to Mycenæ from Athens by train. The moment the
railroad leaves Corinth it branches southward into the Peloponnesus and
into a country which, for legendary interest, has few equals in the
world. Old Corinth herself, mother of colonies, might claim a preëminent
interest from the purely historical point of view, but she must forever
subordinate herself to the half-mythical charm that surrounds ruined and
desolate Mycenæ, the famous capital of Atreus and his two celebrated
sons, Menelaus and Agamemnon. As for Corinth herself, the ancient site
has lately been explored under the auspices of the American school at
Athens, and these excavations, with the steep climb to the isolated and
lofty Acrocorinth, furnish the attractions of the place to-day. The
train runs fairly close to the mountain, so that even from the car
window the fortifications on its top may be distinguished; but evidently
they are Venetian battlements rather than old Greek remains that are
thus visible. As a purely natural phenomenon the Acrocorinth is
immensely impressive, resembling not a little the Messenian Acropolis at
Ithome. It is a precipitous rock, high enough to deserve the name of a
mountain, and sufficiently isolated to be a conspicuous feature of the
landscape for miles as you approach Corinth from the sea or from Athens
by train. Circumstances have never permitted us to ascend it, but the
view from the summit over the tumbling surface of the mountainous
Peloponnesus is said to be indescribably fine, giving the same effect as
that produced by a relief map, while the prospect northward across the
Gulf of Corinth is of course no less magnificent.
Fate ordained that we should stick to the line of the railway and
proceed directly to the site of Mycenæ, in which interest had been
whetted by the remarkable display of Mycenæan relics in the museum at
Athens, as well as by the consciousness that we were about to visit the
home of the conqueror of Troy and of his murderous queen. The train did
some steep climbing as it rounded the shoulder of the Acrocorinth, and
for two hours or so it was a steady up-grade, winding around long
valleys in spacious curves, the old road from Sparta generally visible
below. At every station the mail car threw off bundles of newspapers,
which the crowds gathered on the platform instantly snatched and
purchased with avidity. The love of news is by no means confined to
Athenians, but has spread to their countrymen; and every morning the
same scene is enacted at every railroad station in Hellas on the arrival
of the Athens train. At every stop the air was vocal with demands for
this or that morning daily, and each, having secured the journal of his
choice, retired precipitately to the shade of a near-by tree, while
those who could not read gathered near and heard the news of the world
retailed by the more learned, at second-hand. The peasant costumes were
most interesting, for we were now in the country of the shepherds, far
from the madding crowd and dressed for work. The dress of each was
substantially the same,—a heavy capote of wool, if it was at all chilly,
the tight drawers gartered below the knee, the heavy leather wallet on
the front of the belt, the curious tufted shoes whose pompons at the
toe, if large denoted newly bought gear, or if sheared small meant that
the footwear was old. For the custom is to cut down these odd bits of
adornment as they become frayed, a process that is repeated until the
tuft is entirely removed, when it is time to buy new shoes.
The landscape was most striking now. The plains were small and separated
from one another by walls of rugged hills, whose barriers were not to be
despised in days when communication was primitive and slow, and which
bore an important part in keeping the several ancient states so long
apart, instead of allowing them permanently to unite. The neighboring
peaks began to be increasingly redolent of mythology, chiefly relating
to various heroic exploits of Herakles. Indeed the train stopped at
Nemea itself, and the site of the struggle with the Nemean lion was
indicated to us from afar, while a distant summit was said to be near
the lake where were slain the Stymphalian birds. Shortly beyond the
grade began to drop sharply, until, rushing through a pass of incredible
narrowness,—the site of a bloody modern battle between the Greek
patriots and the Turks,—the train dashed out into the broad plain of
Argos, once famous as the breeder of horses. The narrow and rather
sterile valleys hemmed in by bare hills of gray rock gave place to this
immense level tract of sandy soil leading down to the sea, which gleamed
in the distance under the noonday sun. On either side of the broad
expanse of plain towered the mountain wall, always gray and bare of
trees, though in the old days it was doubtless well wooded. With the
departure of trees came the drouth, and to-day the rivers of the Argolid
are mere sandy channels, devoid of water save in the season of the
melting mountain snows.
The train halted at Phychtia, the station for Mycenæ, and there we found
waiting a respectable carriage that had seen better days in some city,
but which was now relegated to the task of conveying the curious to
various points in the Argolic plain. It was there in response to the
inevitable telegraph, which we had the forethought to employ. Otherwise
we should have had to go over to the site of Mycenæ on foot, a task
which the heat of the day rather than the distance would have made
arduous. Mycenæ to-day is absolutely deserted and desolate, lying
perhaps two miles eastward from the railway, on the spurs of two
imposing mountain peaks. Toward this point the road rises steadily, and
before long we had passed through a starveling village of peasant huts
and came suddenly upon a two-story structure bearing the portentous
sign, “Grand Hotel of Helen and Menelaus!” To outward view it was in
keeping with the rest of the hamlet, which was chiefly remarkable for
its children and dogs. It proved, on closer inspection, to be a queer
little inn, boasting a few sleeping rooms in its upper story, to be
reached only by an outside stairway. On the ground floor—which was a
ground floor in the most literal sense of that overworked expression—was
a broad room, used partly as a dining-room and partly as a store and
office. The actual eating-place was separated from the remainder of the
apartment by a grill-work of laths, or pickets, with a wicket gate,
through which not only the guests and the proprietor, but sundry dogs,
chickens, and cats passed from the main hall to the table. This, being
the only available hotel in the region, and bearing so resounding and
sonorous a title, proved irresistible. Lunch, consisting of very
excellent broiled chickens, and sundry modest concomitants, was promptly
served by a tall slip of a girl, the daughter of the house, and probably
named Helen, too. During the meal various hens, perhaps the ancestors of
our _pièces de résistance_, clucked contentedly in and out, and a
mournful hound sneaked repeatedly through the gate, only to be as
repeatedly thrust into the outer darkness of the office by the cook and
waitress. In former times, before the “Grand Hotel of Helen and
Menelaus” sprang into being, it was necessary to carry one’s food and
eat it under the shadow of the famous Lion Gate on the site of the old
town itself—a place replete with thrills. Nevertheless it seems well
that the vicinity now has a place of public entertainment, and doubly
well that it has been so sonorously named.
It may not have been more than half a mile farther to the ruins, but it
was up hill and very warm work reaching them. On either side of the high
road, where presumably once lay the real every-day city of Mycenæ, there
was little in the way of remains to be seen, save for the remarkable
avenue leading to the subterranean tomb, or treasury, of which it will
be best to speak somewhat later. The slopes were covered with grass, and
here and there a trace of very old “Cyclopean” masonry was all that
remained to bear witness to the previous existence of a city wall, or
possibly an ancient highway with a primitive arch-bridge spanning a
gully. Back over the plain the view was expansive. The several
strongholds of Agamemnon’s kingdom were all in sight,—Mycenæ, Nauplia,
Argos, and Tiryns,—at the corners of the great plain, which one might
ride all around in a day; so that from his chief stronghold on the
height at Mycenæ Agamemnon might well claim to be monarch of all he
surveyed. Behind the valley, the twin peaks at whose base the stronghold
lay rose abruptly, bearing no trace of the forests of oak that once
covered them; and on a rocky foothill stood the acropolis of the city,
admirably fitted by nature for defense. It was on this high ground that
the ruins were found, and the visitor is informed that this was the
citadel rather than the main town—the place to which the beleaguered
inhabitants might flock for safety in time of war, and in which Atreus
and his line had their palace. It was here that Dr. Schliemann conducted
his remarkable researches, of which we shall have much to say. It is a
remarkable fact that the events of the past twenty years or so have
given a most astonishing insight into the dimness of the so-called
“heroic” age—the age that long after was sung by Homer—so that it is
actually possible now to say that we know more of the daily life and
conditions of the time of Troy’s besiegers than we do of the time of
Homer himself, and more about the heroes than about those who sang their
exploits. Knowledge of the more remote periods seems to vary directly
with the distance. The dark ages, as has been sagely remarked, were too
dark altogether to admit men to read the story told by the ancient
monuments such as survived at Mycenæ, and it is only lately that light
has increased sufficiently to enable them to be understood with such
clearness that the dead past has suddenly seemed to live again. From the
remains at Mycenæ the savants have unearthed the houses, walls, palaces,
reservoirs, ornaments, weapons, and daily utensils of the pre-Homeric
age. Bones and other relics cast aside in rubbish heaps give an idea of
the daily food of the people. The tombs have revealed how they were
buried at death, and have yielded a wealth of gold ornaments showing a
marvelous skill in working metals.
This upper city of Mycenæ was built on a rock, which we soon discovered
to be separated from the rest of the mountain by ravines, leaving the
sides very steep and smooth, so that on nearly every hand the place was
inaccessible. The gorges toward the mountains were natural moats, and
wide enough to prevent assault or even the effective hurling of missiles
from above into the citadel. The stronghold, however, was vastly
strengthened by artificial construction and proved to be walled entirely
about, the fortress being especially strong on the more exposed
portions, and most especially at the main gate, where the enormous
blocks of stone and the tremendous thickness of the wall were most in
evidence. The road winds up the last steep ascent until it becomes a
mere narrow driveway, scarcely wide enough for more than a single
chariot, and right ahead appears suddenly the famed Lion Gate, flanked
on one hand by a formidable wall facing the side of the native rock, and
on the other by a projecting bastion of almost incredible thickness. The
stones are of remarkable size, hewn to a sort of rough regularity by the
Cyclopean builders, and the wonder is that, in so rude and primitive an
age, men were able to handle such great blocks with such skill. No
wonder the tale gained currency that it was the work of the Cyclopes,
imported from abroad—and indeed the tale is not without its abiding
plausibility, since there are evidences enough in scattered Ph[oe]nician
sites elsewhere to warrant the assumption that the builders of these
numerous fortresses in Argolis did come from over seas.
Of all the ruins at Mycenæ the “gate of the lions” is unquestionably the
most impressive. It spans the end of the long and narrow vestibule
between the walls of rock, its jambs made of huge upright stones that
even to-day show the slots cut for hinges and the deep holes into which
were shot the ancient bolts. Over the top is another massive single
stone, forming the lintel. It is a peculiarity of the Cyclopean doorways
at Mycenæ that the weight on the centre of the lintel is almost
invariably lightened by leaving a triangular aperture in the stonework
above, and in the main gate the immense blocks of the wall were so
disposed as to leave such an opening. Even the massive lintel of this
broad gate would probably have failed to support the pressure of the
walls had not some such expedient been devised. As it is, the light
stone slab that was used to fill the triangular opening is still in
place, and it is what gives the name to the gateway, from the rudely
sculptured lions that grace it. These two lions, minus their heads, are
sitting facing each other—“heraldically opposed,” as the phrase is—each
with his fore feet resting on the base of an altar bearing a sculptured
column, which marks the centre of the slab. The column is represented as
larger at the top than at the base, a peculiarity of the stone columns
of the Mycenæan age, and recalling the fact that the first stone pillars
were faithful copies of the sharpened stakes that had been used as
supports in a still earlier day. The missing heads of the lions were
doubtless of metal,—bronze, perhaps,—and were placed so as to seem to be
gazing down the road. They are gone, nobody knows whither. It used to be
stated that this quaint bas-relief was the “oldest sculpture in Europe,”
but this is another of the comfortable delusions that modern science has
destroyed. Nobody, however, can deny that the Gate of the Lions is
vastly impressive, or that it is so old that we may, without serious
error, feel that we are looking on something that Agamemnon himself
perhaps saw over his shoulder as he set out for Troy. Just inside the
gate we found a narrow opening in the stones, leading to a sort of
subterranean chamber, presumably for the sentry. The impression produced
by the gate and its massive flanking walls is that of absolute
impregnability, and it was easy enough to fancy the Argive javelin-men
thronging the bastion above and pouring death and destruction down upon
the exposed right hands of the invaders jammed tight in the constricted
vestibule below.
Inside the gate, the old market-place opens out, and it was here that
were discovered the tombs from which came the numerous relics seen at
Athens. The market place is still encircled by a curious elliptical
structure, which is in effect a double ring of flat stones, with slabs
laid flat across the top, forming what looks like a sort of oval bench
all around the inclosure. We were asked to believe that these actually
were seats to be occupied by the old men and councilors of the city; but
if that is the truth, there were indeed giants in the land in those
times. Other authorities conjecture that it was a retaining wall for a
sort of mound heaped up over the graves within—an hypothesis which it
seems almost as hard to adopt. Whatever the purpose of this remarkable
circle of stone slabs, it is hardly to be doubted that it did once
inclose an “agora,” and it was within this space that Schliemann sunk
his shafts and brought up so much that was wonderful from the tombs
below. Tombs in so central a spot, and filled with such a plethora of
gold, certainly might well be deemed to have been the last resting-place
of royalty, and it is agreeable to believe that they were sovereigns of
the Agamemnonian line, if the “prince of men” himself be not one of
them. It is the fashion to aver that Schliemann was too ready to jump at
conclusions prompted by his own fond hopes and preconceived ideas, and
to make little of his claim that he had unearthed the grave of the
famous warrior who overcame Priam’s city; and perhaps this is justified.
But one cannot forget that the old legend insisted that Atreus,
Agamemnon, Cassandra, Electra, Eurymedon, and several others were buried
in the market place of Mycenæ,—which was doubtless what prompted the
excavation at this point; excavations which moreover proved to be so
prolific of royal reward.
[Illustration: AGORA—MYCENÆ]
On the heights above, where it was far too steep for chariots to follow,
there is a pathway direct to the royal palace itself, which it will
doubtless do no harm to call Agamemnon’s. Of course it is practically
flat to-day, with little more than traces of the foundation, save for a
bit of pavement here and there, or a fragment of wall on which possibly
one may detect a faint surviving touch of fresco. All around the citadel
below are traces of other habitations, so congested as to preclude any
application of Homer’s epithet, “Mycenæ of the broad streets,” to this
particular section of the city. All around the summit ran the wall, even
at points where it would seem no wall was necessary. As we explored the
site the guide kept gathering handfuls of herbage that grew all about,
and speedily led us to a curious Cyclopean “arch,” made by allowing two
sloping stones to fall toward each other at the top of an approaching
row of wall-blocks, which it developed was the entrance to a
subterranean gallery that led down to the reservoir of the fort. It was
a dark and tortuous place, and its descent to the bowels of the hill was
quite abrupt, so that we did not venture very far, but allowed the guide
to creep gingerly down until he was far below; whereupon he set fire to
the grasses he had been accumulating and lighted up this interior
gallery for us. The walls of this passageway had been polished smooth
for centuries by passing goats which had rubbed against the stone, and
it gleamed and glittered in the firelight, revealing a long tunnel
leading downward and out of sight to a cavern far below, where was once
stored the water supply conveyed thither from a spring north of the
citadel. Stones cast down the tunnel reverberated for a long distance
along its slippery floor, and at last apparently came against a final
obstacle with a crash. Then came the upward rush of smoke from the
impromptu torch, and we were forced hastily to scramble out into the
open air. We returned later, however, for a passing shower swept down
from the mountains and threatened a drenching, which rendered the
shelter of the ancient aqueduct welcome indeed. It was soon over,
however, and afforded us a chance to sit on the topmost rock of the
acropolis, looking down over what was once the most important of the
Greek kingdoms, from the mountains on the north and west down to the
sea—a pleasing sight, which was cut short only by the reflection that we
had still to visit the so-called “treasury of Atreus” beside the road
below.
This is one more of the odd structures of the place over which
controversy has raged long and fiercely, the problem being whether or
not it was a tomb. There are a number of these underground chambers near
by, but the most celebrated one just mentioned is the common type and is
completely excavated so that it is easily to be explored. The approach
is by a long cut in the hillside, walled on both sides with well-hewn
stone, the avenue terminating only when a sufficient depth had been
reached to excavate a lofty subterranean chamber. A tall and narrow door
stands at the end of this curious lane, placed against the hill, its
lintel made of a noticeably massive flat stone, with the inevitable
triangular opening over it; but in this case the block which presumably
once closed it is gone, and nobody knows whether it, like its mate at
the main gateway, bore sculptured lions or not. Within, the tomb is
shaped like an old-fashioned straw beehive, lined throughout with stone,
which bears marks indicating that it in turn was once faced with bronze
plates. It is a huge place, in which the voice echoes strangely, and it
is lighted only from the door and its triangular opening above. Just off
the northern side is a smaller chamber, where light is only to be had by
lighting some more of the dry grasses gathered without. Those who adhere
to the idea that this was a tomb maintain that the real sepulchre was in
the smaller adjoining chamber. Respectable authority exists, however,
for saying that these chambers were not tombs at all, but treasuries,
and a vast amount of controversial literature exists on the subject,
over which one may pore at his leisure if he desires. If it was a tomb,
it is obvious from the other burial-place discovered on the acropolis
above that there must have been at least two different styles of
burial,—and the tombs above appear to have contained people of
consequence, such as might be expected to have as honorable and imposing
sepulchres as there were. No bones were found in the “treasury of
Atreus,” and plenty of bones were found elsewhere, a fact which might
seem significant and indeed conclusive if it were not known that bones
had been found in beehive tombs like this elsewhere in Greece, notably
near Menidi, where six skeletons were discovered in a similar structure.
Of course it might be true that the bodies found on the heights at
Mycenæ and taken to Athens belonged to an entirely different epoch from
those that were buried in the beehive tombs, and that the beehive tombs
might easily have been looted long before the existence of any such
booty as the marketplace graves yielded had even been suspected. The
layman is therefore left to suit himself, whether he will call this
underground chamber a tomb or a treasury, and devote his time to
admiring the ingenuity with which the stone lining of the place was
built, each tier of stone slightly projecting above its lower fellow so
as at last to converge at the top in a point. The perfection of this
subterranean treasure-house seems no less remarkable than the ease with
which the ancient builders managed large masses of rock.
As for the history of Mycenæ, its greatest celebrity is unquestionably
that which it achieved in the time of the Atreidai, when it was the home
of the kings of Argos. It is supposable that in the palace on the height
Clytæmnestra spent the ten years of her lord’s absence at Troy, and that
therein she murdered him on his return. The poets have woven a great web
of song and story about the place, largely imaginative and legendary, to
be sure. But the revelations of the later excavations have revealed that
the poets came exceedingly close to fact in their descriptions of
material things. The benches before the doors, the weapons and shields
of heroes, the cups,—such as Nestor used, for example,—all these find
their counterparts in the recently discovered actualities and give the
more color to the events that the ancient writers describe. That Mycenæ
was practically abandoned soon after her great eminence doubtless
accounts for the wealth of relics that the excavators found, and her low
estate during the centuries of neglect curiously but not unnaturally
insured her return to celebrity, with a vast volume of most interesting
testimony to her former greatness quite unimpaired.
From Mycenæ down to the Argive Heræum, the ancient temple of Hera which
was once the chief shrine of this region, is something like two miles;
but as it was over a rough ground, and as time failed us, it was found
necessary to eliminate this, which to a strenuous archæologist might
doubtless prove highly interesting as an excursion, and more especially
so to Americans, since it was a site explored by the American school. It
lies off on the hills that border the plain of Argos on the east, on the
direct line between Mycenæ and Nauplia. Our own road led us back to
Phychtia again and down the centre of the plain over a very good
carriage road, passing through broad fields of waving grain, in the
midst of which, breast deep, stood occasional horses contentedly
munching without restraint. Almost the only buildings were isolated
stone windmills, some still in use and others dismantled. At last the
road plunged down a bank and into the sandy bed of what was doubtless at
some time of year a river,—but at this season, and probably most of the
year as well, a mere broad flat expanse of sand as destitute of water as
the most arid part of Sahara. The railroad, which had borne us friendly
company for a few miles, was provided with an iron bridge, spanning this
broad desert with as much gravity as if it were a raging torrent, which
doubtless it sometimes is. Just beyond we rattled into Argos.
Argos is a rather large place, but decidedly unattractive save for its
many little gardens. Nearly every house had them, and from our high
seats in the respectable but superannuated depot carriage we were able
to look into the depths of many such, to marvel at their riot of roses
and greenery. As for the houses, they were little and not over-clean.
The populace, however, was exceeding friendly, sitting _en masse_ along
the highway, the young women blithely saluting and the children
bombarding us with nosegays in the hope of leptà. Over Argos towers a
steep hill, known as a “larisa” or acropolis, from the top of which we
could imagine a wonderful view over the whole kingdom of the Argives and
over the mountains as well, not to mention the Gulf of Nauplia; but as
time was speeding on toward the dusk and we were still far from Nauplia,
we had to be content with the imagination alone, and with the news that
a little monastery about halfway up the hillside had been set on fire on
the Easter Sunday previous by too enthusiastic celebrants, who had been
over-free with the inevitable rockets and Roman candles. Also we had to
give short shrift to the vast theatre, hewn out of the solid rock at the
foot of the larisa, and said to be one of the largest in Greece. It was
sadly grass-grown, however, and infinitely less attractive than the
smallest at Athens, not to mention the splendid playhouse at Epidaurus,
which we promised ourselves for the morrow. So we were not reluctant to
swing away from old Argos, with her shouting villagers and high-walled
gardens, and to skirt the harbor, now close at hand along the dusty
Nauplia road. Across the dancing waters lay Nauplia herself, a white
patch at the foot of a prodigious cliff far around the bay. By the
roadside the country seaward was marshy, while inland rolled the great
plain back to the gray hills which showed the northern bounds of the old
kingdom, and the lofty rock of Mycenæ from which the sons of Atreus had
looked down over their broad acres.
It was not long before we were aware that “well-walled” Tiryns was at
hand and that we were not to close a day already well marked by memories
of Cyclopean masonry without adding thereto the most stupendous of all,
the memory of the great stones piled up in prehistoric ages at this
ancient palace whose size impressed even that hardened sight-seer
Pausanias. Tiryns proved to be a highly interesting place; in general
appearance much like Mycenæ, but in detail sufficiently different to
keep us exclaiming. It lies on what is little more than an isolated
hillock beside the highroad, and there is nothing imposing about its
height or length. It is a long, low rock, devoid of any building save
for the solid retaining walls that may go back to the days of Herakles
himself.
Whoever built the fortress at Tiryns had seen fit to make the front door
face the plain rather than the sea; so that it was necessary to leave
the road and go around to the north side of the rock, where a gradual
incline afforded an easy approach to a sort of ramp, or terrace,
defended by walls of the most astonishing Cyclopean construction. It has
been stated that these great and rudely squared blocks of native rock,
taken from the quarries in the hills northward, were once bonded
together with a rude clay mortar, which has since entirely disappeared.
How such enormous blocks were quarried in those primitive days, or how
they were handled, is a good deal of a mystery. But it is claimed that
swelled wedges of wet wood were used to separate the stones from their
native bed.
As a ruin, Tiryns is rather difficult to reconstruct in the imagination
from the visible remains. The inclined ramp and the gateway, remains of
which are still standing, are interesting, but chiefly from the
remarkable size of the stones employed in their construction. Within,
the old palace is in a state of complete and comprehensive ruin. The
lines of the former palace walls may, however, be seen on the rocky
floor, with here and there a trace of an ancient column which has left
its mark on the foundation rock. The outer and inner courts, megaron,
men’s and women’s apartments, and even the remnants of a “bathroom” are
to be made out, the last-named bearing testimony to the fact that even
in the remote Mycenæan age the disposition of waste water was carefully
looked to—perhaps more carefully than was the case with the later
Greeks. The Tirynthian feature which eclipses everything else for
interest, however, is the arrangement of covered galleries of stone on
two sides of the palace, from which at intervals radiate side chambers
supposed to have been used for storage. To-day they recall rather more
the casements of our own old-fashioned forts. In these galleries the
rude foreshadowings of the arch principle are even more clearly to be
seen than in the underground conduit at Mycenæ which leads to the sunken
reservoir. The sides of the corridor are vertical for only a short
distance, and speedily begin to slope inward, meeting in an acute angle
overhead. The side chambers are of a similar construction. Nowhere does
it appear that the “Cyclopes,” if we may call them such, recognized the
principle of the keystone, although they seem to have come very close to
it by accident here and there, and notably so in the case of the little
postern gate which is to be seen on the side of the citadel toward the
modern highroad. As for the galleries, at the present day they are
polished to a glassy smoothness within by the rubbing of sheltering
flocks of sheep and goats. And they are interesting, not only because of
the massive stones used in building them, but because the similarity of
these corridors and storage chambers to the arrangements found near old
Carthage and other Ph[oe]nician sites may well argue a common paternity
of architecture, and thus give color to the tale that the ancient kings
of Argos secured artisans of marvelous skill and strength from abroad.
The immense size of the roughly hewn rocks easily enough begot the
tradition that these alien builders were men of gigantic stature, called
“Cyclopes” from the name of their king, Cyclops, and supposed to be a
race of Thracian giants; quite distinct, of course, from the other
mythological Cyclopes who served Hephaistos, or the Sicilian ones who
made life a burden for Odysseus on his wanderings. It seems to be a
plausible opinion now widely held that the foreign masons who erected
the Cyclopean walls in the Argolid were not from Thrace, but from the
southern shores of the Ægean—perhaps from Lycia. And it is interesting
to know that there are examples of the same sort of stone work, bearing
a similar name, to be found as far away as Peru.
A somewhat lower hillock just west of the main acropolis—if it deserves
that name—is shown as once being the servants’ quarters. And we
descended, as is the common practice, from the main ruin to the road, by
a rude stone stairway at what was formerly the back of the castle, to
the narrow postern, the stones of which form an almost perfect, but
doubtless quite accidental, archway; and thence to our carriage, which
speedily whirled us away to Nauplia. The road thither lay around a
placid bay, sweeping in a broad curve through a landscape which was
happily marked by some very creditable trees. Nauplia herself made a
pleasant picture to the approaching eye, lying on her well-protected
harbor at the base of an imposing cliff, on the top of which the
frowning battlements of an old Venetian fortress proclaimed the presence
of the modern state prison of Greece. The evening sun brought out the
whiteness of the city against the forbidding rock behind, while far away
westward across the land-locked bay the evening light touched with a
rosy glow the snowy summit of Cyllene, and brought out the rugged
skyline of the less lofty Peloponnesian mountains. And it was these that
lay before us as our carriage rattled out of a narrow street and upon
the broad esplanade of the quay at the doors of our hotel.
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