MYCENÆ AND TIRYNS.
I have set apart a chapter for Mycenæ and Tiryns, because the discoveries
of Dr. Schliemann there have raised so many new problems, and have so
largely increased public curiosity about them, that a book of travels in
Greece cannot venture to avoid the subject; even long before Dr.
Schliemann’s day, the learned and deliberate travellers who visited the
Morea, and wrote their great books, found ample scope for description, and
large room for erudite discussion. It is a curious thing to add, but
strictly true, that all the new facts brought out by the late excavations
have, as yet, contributed but little to our knowledge about the actual
history of the country, and that almost every word of what was summed up
from all existing sources twenty years ago, by Ernst Curtius, can still be
read with far more profit than the rash speculations which appear almost
weekly in the periodical press.
It is impossible to approach Mycenæ from any side without being struck
with the picturesqueness of the site. If you come down over the mountains
from Corinth, as soon as you reach the head of the valley of the Inachus,
which is the plain of Argos, you turn aside to the left, or east, into a
secluded corner—“a recess of the horse-feeding Argos,” as Homer calls it,
and then you find on the edge of the valley, and where the hills begin to
rise one behind the other, the village of Charváti. When you ascend from
this place, you find that the lofty Mount Elias is separated from the
plain by two nearly parallel waves of land, which are indeed joined at the
northern end by a curving saddle, but elsewhere are divided by deep
gorges. The loftier and shorter wave forms the rocky citadel of Mycenæ—the
Argion, as it was once called. The lower and longer was part of the outer
city, which occupied both this hill and the gorge under the Argion. As you
walk along the lower hill, you find the Treasure-house of Atreus, as it is
called, built into the side which faces the Acropolis. But there are other
ruined treasuries on the outer slope, and the newly-opened one is just at
the joining saddle, where the way winds round to lead you up the greater
hill to the giant gate with the Lion portal. If we represent the high
levels under the image of a fishing-hook, with the shank placed downward
(south), and the point lying to the right (east), then the Great Treasury
is at that spot in the shank which is exactly opposite the point, and
faces it. The point and barb are the Acropolis. The New Treasury is just
at the turn of the hook, facing inward (to the south). This will give a
rough idea of the site. It is not necessary to enter into details, when so
many maps and plans are now in circulation. But I would especially refer
to the admirable illustrations in Schliemann’s _Mycenæ_, where all these
matters are made perfectly plain and easy.
When we first visited the place it was in the afternoon of a splendid
summer’s day; the fields were yellow and white with stubbles or with dust,
and the deep gray shadow of a passing cloud was the only variety in the
color of the upper plain. For here there are now no trees, the corn had
been reaped, and the land asserted its character as _very thirsty_ Argos.
But as we ascended to higher ground, the groves and plantations of the
lower plain came in sight, the splendid blue of the bay began to frame the
picture, and the setting sun cast deeper shadow and richer color over all
the view. Down at the river-bed great oleanders were spreading their
sheets of bloom, like the rhododendrons in our climate, but they were too
distant to form a feature in the prospect.
I saw the valley of Argos again in spring, in our “roaring moon of
daffodil and crocus;” it was the time of growing corn, of scarlet anemone
and purple cistus, but there too of high winds and glancing shadows. Then
all the plain was either brilliant green with growing wheat, or ruddy
brown with recent tillage; there were clouds about the mountains, and
changing colors in the sky, and a feeling of freshness and life very
different from the golden haze and dreamy calmness of a southern June.
[Illustration: The Argive Plain]
I can hardly say which of these seasons was the more beautiful, but I
shall always associate the summer scene with the charm of a first visit to
this famous spot, and still more with the venerable and undisturbed aspect
of the ruins before they had been profaned by modern research. It is, I
suppose, ungrateful to complain of these things, and we must admit that
great discoveries outbalance the æsthetic damage done to an ancient ruin
by digging unsightly holes and piling mounds of earth about it; but who
can contemplate without sorrow the covering of the finest piece of the
Cyclopean wall at Mycenæ with the rubbish taken away from over the tombs?
Who will not regret the fig-tree which spread its shade over the portal of
the House of Atreus? This fig-tree is still to be seen in the older
photographs, and is in the woodcut of the entrance given in Dr.
Schliemann’s book, but the visitor of to-day will look for it in vain. On
the other hand, the opening at the top, which had been there since the
beginning of this century, but which was closed when I first visited the
chamber, had been again uncovered, and so it was much easier to examine
the inner arrangement of the building.
I am not sure that this wonderful structure was visited or described by
any traveller from the days of Pausanias till after the year 1800. At
least I can find no description from any former traveller quoted in the
many accurate accounts which the present century has produced. Chandler,
in 1776, intended to visit Mycenæ, but accidentally missed the spot on his
way from Argos to Corinth—a thing more likely to happen then, when there
was a good deal of wooding in the upper part of the plain. But Clarke,
Dodwell, and Gell all visited and described the place between 1800 and
1806, and the latter two published accurate drawings of both the portal
and the inner view, which was possible owing to the aperture made at the
summit.
About the same time Lord Elgin had turned his attention to the Treasury,
and had made excavations about the place, finding several fragments of
very old engraved basalt and limestone, which had been employed to
ornament the entrance. Some of these fragments are now in the British
Museum. But, though both Clarke and Leake allude to “Lord Elgin’s
excavators,” they do not specify what was performed, or in what condition
the place had been before their researches. There is no published account
of this interesting point, which is probably to be solved by the still
unpublished journals said to be in the possession of the present
Earl.(174) This much is, however, certain, that the chamber was not first
entered at this time; for Dr. Clarke speaks of its appearance as that of a
place open for centuries. We know that systematic rifling of ancient tombs
took place at the close of the classical epoch;(175) we can imagine it
repeated in every age of disorder or barbarism; and the accounts we hear
of the Genoese plundering the great mounds of the Crimea show that even
these civilized and artistic Italians thought it no desecration to obtain
gold and jewels from unnamed, long-forgotten sepulchres. It seems,
therefore, impossible to say at what epoch—probably even before
Pausanias—this chamber was opened. The story in Dr. Schliemann’s
book,(176) which he quotes from a Greek newspaper, and which attributes
the plundering of it to Veli Pasha, in 1810, is positively groundless, and
in direct contradiction to the irrefragable evidence I have above adduced.
The Pasha may have probed the now ruined chambers on the outer side of the
hill; but the account of what he found is so mythical that the whole story
may be rejected as undeserving of credit.
I need not attempt a fresh description of the Great Treasury, in the face
of such ample and accurate reports as those I have indicated. It is in no
sense a rude building, or one of a helpless and barbarous age, but, on the
contrary, the product of enormous appliances, and of a perfect knowledge
of all the mechanical requirements for any building, if we except the
application of the arch. The stones are hewn square, or curved to form the
circular dome within with admirable exactness. Above the enormous
lintel-stone, nearly twenty-seven feet long, and which is doubly grooved,
by way of ornament, all along its edge over the doorway, there is now a
triangular window or aperture, which was certainly filled with some
artistic carving like the analogous space over the lintel in the gate of
the Acropolis. Shortly after Lord Elgin had cleared the entrance, Gell and
Dodwell found various pieces of green and red marble carved with
geometrical patterns, some of which are reproduced in Dodwell’s book. Gell
also found some fragments in a neighboring chapel, and others are said to
be built into a wall at Nauplia. There are supposed to have been short
columns standing on each side in front of the gate, with some ornament
surmounting them; but this seems to me to rest on doubtful evidence, and
on theoretical reconstruction. Dr. Schliemann, however, asserts them to
have been found at the entrance of the second treasury which Mrs.
Schliemann excavated, though his account is somewhat vague (_Mycenæ_, p.
140). There is the strongest architectural reason for the triangular
aperture over the door, as it diminishes the enormous weight to be borne
by the lintel; and here, no doubt, some ornament very like the lions on
the citadel gate may have been applied.
The extreme darkness of the chamber during our first visit prevented me
from discovering, even with the aid of torches, the nail-marks which all
the earlier travellers found there, and which are now again easily to be
seen. So also the outer lintel-stone is not by any means the largest, but
is far exceeded by the inner, which lies next to it, and which reaches on
each side of the entrance a long way round the chamber, its inner surface
being curved to suit the form of the wall. Along this curve it is
twenty-nine feet long; it is, moreover, seventeen feet broad, and nearly
four feet thick, weighing about one hundred and twenty-four tons!
When we first entered by the light of torches, we found ourselves in the
great cone-shaped chamber, which, strange to say, reminded me of the
Pantheon at Rome more than any other building I know, and is,
nevertheless, built on a very different principle. The stones are not,
indeed, pushed forward one above the other, as in ruder stone roofs
through Ireland; but each of them, which is on the other surfaces cut
perfectly square, has its inner face curved so that the upper end comes
out several inches above the lower. So each stone carries on the conical
plan, having its lower line fitting closely to the upper line of the one
beneath, and the whole dome ends with a great flat stone laid on the
top.(177)
Dodwell still found copper nails of some inches in length, which he
supposed to have been used to fasten on thin plates of shining metal; but
I was at first unable to see even the holes in the roof, which other
travellers had believed to be the places where the nails were inserted.
However, without being provided with magnesium wire, it was then
impossible to light the chamber sufficiently for a positive decision on
this point. A comparatively small side chamber is hollowed out in the rock
and earth, without any stone casing or ornament whatever, but with a
similar triangular aperture over its doorway. Schliemann tells us he dug
two trenches in this chamber, and that, besides finding some hewn pieces
of limestone, he found in the middle a circular depression (apparently of
stone), twenty-one inches deep, and about one yard in diameter, which he
compares to a large wash-bowl. Any one who has visited New Grange will be
struck with the likeness of this description to the large stone saucers
which are still to be seen there, and of which I shall speak presently.
There has been much controversy about the use to which this building was
applied, and we cannot now attempt to change the name, even if we could
prove its absurdity. Pausanias, who saw Mycenæ in the second century
A. D., found it in much the same state as we do, and was no better
informed than we, though he tells us the popular belief that this and its
fellows were treasure-houses like that of the Minyæ at Orchomenus, which
was very much greater, and was, in his opinion, one of the most wonderful
things in all Greece. But it does not seem to me that his opinion, which,
indeed, is not very clear, need in the least shackle our judgments.
The majority of scholars incline to the theory that it is a tomb. In the
first place, there are three other similar buildings quite close to it,
which Pausanias mentions as the treasure-houses of the sons of Atreus, but
their number makes it most unlikely that any of them could be for
treasure. Surely such a house could only be owned by the reigning king,
and there is no reason why his successor should make himself a new vault
for this purpose. In the next place, these buildings were all underground
and dark, and exactly such as would be selected for tombs. Thirdly, they
are not situated within the enclosure of the citadel of Mycenæ, but are
outside it, and probably outside the original town altogether—a thing
quite inconceivable if they were meant for treasure, but most reasonable,
and according to analogy, if they were used as tombs. This, too, would of
course explain the plurality of them—different kings having built them,
just like the pyramids of Chufu, Safra, and Menkerah, and many others,
along the plain of Memphis in Egypt. It is even quite easy and natural to
explain on this hypothesis how they came to be thought treasure-houses. It
is known that the sepulchral tumuli of similar construction in other
places, and possibly built by kindred people, contained much treasure,
left there by way of honor to the deceased. Herodotus describes this in
Scythian tombs, some of which have been opened of late, and have verified
his assertions.(178) The lavish expense at Patroclus’s funeral, in the
Iliad, shows the prevalence of similar notions among early Greeks, who
held, down to Æschylus’s day, that the importance of a man among the dead
was in proportion to the circumstance with which his tomb was treated by
the living. It may, therefore, be assumed as certain that these
strongholds of the dead, if they were such, were filled with many precious
things in gold and other metals, intended as parting gifts in honor of the
king who was laid to rest. Long after the devastation of Mycenæ, I suppose
that these tombs were opened in search of treasure, and not in vain; and
so nothing was said about the skeleton tenant, while rumors went abroad of
the rich treasure-trove within the giant portal. Thus, then, the tradition
would spring up and grow, that the building was the treasure-house of some
old legendary king.
These antiquarian considerations have led us away from the actual survey
of the old vault, for ruin it cannot be called. The simplicity and
massiveness of its structure have defied age and violence, and, except for
the shattered ornaments and a few pieces over the inner side of the
window, not a stone appears ever to have been moved from its place.
Standing at the entrance, you look out upon the scattered masonry of the
walls of Mycenæ, on the hillock over against you. Close beyond this is a
dark and solemn chain of mountains. The view is narrow and confined, and
faces the north, so that, for most of the day, the gate is dark and in
shadow. We can conceive no fitter place for the burial of a king, within
sight of his citadel, in the heart of a deep natural hillock, with a great
solemn portal symbolizing the resistless strength of the barrier which he
had passed into an unknown land. But one more remark seems necessary. This
treasure-house is by no means a Hellenic building in its features. It has
the same perfection of construction which can be seen at Eleutheræ, or any
other Greek fort, but still the really analogous buildings are to be found
in far distant lands—in the raths of Ireland and the barrows of the
Crimea.
I have had the opportunity of comparing the structure and effect of the
great sepulchral monuments in the county of Meath, in Ireland. Two of
these, Dowth and New Grange, are opened, and can be entered almost as
easily as the treasury of Atreus. They lie close to the rich valley of the
Boyne, in that part of the country which was pointed out by nature as the
earliest seat of wealth and culture. Dowth is the ruder and less
ornamented, and therefore not improbably the older, but is less suited for
the present comparison than the greater and more ornate New Grange.
This splendid tomb is not a whit less remarkable, or less colossal in its
construction, than those at Mycenæ, but differs in many details. It was
not hollowed out in a hillside, but was built of great upright stones,
with flat slabs laid over them, and then covered with a mound of earth. An
enormous circle of giant boulders stands round the foot of the mound.
Instead of passing through a short entrance into a great vaulted chamber,
there is a long narrow corridor, which leads to a much smaller, but still
very lofty room, nearly twenty feet high. Three recesses in the walls of
this latter each contain a large round saucer, so to speak, made of single
stone, in which the remains of the dead seem to have been laid. This
saucer is very shallow, and not more than four feet in diameter. The great
stones with which the chamber and passage are constructed are not hewn or
shaped, and so far the building is rather comparable with that of Tiryns
than that of Mycenæ. But all over the faces of the stones are endless
spiral and zigzag ornaments, even covering built-in surfaces, and thus
invisible, so that this decoration must have been applied to the slabs
prior to the building. On the outside stones, both under and above the
entry, there is a well-executed carving of more finished geometrical
designs.
Putting aside minor details, it may be said that while both monuments show
an equal display of human strength, and an equal contempt for human toil,
which were lavished upon them without stint, the Greek building shows far
greater finish of design and neatness of execution, together with greater
simplicity. The stones are all carefully hewn and fitted, but not carved
or decorated. The triangular carved block over the lintel, and the
supposed metal plates on the interior, were both foreign to the original
structure. On the contrary, while the Irish tomb is a far greater feature
in the landscape—a landmark in the district—the great stones within are
not fitted together, or hewn into shape, and yet they are covered with
patterns and designs strangely similar to the carvings found by Dodwell
and Dr. Schliemann at the Argive tombs. Thus the Irish builders, with far
greater rudeness, show a greater taste for ornament. They care less for
design and symmetry—more for beauty of detail. The Greek essay naturally
culminates in the severe symmetry of the Doric Temple—the Irish in the
glorious intricacy of the illuminations of the _Book of Kells_.
The second treasury lately excavated by Mrs. Schliemann has been
disappointing in its results. Though it seems not to have been disturbed
for ages, it had evidently been once rifled, for nothing save a few
fragments of pottery were found within. Its entrance is much loftier than
that of the house of Atreus, but the general building is inferior, the
stones are far smaller and by no means so well fitted, and it produces
altogether the impression of being either a much earlier and ruder
attempt, or a poor and feeble imitation. Though Dr. Schliemann asserts the
former, I am disposed to suspect the latter to be the case.
A great deal of what was said about the tomb of Agamemnon, as the common
people, with truer instinct, call the supposed treasure-house, may be
repeated about the fortifications of Mycenæ. It is the work of builders
who know perfectly how to deal with their materials—who can hew and fit
great blocks of stone with perfect ease; nay, who prefer, for the sake of
massive effect, to make their doorway with such enormous blocks as even
modern science would find it difficult to handle. The sculpture over the
gate fortunately remains almost entire. The two lions, standing up at a
small pillar, were looking out fiercely at the stranger. The heads are
gone, having probably, as Dr. Schliemann first observed, been made of
bronze, and riveted to the stone. The rest of the sculpture is intact, and
is of a strangely heraldic character. It is a piece of bluish
limestone,(179) which must have been brought from a long distance, quite
different from the rough breccia of the rest of the gate. The lintel-stone
is not nearly so vast as that of the treasure-house: it is only fifteen
feet long, but is somewhat thicker, and also much deeper, going back the
full depth of the gateway. Still it must weigh a good many tons; and it
puzzles us to think how it can have been put into its place with the
appliances then in vogue. The joint use of square and polygonal masonry is
very curious. Standing within the gate, one side is of square-hewn stones,
the other of irregular, though well-fitted, blocks. On the left side,
looking into the gate, there is a gap of one block in the wall, which
looks very like a window,(180) as it is not probable that a single stone
was taken, or fell out of its place afterward, without disturbing the
rest. What makes it, perhaps, more possible that this window is
intentional, is the position of the gate, which is not in the middle of
the walled causeway, as you enter, but to the right side.
When you go in, and climb up the hill of the Acropolis, you find various
other portions of Cyclopean walls which belonged to the old palace, in
plan very similar to that of Tiryns. But the outer wall goes all round the
hill where it is steepest, sometimes right along a precipice, and
everywhere offering an almost insurmountable obstacle to an ancient
assailant. On the east side, facing the steep mountain, which is separated
from it by a deep gorge, is a postern gate, consisting merely of three
stones, but these so massive, and so beautifully hewn and fitted, as to be
a structure hardly less striking than the lion gate. At about half the
depth of these huge blocks there is a regular groove cut down both sides
and along the top, in order to hold the door.
The whole summit of the great rock is now stony and bare, but not so bare
that I could not gather scarlet anemones, which found scanty sustenance
here and there in tiny patches of grass, and gladdened the gray color of
the native rock and the primeval walls. The view from the summit, when
first I saw it, was one of singular solitude and peace; not a stone seemed
to have been disturbed for ages; not a human creature, or even a browsing
goat, was visible, and the traveller might sketch or scrutinize any part
of the fortress without fear of intrusion, far less of molestation. When I
again reached the site, in the spring of 1877, a great change had taken
place. Dr. Schliemann had attacked the ruins, and had made his
world-renowned excavations inside and about the lion gate. To the gate
itself this was a very great gain. All the encumbering earth and stones
have been removed, so that we can now admire the full proportions of the
mighty portal. He discovered a tiny porter’s lodge inside it. He denied
the existence of the wheel-tracks which we and others fancied we had seen
there on our former visit.
[Illustration: Lion Gate, Mycenae]
But proceeding from the gate to the lower side, where the hill slopes down
rapidly, and where the great irregular Cyclopean wall trends away to the
right, Dr. Schliemann found a deep accumulation of soil. This was, of
course, the chief place on an otherwise bare rock where excavations
promised large results. And the result was beyond the wildest
anticipations. The whole account of what he has done is long before the
public in his very splendid book, of which the illustrations are quite an
epoch in the history of ornament, and in spite of their great antiquity
will suggest to our modern jewellers many an exquisite pattern. The sum of
what he found is this:—
He first found in this area a double circuit of thin upright slabs, joined
together closely, and joined across the top with flat slabs mortised into
them, the whole circuit being like a covered way, about three feet high.
Into the enclosed circle a way leads from the lion gate; and what I noted
particularly was this, that the whole circle, which was over thirty yards
in diameter, was separated from the higher ground by a very miserable
bounding wall, which, though quite concealed before the excavations, and
therefore certainly very old, looked for all the world like some Turkish
piece of masonry.
As soon as this stone circle was discovered, it was suggested that old
Greek _agoras_ were round, that they were often in the citadel at the
king’s gate, and that people were sometimes buried in them. Dr. Schliemann
at once baptized the place as the agora of Mycenæ. It was a circle with
only one free access, and that from the gate; it had tombstones standing
in the midst of it, and there were the charred remains of sacrifices about
them. The number of bodies already exhumed beneath preclude their being
all founders or heroes of the city. These and other indications were
enough to disprove clearly that the circle was an agora, but that it was
rather a place of sepulture, enclosed, as such places always were, with a
fence, which seems made in imitation of a palisade of wood.
Inside this circuit of stone slabs were found—apparently at the same
depth, but on this Dr. Schliemann is not explicit—very curious and very
archaic carved slabs, with rude hunting scenes of warriors in very
uncomfortable chariots, and varied spiral ornaments filling up the vacant
spaces. These sculptures are unlike any Hellenic work, properly so called,
and point back to a very remote period, and probably to the introduction
of a foreign art among the rude inhabitants of early Greece. Deeper down
were found more tombstones, all manner of archaic pottery, arrow-heads,
and buttons of bone; there was also found some rude construction of hewn
stones, which may have served as an altar or a tomb.
Yet further down, twenty-one feet deep, and close to the rock, were lying
together a number of skeletons, which seemed to have been hastily or
carelessly buried; but in the rock itself, in rudely hewn chambers, were
found fifteen bodies buried with a splendor seldom equalled in the history
of the world. These people were not buried like Greeks. They were not laid
in rock chambers, like the Scythian kings. They were sunk in graves under
the earth, which were large enough to receive them, had they not been
filled up round the bottom with rudely-built walls, or pieces of stone, so
as to reduce the area, but to create perhaps some ventilation for the fire
which had partly burnt the bodies where they were found. Thus the
splendidly-attired and jewelled corpses, some of them with masks and
breastplates of gold, were, so to speak, jammed down by the earth and
stones above them into a very narrow space; but there appears to have been
some arrangement for protecting them and their treasure from complete
confusion with the soil which settled down over them. This, if the account
of the excavation be accurate, seems the most peculiar feature in the
burial of these great personages, but finds a parallel in the curious
tombs of Hallstadt, which afford many analogies to Mycenæ.(181)
Dr. Schliemann boldly announced in the _Times_, and the public believed
him, that he had found Agamemnon, and his companions, who were murdered
when they returned from the siege of Troy. The burial is indeed quite
different from any such ceremony described in the Homeric poems. The
number of fifteen is not to be accounted for by any of the legends. There
is no reason to think all the tombs have been discovered; one, or at least
part of the treasure belonging to it, was since found outside the circle.
Another was afterward found by M. Stamatakes. Æschylus, our oldest and
best authority, places the tomb of Agamemnon, not at Mycenæ, but at Argos.
They all agree that he was buried with contempt and dishonor. The result
was, that when the public came to hear the Agamemnon theory disproved, it
was disposed to take another leap in the dark, and to look upon the whole
discovery as suspicious, and as possibly something mediæval.
Such an inference would be as absurd as to accept the hypothesis of Dr.
Schliemann. The tombs are undoubtedly very ancient, certainly far more
ancient than the supposed date of Homer, or even of Agamemnon. The
treasures which have been carried to Athens, and which I saw and handled
at the National Bank, are not only really valuable masses of gold, but
have a good deal of beauty of workmanship, both in design and decoration.
Though the masks are very ugly and barbarous, and though there is in
general no power shown of moulding any animal figure, there are very
beautiful cups and jugs, there are most elegant geometrical
ornaments—zigzags, spirals, and the like—and there are even imitations of
animals of much artistic merit. The celebrated silver bull’s head, with
golden horns, is a piece of work which would not disgrace a goldsmith of
our day; and this may be said of many of the ornaments. Any one who knows
the Irish gold ornaments in the Academy Museum in Dublin perceives a
wonderful family likeness in the old Irish spirals and decorations, yet
not more than might occur among two separate nations working with the same
materials under similar conditions. But I feel convinced that the best
things in the tombs at Mycenæ were not made by native artists, but
imported, probably from Syria and Egypt. This seems proved even by the
various materials which have been employed—ivory, alabaster, amber; in one
case even an ostrich egg. So we shall, perhaps, in the end come back upon
the despised legends of Cadmus and Danaus, and find that they told us
truly of an old cultured race coming from the South and the East to
humanize the barbarous progenitors of the Greeks.
I can now add important corroborations of these general conclusions from
the researches made since the appearance of my earlier editions. I then
said that the discoveries were too fresh and dazzling to admit of safe
theories concerning their origin. By way of illustration I need only
allude to those _savants_ (they will hereafter be obliged to me for
omitting their names) who imagined that all the Mycenæan tombs were not
archaic at all, but the work of northern barbarians who occupied Greece
during the disasters of the later Roman Empire! Serious researches,
however, have at last brought us considerable light. In the first place
Helbig, in an important work comparing the treasures of Mycenæ with the
allusions to art, arms, and manufactures in the Homeric poems, came to the
negative conclusion that these two civilizations were distinct—that the
Homeric poets cannot have had before them the palace of Mycenæ which owned
the Schliemann treasures. As there is no room in Greek history for such a
civilization posterior to the Homeric poems, it follows that the latter
must describe a civilization considerably later than that we have found at
Mycenæ. Placing the Homeric poems in the eighth century B. C. we shall be
led to about 1000 B. C. as the latest possible date for the splendors of
Mycenæ. But this negative conclusion has been well-nigh demonstrated by
the positive results of the various recent researches in Egypt. Not only
has the Egypt Exploration Society examined carefully the sites of
Naucratis and Daphne, thus disclosing to us what Greek art and manufacture
could produce in the sixth and seventh centuries B. C. (665–565 B. C.),
but Mr. Flinders Petrie has enriched our knowledge by his wonderful
discoveries of Egyptian art on several sites, and of many epochs, fairly
determinable by the reigning dynasties. He has recently (1890) examined
the Mycenæan and other pre-historic treasures collected at Athens, by the
light of his rich Egyptian experience, and has given a summary of the
results in two short articles in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_.
He finds that the materials and their treatment, such as blue glass, even
in its decomposition, alabaster, rock-crystal, hollowed and painted
within, dome-head rivets attaching handles of gold cups, ostrich eggs with
handles attached, ties made for ornament in porcelain, are all to be found
in Egyptian tombs varying from 1400 to 1100 in date. His analysis leads
him to give the dates for the tombs I.-IV. at Mycenæ as 1200–1100 B. C.
That an earlier date is improbable is shown by the negative evidence that
none of the purely geometrical false-necked vases occur, such as are the
general product of 1400–1200 in Egyptian deposits. But as several isolated
articles are of older types, as in particular the lions over the gate are
quite similar to a gilt wooden lion he found of about 1450 B. C. in date,
the Mycenæan civilization probably extended over a considerable period. He
even finds proof of decadence in grave IV. as compared with the rest, and
so comes to the conclusion, which I am disposed to question, that the
tombs within the circle at Mycenæ (shaft-tombs) are later and worse
interments made by the same people who had already built the more majestic
and costly bee-hive tombs. Instead therefore of upholding a Phrygian
origin, Mr. Petrie asserts an Egyptian origin for both Mycenæan and
parallel Phrygian designs. The spiral pattern in its various forms, the
rosettes, the keyfret, the palmetto, are all used in very early Egyptian
decoration. The inlaid daggers of Mycenæ have long been recognized as
inspired by Egypt; but we must note that it is native work and not merely
an imported article. The attitude of the figures and of the lions, and the
form of the cat, are such as no Egyptian would have executed. To make such
things in Greece implies a far higher culture than merely to import them.
The same remark applies to the glazed pottery; the style of some is not
Egyptian, so that here the Mycenæans were capable of elaborate technical
work, and imitated, rather than imported from Egypt.... The familiarity
with Egypt is further proved by the lotus pattern on the dagger-blade, by
the cat on the dagger, and the cats on the gold foil ornaments, since the
cat was then unknown in Greece. That the general range of the civilization
was that of Africa, is indicated by the frequent use of the palm (not then
known in Greece) as a decoration, and by the very scanty clothing of the
male figures, indicating that dress was not a necessity of climate. On the
other hand this culture reached out to the north of Europe. The
silver-headed reindeer or elk, found in grave IV., can only be the result
of northern intercourse. The amber so commonly used comes from the Baltic.
And we see in Celtic ornament the obvious reproduction of the decorations
of Mycenæ, as Mr. Arthur Evans has shown. Not only is the spiral
decoration indistinguishable,(182) but also the taste for elaborately
embossed diadems and breastplates of gold is peculiar to the Mycenæan and
Celtic cultures. The great period of Mycenæ seems therefore to date
1300–1100 B. C., with occasional traditional links with Egypt as far back
as 1500 or 1600 B. C.
Such is an abstract of Mr. Petrie’s estimate.(183)
I will only here point out, in addition, the remarkable unity of style
between the ornaments found at a depth of twenty-five feet in the tombs,
the sculptured tombstones twelve or fourteen feet over them, and the lions
on the gate of the citadel. It is, indeed, only a general uniformity, but
it corroborates Mr. Petrie’s inference that there was more than mere
importing; there was home manufacture. But still among the small gold
ornaments in the tombs were found several pairs of animals placed opposite
each other in this strictly _heraldic_ fashion, and even on the engraved
gems this symmetry is curiously frequent. It seems, then, that the art of
Mycenæ had not changed when its early history came to a close, and its
inhabitants were forced to abandon the fortress and submit to the now
Doric Argos.
We are, indeed, told expressly by Pausanias and Diodorus that this event
did not take place till after the Persian wars, when old Hellenic art was
already well defined, and was beginning to make rapid progress. But this
express statement, which I saw reason to question since my former remarks
on the subject in this book, I am now determined to reject, in the face of
the inconsistencies of these historians, the silence of all the
contemporaries of the alleged conquest, and the exclusively archaic
remains which Dr. Schliemann has unearthed. Mycenæ, along with Tiryns,
Midea, and the other towns of the plain, was incorporated into Argos at a
far earlier date, and not posterior to the brilliant rule of Pheidon. So
it comes that historical Greece is silent about the ancient capital of the
Pelopids, and the poets transfer all its glories to Argos. Once, indeed,
the name did appear on the national records. The offerings to the gods at
Olympia, and at Delphi, after the victory over the Persians, recorded that
a few patriots—460 in all—from Mycenæ and from Tiryns had joined the
Greeks at Platæa, while the remainder of the Argives preserved a base and
cowardly neutrality. The Mycenæans were very few in number; sixty are
mentioned in connection with Thermopylæ by Herodotus. They were probably
exiles through Greece, who had preserved their traditions and their
descent, and gloried in exposing and insulting Argive Medism. The
Tirynthian 400 may even have been the remnant of the slave population,
which Herodotus tells us seized the citadel of Tiryns, when driven out
from Argos twenty years before, and who lived there for some years. In the
crisis of Platæa the Greeks were not dainty or critical, and they may have
readily conceded the title of Tirynthian to these doubtful citizens, out
of hatred and disgust at the neutrality of Argos. However these things may
be, the mention of Mycenæans and Tirynthians on this solitary occasion
afforded an obvious warrant to Diodorus for his date of the destruction of
Mycenæ. But I am convinced that his authority, and that of Pausanias, who
follows him, must be deliberately rejected.
On the other hand, the origin of Mycenæ, and its greatness as a royal
residence, must be thrown back into a far deeper antiquity than any one
had yet imagined. If Agamemnon and his house represent Hellenic princes,
of the type of Homer’s knowledge and acquaintance, they must have arisen
after some older, and apparently different dynasties had ruled and had
buried their dead at Mycenæ.(184) But it is also possible that the Homeric
bards, describing professedly the acts of a past age, imposed their new
manners, and their own culture, upon the Pelopids, whom they only knew by
vague tradition, and that thus their drawing is false; while the chiefs
they glorify were the ancient pre-Hellenic rulers of the country. This
latter supposition is so shocking a heresy against “Homer” that I will not
venture to expand it, and will leave the reader to add any conjectures he
chooses to those which I have already hazarded in too great number.
When the splendid findings of Dr. Schliemann are taken out of their
bandboxes in the Bank of Athens, and arranged in the National Museum;(185)
when the diligence of Greek archæologists investigates thoroughly the
remainder of the site at Mycenæ, which is not nearly exhausted; when new
accidents (such as the discoveries at Sparta and Vaphio) and new
researches enlarge these treasures perhaps a thousand-fold, there will be
formed at Athens a museum of pre-historic art which will not have its
equal in the world (except at Cairo), and which will introduce us to an
epoch of culture which we hardly yet suspected, when writing and coinage
were unknown, when the Greeks had not reached unto their name, or possibly
their language, but when, nevertheless, considerable commerce existed,
when wonderful skill had already been attained in arts and manufactures,
and when men had even accumulated considerable wealth and splendor in
well-established centres of power.
The further investigation of the remains of Mycenæ, with the additional
evidence derived from the ruins of Tiryns, presently to be described, have
led Dr. Adler to explain Mycenæ as the record of a double foundation,
first by a race who built rubble masonry, and buried their dead in narrow
rock-tombs or graves, piling on the bodies their arms and ornaments;
secondly, after some considerable interval, by a race who built splendid
ashlar masonry, with well-cut blocks, and who constructed great beehive
tombs, where the dead could lie with ample room in royal state. The second
race enlarged, rebuilt, and refaced the old fortifications, added the
present lion gate, and built the so-called treasure-houses. For
convenience’ sake he calls them, according to the old legends, Perseids
and Pelopids respectively. Hence the tombs which Dr. Schliemann found were
really far older than any one had at first supposed, and if the record of
Homer points distinctly to the Pelopids, then the gold and jewels of a far
earlier people were hidden deep underground in the foundation of
Agamemnon’s fortress, merely marked by a sacred circle of stones and some
archaic gravestones.
To which of these stages of building do the ruins of Tiryns belong?
Apparently to the earlier, though here, again, the size of the stones used
is far greater than those in the first Mycenæ, and it is now certain that
the beginnings of artificial shaping are discernible in them. Since the
second edition of this book the walls have been uncovered and examined by
Dr. Schliemann, with the valuable advice and assistance of Dr. Dörpfeld,
so that I may conclude this chapter with a brief summary of the results
they have attained.
The upper part of the rock of Tiryns, which consisted of two plateaus or
levels, was known to contain remains of building by the shafts which Dr.
Schliemann had already sunk there in former years. But now a very
different method of excavating was adopted—that of uncovering the surface
in layers, so that successive strata of debris might be clearly
distinguished. This exceedingly slow and laborious process, which I saw
going on for days at Tiryns with very little result, brought out in the
end the whole plan of a palace, with its gates, floors, parting walls, and
pillar bases, so that in the admirable drawing to be seen in the book
called _Tiryns_, Dr. Dörpfeld has given us the first clear view of an old
Greek, or perhaps even pre-Hellenic, palace. The partial agreement with
the plan of the palaces of Troy, and of Mycenæ, since discovered, and the
adoption in Hellenic temples of the plan of entrance, here several times
repeated—two pillars between antæ—show that the palace at Tiryns was not
exceptional, but typical.
All the gates leading up into this palace are still distinctly marked by
the threshold or door-sill, a great stone, lying in its place, with
grooves inserted for the pivots of the doors, which were of wood, but had
their pivots shod with bronze, as was proved by the actual remains. These
doors divided a double porch, entered either way between two pillars of
wood, standing upon stone bases still in their place, and flanked by antæ,
which were below of stone and above of wood dowelled into the stone piers.
All the upper structure of the gates, and, indeed, of all the palace,
seems to have been of wood. There are clear signs of a great
conflagration, in which the palace perished. This implies the existence of
ample fuel, and while the ashes, mud-bricks, etc., remain, no trace of
architrave, or pillar, or roof has been found. There are gates of similar
design leading into the courts and principal chamber of the palace, the
floors of which are covered with a careful lime concrete marked with line
patterns, and so sloped as to afford easy drainage into a vent leading to
pipes of terra cotta, which carried off water. The same careful
arrangements are observed in the bath-room, with a floor of one great
stone, twelve feet by nine, which is likewise pierced to carry off water.
The remains of a terra cotta tub were found there, and the walls of the
room were panelled with wood, set into the raised edge of the floor-stone
by dowels sunk in the stone. No recent discovery is more interesting than
this.
Of the walls little remains but the foundations, and here and there a
couple of feet of mud-bricks, with signs of beams let into them, which
added to the conflagration. But enough remains to show that the walls of
the better rooms were richly covered with ornament. There is a fresco of a
bull still preserved, and reproduced in Dr. Schliemann’s book; and there
was also found a very remarkable frieze ornament in rosettes and brooch
patterns, made of blue glass paste (supposed to be Homer’s _κύανος_) and
alabaster. This valuable relic shows remarkable analogies in design to
other prehistoric ornaments found in Greece.
The size of the main hall, or men’s apartment, is very large, the floor
covering about 120 square yards, and the parallel room in the palace at
Troy was consequently taken to be the cella of a temple. But there seems
no doubt that the great room at Tiryns, with a hearth in the middle and
four pillar bases near it, supporting, perhaps, a higher roof, with a
clerestory, was the main reception room of the palace; a smaller room of
similar construction, not connected with the former, save by a circuitous
route through passages, seems to have been the ladies’ drawing-room.
If I were to attempt any full description of this wonderful place I should
be obliged to copy out a great part of the fifth chapter in Dr.
Schliemann’s book, in which Dr. Dörpfeld has set down very modestly, but
very completely, the results of his own acuteness and research. Many
things which are now plain enough were perfect riddles till he found the
true solution, and the acuteness with which he has utilized the smallest
hints, as well as the caution of his conclusions, make this work of his a
very model of scientific induction.
He says, rightly enough, that a minute description is necessary, because a
very few years will cover up much of the evidence which he had plainly
before him. The concrete floors, the remains of mud-brick walls, the plan
of the various rooms, will be choked up with grass and weeds, unless they
are kept covered and cleared. The rain, which has long since washed all
traces of mortar out of the walls, will wash away far more now that the
site is opened, and so the future archæologist will find that the book
_Tiryns_ will tell him much that the actual Tiryns cannot show him.
The lower platform on the rock is not yet touched, and here perhaps
digging will discover to us the remains of a temple, from which one very
archaic Doric capital and an antefix have found their way to the higher
rock. There are traces, too, of the great fort being the second building
on the site, over an older and not yet clearly determined palace.
Two things are plain from these discoveries, and I dwell on them with
satisfaction, because they corroborate old opinions of mine, put forth
long before the principal evidence was forthcoming. First, the general use
of wood for pillars and architraves, so showing how naturally the stone
temple imitated the older wooden buildings. Secondly, the archaic or
ante-Hellenic character of all that was found at Tiryns, with the solitary
exception of the architectural fragments, which certainly have no building
to correspond to them where they were found. Thus my hypothesis, which
holds that Tiryns, as well as Mycenæ, was destroyed at least as early as
Pheidon’s time (660 B. C.), and not after the Persian wars, receives
corroboration which will amount to positive proof in any mind open to
evidence on the point.