Then, again, as we have already hinted, these examples show that the pointed arch, simply as a constructive form, is as old as the round. Because the pointed arch happened to become the leading feature of an architectural style later than the round arch, we are apt to fancy that the form is later in its own nature, that it must have been developed out of the round, that he who built the first pointed arch must have seen round arches. Yet the pointed form is just as natural in itself, just as likely to occur to a primitive builder. Indeed we might almost say that it was more likely. The first step towards the arch would doubtless be setting two stones to lean against one another, and this would lead much more easily to the pointed arch than to the round. It so happened that the first Italian builders whose strivings after the arch were quite successful were led to the round and not to the pointed form. But had the Tusculan or the Tirynthian engineer actually reached the construction to which he came so near, an architectural style, with the pointed arch for its great constructive feature, might have arisen in Latium or Argolis a thousand years before it actually did arise under Saracenic hands.
Again, in considering these matters, we must carefully keep ourselves back from any tempting ethnological theories, above all from such ethnological theories as lurk in the dangerous word Pelasgian. No one doubts the near connexion of the old Italian and the old Greek races, a connexion nearer than that of common Aryan origin. But the same kind of analogies which may be seen in their earlier buildings may be seen also in the early buildings of races which are much further apart. If Tiryns finds its best parallel at Tusculum, Mykênê finds its best parallel at New Granga. Nearly just the same strivings after the arch may be found in more than one land altogether beyond the pale of European or Aryan fellowship, as for instance in the ruined cities of Central America. The analogies in the primæval architecture of remote nations exactly answer to the analogies in their weapons, dress, and customs. They belong to the domain of Mr. Tylor.
But, while the remains at Tiryns have this special interest for the student of architectural history, they show also how far the primitive engineers had advanced in the scientific study of the art of defence. Even the non-military observer can well take this in on the eastern side. There rises what, seen from within, seen in a direct view from without, the beholder is apt to call a tower. But it is merely that the wall is either better preserved at this point or else was higher from the beginning. Here was one chief approach to the fortress, and it was guarded by what, in the technical language of Colonel Leake, is called a ramp. The only approach to the gate was by going up an ascent formed by an advanced wall, made so that an assailant would expose his unshielded side to the defenders of the fort. This skilful piece of fortification, with the sally-port which is so nearly perfect, and another, traces of which remain on the other side, shows that the primitive engineers, call them Kyklôpes or anything else, had advanced a long way beyond mere mechanical piling together of stones.
The walls doubtless fence in only the akropolis, the primitive city, answering to the oldest Athens, to the oldest Rome on the Palatine. How far the town may have spread itself over the surrounding plain we have no means of judging. We cannot believe that Tiryns ever became a great city like Argos and Corinth. Its name vanishes from history too soon for that. But at Tiryns, as we shall also see at Mykênê, there was an upper and a lower city within the fortified enclosure itself. Greek antiquaries call the higher level a καταφύγιον, a place of refuge, but it is the strongly fortified part to which the approaches lead. Was this the royal citadel, and was the lower part the dwelling-place of the other original settlers before the town had spread at all beyond the present akropolis? The military objects of the two levels are gone into by Colonel Leake, but we must remember that these ancient strongholds were not, like modern forts, built simply to be attacked and defended. They were dwelling-places of man, fortified because they were dwelling-places of man. One would think that the whole of the first body of settlers would find shelter within the walls. There was the king on the higher level; the rest of the tribe was below. A δῆμος might or might not arise beyond their defences. At Rome and Athens such a δῆμος did arise, and made the history of Rome and Athens different from that of Tiryns.
It is a wonderful thing to stand beneath these mighty walls, raised out of the huge blocks which seem too great for mortal men to have piled. Nowhere else does the line of thought which they suggest come out so strongly. On the Athenian akropolis there are blocks ruder than those of Tiryns itself, but they are hidden by the great works of more polished days. At Mykênê the walls, mighty as they are, have almost yielded to tombs, gates, and treasuries. At Tiryns it is the walls and the walls alone which seem to speak of its days of power. Tiryns struck men as being τειχιόεσσα in the days of the Homeric Catalogue. It is as τειχιόεσσα and as τειχιόεσσα only, that it strikes us still.
Argos.
A short drive—we are still within the region where driving is possible—takes us from Tiryns to Argos, from the destroyed city to the destroyers. The contrast is striking. Argos, through all changes, has always remained a dwelling-place of man, and not only a dwelling-place of man, but a town of some importance, according to the standard of its own age and place. Modern Athens is an artificial city. It is a town which might have stood anywhere else, built at the foot of the ancient akropolis and around the churches of Eirênê. Modern Argos is not an artificial town; it has come to be what it is by the gradual operation of ordinary historical causes. It shows us what an ancient Greek city, neither ruined nor forsaken nor artificially fostered, but left to the working of natural circumstances, finds itself after long ages of Roman, Venetian, Turkish, and restored Greek rule. The chief remark which the place suggests to a Western eye is how little there is to remark. In the modern town there is no remarkable building of any kind, old or new. The modern cathedral is large and is meant to be of some pretensions, but one would gladly exchange it for the tiny metropolitan church of Athens, or for any other church of genuine Byzantine style and date. The town itself covers a large space, and contains a considerable population. Setting apart the capital and the great seaports, Argos ranks high among the existing cities of Greece. Yet to a Western eye it has an unpleasing, almost a barbarous, look. It is dirty, irregular, with neither Western neatness nor Eastern picturesque effect. An old Venetian possession, one might have expected that St. Mark might have planted somewhat of his impress here, as he has done on so many of his subject cities. If Argos were even as Traü, no one would complain, but, since the Venetian, Argos has seen the Turk, and that is enough to account for the difference. Argos is not lacking in recent history. It was the scene of important events during the War of Independence, when it acted several times as the common meeting-place of Greece. It is still, we believe, a thriving place after its own standard, but that is not the standard of Western Europe, nor yet the standard of Syra and Patras. Yet it sets us thinking whether a town in Western Europe, five or six hundred years back, may not have looked much the same. In one point indeed there was a difference. No Western mediæval town of the same population as modern Argos would have spread over the same space. That is to say, the modern town lies scattered, doubtless because it represents an ancient city of far greater extent.