The mass of so-called cyciopean masonry, on the right, buttresses the upper part of the Acropolis of Mycenæ. The wall at right angles to it contains the Lion Gate, and the large triangular stone above the lintel is the back of the well-known relief of lions or lionesses regardant, probably the most ancient piece of sculpture in Greece. In the foreground is shown the singular double wall and gateway of the enclosure, called by Schliemann the Agora, within which he found the treasures of Mycenæan art now in the Central Museum in Athens.
antiquarian (who could not see over them) describes as ‘built for the love of building.’ ”
The modern traveller can hardly fail to be struck, as Thucydides was, with the limited dimensions of a city which is said to have sent a hundred ships to Troy, besides providing sixty for the Arcadians, while Athens only sent fifty. But it is evident from the ruins that the city was not confined within the walls; and, after all, the size of a city, like that of a country, is not always a safe criterion of its wealth and influence. According to Pausanias, the only genuine work of Hephæstus that was to be seen in his day was the sceptre which that divine artificer presented to Zeus, and which Zeus gave to Hermes, and Hermes to Pelops, and Pelops to Atreus, and Atreus to his brother Thyestes, and Thyestes to Agamemnon, that he might “have dominion over many islands and over all Argos.”
A still older and better preserved specimen of the Homeric citadel and palace is to be seen at Tiryns, the fabled residence of Heracles, which lies about a mile from the sea, near the marshy land in which the famous steeds of Argos probably found pasture. It is situated on a long rocky hillock, less than 100 feet above the level of the sea, which was no doubt once an island, before the alluvial deposits from the mountain sides had encroached so far on the domain of Poseidon. Its walls, to which Homer alludes, form one of the most striking monuments of the heroic age. They are in some places considerably over fifty feet thick, and the stones of which they are composed are of great size, from six to ten feet long, and about three feet in height and in thickness. But though the stones are larger than those of Mycenæ they show more signs of hewing, and were originally held together by clay mortar. In the palace at the southern end, of which the ground plan can be distinctly traced, one can recognise a general similarity to the Homeric palace. In the chief entrance, which is evidently the archetype of the propylæa at Athens, one can see the hole in the door-post and the adjoining wall, into which the great wooden bar was shot when the door was open. After passing through a spacious circular court with an altar of Zeus in the centre, you enter through a portico into the chief apartment or hall. Round the hearth in the centre stood the four pillars which supported the roof. It was against one of these pillars that Odysseus was told he would find the queen Areté sitting in the palace of Alcinous, spinning purple wool in the light of the fire. You can also identify the bathroom, with its solid limestone floor, and can even see a terra-cotta fragment of the well-polished tubs referred to by the great minstrel, with receptacles in the wall, probably intended for the oil which was considered indispensable after the bath. Wall-paintings have also been discovered and specimens of a frieze of a bluish colour, supposed to be the kuanos referred to in Homer as adorning the walls of the Phæacian palace. With the exception of the lower parts, a few feet high, the walls were evidently built of wood or clay, and appear to have been destroyed
