Rambles and Studies in Greece

by J. P. Mahaffy

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 [pg 460]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 [pg 461]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 [pg 462]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 orna[pg 463]ment 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 [pg 464]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 [pg 465]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 [pg 466]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 [pg 467]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.