Rambles and Studies in Greece

by J. P. Mahaffy

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 [pg 483]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 [pg 484]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 [pg 485]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 [pg 486]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 [pg 487]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 [pg 488]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, [pg 489]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.