Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History / Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'

by James George Frazer

XXIV. The End of the Mycenaean Age.—The catastrophe which put an end to the Mycenaean civilisation in Greece would seem to have been the Dorian invasion, which, according to the traditional Greek chronology, befell about the middle of the twelfth century B.C. That the end of Mycenae and Tiryns was sudden and violent is proved by the conclusive evidence which shows that the palaces were destroyed by fire and that, once destroyed, they were never rebuilt. The date, too, of the Dorian invasion, so far as we can determine it, harmonises well with this view; for the Egyptian evidence of the existence of Mycenae comes down to about the time of the Dorian invasion, and there significantly stops. The cessation also of the characteristic Mycenaean pottery about the same date points to the same conclusion. It is not indeed to be supposed that the Dorians swept over Greece in one unbroken wave of conquest. The tide of invasion probably ebbed and flowed; raids were met and repelled, but were followed by incursions of fresh swarms of invaders, the new-comers steadily gaining ground, encroaching on and enveloping the ancient Mycenaean kingdoms till, the last barrier giving way before them, the capitals themselves were stormed, their treasures plundered, and the palaces given to the flames. The conflict between civilisation and barbarism, the slow decline of the former and the gradual triumph of the latter, may have lasted many years. It is thus that many, if not most, permanent conquests have been effected. It was thus that the Saxons step by step ousted the Britons, and the Danes obtained a footing in England; it was thus that the Turks slowly strangled the Byzantine empire. Events like the fall of Constantinople and the expulsion of the Moors from Granada are only the last scenes in tragedies which have been acting for centuries.

To attribute, with some writers, the creation instead of the destruction of the Mycenaean civilisation to the Dorians is preposterous, since the Dorian immigration did not take place till the twelfth century B.C., while the Mycenaean civilisation is known from Egyptian evidence to have existed from the middle of the fifteenth century B.C. at least. But this attribution involves other than chronological difficulties. The typical Dorians were the Spartans, and no greater contrast can well be conceived than that between the luxurious semi-Oriental civilisation of Mycenae and the stern simplicity of Sparta. On the one side we see imposing fortifications, stately tombs, luxurious baths, magnificent palaces, their walls gay with bright frescoes or glittering with burnished bronze, their halls crowded with a profusion of precious objects of art and luxury, wrought by native craftsmen or brought by merchants from the bazaars of Egypt and Assyria; and in the midst of all a sultan, laden with golden jewellery, listening to minstrels singing the tale of Troy or the wanderings of Ulysses. On the other side we see an open unfortified city with insignificant buildings, where art and poetry never flourished, where gold and silver were banned, and where even the kings prided themselves on the meanness of their attire. The Dorians, if we may judge of them by the purest specimens of the breed, were just as incapable of creating the art of Mycenae as the Turks were of building the Parthenon and St. Sophia.

Of the Greeks who were rendered homeless by the Dorian invasion most fled to Asia. There, on the beautiful island-studded coast, under the soft Ionian sky, a new Greece arose which, in its splendid cities, its busy marts, its solemn fanes, combined Greek subtlety and refinement with much of Asiatic pomp and luxury. By this long and brilliant after-glow of the Mycenaean civilisation in Asia we may judge, as it has been well said, what its meridian splendour had been in Europe.

XXV. Mount Arachnaeus.—Mount Arachnaeus is the high naked range on the left or northern side of the road as you go to the Epidaurian sanctuary from Argos. The most remarkable peak is Mount Arna, the pointed rocky summit which rises immediately above the village of Ligourio to a height of over three thousand five hundred feet. The western summit, Mount St. Elias, is somewhat higher. From the summit of Mount Arna the mountains of Megara and Attica are visible. It might well have been on its top that the beacon was lighted which flashed to Argos the news of the fall of Troy. The name Arachnaea is said to have been still used by the peasantry in the early part of this century. The altars of Zeus and Hera upon which, according to Pausanias, the people sacrificed for rain, appear to have stood in the hollow between the two peaks, for there is here a square enclosure of Cyclopean masonry which would appear to have been an ancient place of worship.

Mount Arachnaeus and the mountains of the Argolic peninsula in general are little better than a stony waterless wilderness. The climate is very dry, and the beds of all the streams are waterless except after heavy rain. The hardy little holly-oak and a few dun-coloured shrubs are almost the only representatives of plant life. The eye of the traveller is wearied by the grey monotony of these arid mountains and desert tablelands, and his feet are cut and bruised by the sharp stones over which he has painfully to pick his steps. Nowhere else in Greece, probably, is the scenery so desolate and forbidding.

XXVI. Epidaurus.—The city of Epidaurus was five Roman miles distant from the sanctuary of Aesculapius. But it takes about two hours and a half to ride the distance, for the road is very rough. The scenery on the way is extremely beautiful—a great contrast to the dull road from Nauplia to the sanctuary. The path leaves the open valley by a narrow glen at its northern end, and leads down deeper and deeper through luxuriantly wooded dells into the bottom of a wild romantic ravine. Here we follow the rocky bed of the stream for some distance between lofty precipitous banks. Farther on the path ascends the right bank of the stream, and we ride along it, with the deep ravine below us on the left and a high wall of rock on the right. The whole glen, as far as the eye can reach, is densely wooded. Wild olives, pines, plane-trees, Agnus castus, laurel, and ivy mantle its steep sides with a robe of green. In half an hour from the sanctuary another valley opens on the left, down which comes the road from Ligourio. After joining it we continue to follow the glen along a path darkened by trees and the luxuriant foliage of the arbutus, while beside us the stream flows through thickets of myrtle and oleander. In about half an hour more the valley opens out, and we see the sea, with the bold rocky headland of Methana stretching out into it on the right, the islands of Salamis and Aegina in the distance, and farther off the Attic coast lying blue but clear on the northern horizon.

Emerging at last from the valley we cross a little maritime plain, covered with lemon-groves, and reach the site of the ancient Epidaurus. Its position is very lovely. From the little maritime plain, backed by high mountains with wooded sides, a rocky peninsula juts out into the sea, united to the mainland only by a narrow neck of low marshy ground. It divides two bays from each other: the northern bay is well sheltered and probably formed the ancient harbour; the southern bay is an open roadstead. The ancient city seems to have lain chiefly on the peninsula, but to have extended also to the shores of the two bays. The rocky sides of the peninsula fall steeply into the sea, and it rises in two peaks to a height of about two hundred and fifty feet; the eastern peak is somewhat the higher. On the edge of the cliffs may be seen in some places, especially on the southern side of the peninsula, remains of the strong walls which enclosed the city. They are built chiefly in the polygonal style, of large blocks well cut and jointed.

The peninsula, now mostly overgrown with brushwood and shrubs, commands fine views both seaward and landward. The coast southward in the direction of Troezen is very bold and grand, the mountains rising here abruptly to a great height from the sea. At the head of the bay, on the other hand, the hills, wooded with pines, are lower, and between them appears the mouth of the valley up which the path leads through thickly wooded glens to the sacred grove of Aesculapius.

XXVII. The Temple in Aegina.—The temple stands on the top of a hill towards the north-east corner of the island, commanding superb views over the sea and the coasts of Attica and Peloponnese. It is distant about two and a half hours from the town of Aegina. Travellers from Athens who wish to visit the temple commonly land in the fine rocky bay of Hagia Marina on the eastern side of the island. A steep declivity, sparsely wooded with pine-trees, leads up from the shore of the bay to the temple. I shall always remember how on a lovely day in spring we landed here and lay under the pine-trees, looking down on the intensely blue but crystalline waters of the bay. The air was full of the fragrance of the pines, the yellow broom was in flower at our feet, and visible across the sea was the coast of Attica. It was a scene such as Theocritus might have immortalised.

XXVIII. The Sanctuary of Poseidon in Calauria.—The sanctuary is situated very picturesquely on a saddle between the two highest peaks of the island, both of which are covered with pine-woods. A walk of about an hour brings us to it from Poros, the modern capital of the island. The path at first skirts the southern shore of the island for a short way, then turns and ascends in a north-westerly direction through the pine-forest. From the sanctuary, which stands at a height of about six hundred feet above the sea, beautiful and wide prospects open between the wooded hills both to the north and the south. We look down on the sea with its multitudinous bays, creeks, promontories, and islands stretched out before us and framed as in a picture between the pine-clad hills on either hand. A fitter home could hardly have been found for the sea-god whose favourite tree—the pine—still mantles the greater part of the island.