I left Argos on the 14th, and visited the ruins of Mycene, where the gates, the walls, and the circular, subterranean chambers called treasuries, are perhaps the most interesting relics remaining of early Grecian antiquity. The ruins occupy some eminences at the foot of the mountains opposite to Argos. I hunted in vain for some curious fragments, said by Sir W. Gell to exist near a small chapel, and guided by him, descended to a bridge which he thinks was formed by advancing courses of stone, but I could see no traces of such a construction. It seemed to me a rude pier of unhewn stones, probably supporting beams laid across the torrent.
The Treasury of Atreus is a circular room about 56 feet in diameter, covered by the successive advance of each course of stones, which are cut into something of a curve. The top has been broken in, by which means we have sufficient light to examine it, but the present approach is along a deep trench which has been recently dug, to the ancient entrance; how this doorway was originally accessible, I do not very well know. In spite of its position and of its antiquity, it has something like a regular architrave, and above this, there is a triangular opening, which perhaps has been occupied by a piece of sculpture; at least a comparison with the gate of the citadel would lead us to such a conclusion. The motive of leaving such a space, covered like the room itself, by the advance of each course, was to relieve the lintel from the superincumbent weight; this lintel is in two pieces, the innermost of which is about 27 feet long, 19 feet wide, and above 4 feet thick. What can have been the motive of using such an immense slab, is not readily conceived, and the labour of placing it must have been immense; they probably had not to transport it far; for it is, I believe, of the rock of the mountain, a calcareous breccia, perhaps a Magnesian limestone; three holes are cut in it, two of which may have been to receive the pivots of the doors.
The inside of the room is supposed to have been covered with plates of bronze. The holes for the bronze pins which fastened this covering are visible all over it, and some stumps of the pins themselves may be discovered by a careful examination, but I did not see any sticking out from the face of the work, as Clarke has represented them. There is an internal chamber, which seemed to me merely an excavation in the rock. Dodwell considers it as an artificially constructed chamber like the other, and not disencumbered from the compact earth, which has filled great part of both of them. There is another edifice of the same nature nearer to the citadel, a little broken in at the top, but otherwise inaccessible. The citadel itself exhibits a large circuit of Cyclopean walls, composed of stones which have been in some degree shaped by human labour. In some parts of the wall they have been very accurately fitted, in others they are more loosely put together. The gateway recedes, and you arrive at it through a sort of lane formed by the walls, and almost filled up with bushes of the Vitex Agnus Castus. It is ornamented with two figures of animals, which occupy a triangular space over the entrance; they have lost their heads, perhaps by violence, as they do not seem much weather-worn; but I will not detain you with a subject on which so much has been written by those whose pursuits have better qualified them to do justice to this interesting relick, perhaps the most ancient bas-relief in existence, for the figures on the Egyptian temples can hardly be included in that name. The pivot-holes in the lintel in which the doors worked, remain very perfect, and they are here placed in a square rebate. Besides these objects, there are here a curious old gateway, and some other fragments; but the weather was wet, and I was very unwell; so that I did not give to the place half the examination it deserved.
On leaving Mycene I continued my journey up a pleasant, but uncultivated valley, above which are some hollows in the rocks, said to have been the haunts of the Nemæan lion. I left it at last, and crossed the mountain, or rather hill, on the left, in order to visit the ruins of the temple of Jupiter at Nemæa. They lie in an open valley about five miles long, and one and a half broad, (to judge by the eye) for the most part cultivated, but without habitation. The Greek or Albanian peasant, for the latter seem to be scattered everywhere, sows his land, and leaves it with scarcely any attendance till harvest, when he erects a hut, in which he resides till he has reaped and carried away the produce, living the rest of the year in the towns, or in villages, where he may unite with his countrymen for mutual protection. It is better thus to snatch what nature will give, than to obtain at more expense a larger quantity subject to the extortion of the Turks.
There are three columns erect at Nemæa, but a large proportion of the whole number lie as they have fallen. It was not a building of any very high degree of beauty; the proportions are too slender, and the capitals too small. The walls were built of slabs set on edge, in two thicknesses, the horizontal joints being broken, while the middle upright joint continued all the way. There are some fragments of other buildings, and the hollow of a theatre.
Various foundations and other fragments of architecture occur in the way from Nemæa to Kourtessa, where I slept. I believe these are the remains of Cleone, but my attendant pretended to have found out that these are at Clenai, a village not in the direct road to Corinth. After riding two hours the next morning in their supposed direction, it appeared clearly that he had been misled, and we took the nearest path to Corinth, passing in this instance behind the Acropolis. I went immediately to my old lodging, at the house of the physician, who told me that four English gentlemen were residing in his house, but they were gone out to draw. I walked to the temple and found them there; three of them were artists, two of whom, Mr. Eastlake and Mr. Kinnaird, I had known at Rome, and the third, Mr. Barry, brought me a letter of introduction from England. This was a very pleasant meeting for me, and induced me to stay more contentedly at Corinth than I otherwise should have done. They were impatient to arrive at Athens, but the confident reports we had of the plague in that city, made them determine to remain a day or two here, in hopes of obtaining more certain accounts. I soon learnt that the packet would not sail before the 25th, which would have given me time to visit Tripolizza and Phigalea, had I been well enough. Meanwhile I paid a visit with one of the party to Basilica, the ancient Sicyon. The theatre there is very curious, because with the site and disposition of a Greek theatre, it exhibits an arched entrance on each side. If we combine the history of the place with the appearances on the spot, we shall confidently conclude that this arch is prior to the time of Augustus, but I cannot venture to fix on a more precise date. There is also a stadium, and the natural hollow in the hill not having been long enough, the lower part has been carried out beyond it, and supported by Cyclopean walls.
These ruins are at some distance beyond the present village, on the summit of a sloping terrace of gravel or rubble, such as I have already described to you at Vostizza. Somewhat nearer, and lower down, there are remains of some large, brick edifices, probably of Roman construction, and foundations of several buildings, but apparently not so perfect as to enable us to determine their plans and destinations. Some of them are formed of large stones, others of brick, and their scattered remains extend almost to the site of the present village. The situation altogether occupies an elevated plane a little inclined, intersected by deep and ragged ravines, and breaking down suddenly into a lower plain, which is a continuation of that of Corinth, and extends to the gulf, whose magnificent expanse lies beneath us.
On our return we found the physician in a great fume, as he had been informed that some French gentlemen had arrived at Kenkhrea, and sent a messenger to him. This man had not arrived, but old Andrea declared he should not come near him, and that if he spoke to him at all, it should be out of the window. Within an hour the man was in the house, assuring us that there was no plague at Athens. This determined my friends to prosecute their journey in spite of the remonstrances of Andrea, who still insisted that he had proof that there was; and in the evening I engaged a passage in a boat, and set off for Patras.
On the 19th of May we spent the whole day on the water, pleasantly sailing with a hardly sensible breeze. Patches of snow still marked several summits of the Morea, and there was seen one patch on the first or gravelly range. Helicon appeared clear, but I was looking at the southern face of this mountain, and at the northern of those in the Morea. Parnassus retained a considerable quantity, but not a complete covering. A mountain to the north-west was entirely capped with it, and it spread a great way down the sides. I am not able to determine what mountain this is, and my boatmen have no name for it, but it seems to occupy the situation where Mount Corax is placed in some maps. I amused myself with examining the different appearances of a singular Medusa. The animal in its most perfect state, is a firm, pellucid, bagshaped jelly, with a deep orange spot in the lower part, but never quite at the bottom of the bag; from this point runs a band, in which the substance is thicker and firmer than elsewhere, and which terminates at each end, at the mouth of the bag. In smaller specimens we can hardly perceive a row of minute orange-coloured dots along this band, but in the larger ones these are very conspicuous; at last the thinner parts seem to dissolve, and we observe the strings floating in the water, extending several feet in length, and composed of little masses of jelly hanging together like beads, each with its orange spot. These as they divide, begin again to exhibit something of a bag-like form, and the process recommences. It was so abundant, that I had no difficulty in obtaining specimens in all its stages: the boatmen called it takhándri.
On the 20th about noon I arrived at Patras, where by the assistance of Mr. Green, the brother of the new consul, I obtained a very good lodging; the consul himself being absent to pay his respects to the pashaw of Tripolizza.