It is remarkable that this tendency to localization has been in all ages a mark of the ghost, and still marks him in the cases investigated by the Psychical Society. Yet the local character of ghosts has not become an impediment in the way of the acceptance of the Christian doctrines of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Among our ancestors, just as among the Greeks, beliefs could lie in strata, and inconsistencies between a belief of one stratum and a belief of another stratum had little disturbing power. When Campbell writes in his noble address to the Mariners of England, ‘The spirits of your fathers shall start from every wave,’ he can scarcely be supposed to deny that the souls of British naval heroes had found a heavenly resting-place.
Sometimes, however, the Greek mind was disturbed by inconsistencies of this kind, and evolved a theory for their explanation. Thus a later interpolator of the Odyssey, being scandalized by the assertion of Odysseus that he saw in Hades the mighty Herakles, adds[47], ‘his ghost (εἴδωλον) only; since he himself joys amid the delights of the immortal gods.’ Others supposed that it was only the spirits of the unburied which hovered around their bodies: and it is an ingenious modern theory that the custom of burning the bodies of the dead arose out of the desire to prevent them from disturbing the living. But in spite of everything, the Greek dead retained to the last their right to levy tribute on their descendants and friends.
CHAPTER IV
THE PRE-HISTORIC AGE OF GREECE
When we turn from the facts of Greek cult and belief as to a future life to the monuments of the dead, and set them in chronological order, the first group which commands our attention is that which belongs to the pre-historic city of Mycenae. We cannot here speak of the wealth of gold and silver, of bronze and ivory, which the fortunate spade of Dr. Schliemann brought to light within the sacred circle in the Acropolis of the city[48]. We must pass by the contents of the graves of the wealthy pre-historic monarchs of Mycenae, and confine our survey to the outward and sculptural adornments of their tombs. These fall into two well-marked and clearly distinguished classes. First, we have the conical so-called treasuries, of which several exist in the neighbourhood of Mycenae, as well as at Orchomenus, Menidi and other spots of Greece; secondly, we have the carved tombstones which were set up over the graves in the Mycenaean Acropolis.
The larger and more elaborate of the so-called treasuries of pre-historic Greece, such as the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae, and the Treasury of Minyas at Orchomenus, consist of two chambers, a larger outer chamber, which is circular in plan and of conical form, resembling in fact the beehive to which it has often been compared, and a cubical inner chamber, of much smaller dimensions. The accompanying engraving will make this clear ([Fig. 14]). The architect of the Mycenaean tomb had no small skill. The colossal size of the stones, especially of that over the door and of some in the dromos or approach, arouses the astonishment of the modern visitor, who wonders by what machinery and appliances blocks so colossal were transported from the quarries and placed in position. The gradual inward slope of the walls, each course of which somewhat overlaps the course below, is managed with great skill and accuracy. Rows of nails, some remains of which are still to be seen in the inner walls, supported, not indeed as some have supposed, a complete bronze lining to the conical chamber, but rows of stars or other ornaments, on which would glitter the light of the torches ([Fig. 15]). Perhaps the most expressive characteristic of all is the lavish expenditure of labour on a building which was entirely buried with earth, and on the magnificent approach built of hewn stones, when something far simpler and more effective might have been arranged. Evidently the builders of these monuments thought no trouble and no expense wasted, if only the dead were honoured and gratified.
FIG. 14. SECTIONAL PLAN OF THE SO-CALLED TREASURY OF ATREUS[49].
A simpler form of tomb of the same age and style dispensed with the square side-chamber, and consisted of a beehive building only. The engraving ([Fig. 16]) gives the plan of such a tomb near the Lion Gate of Mycenae.
FIG. 15. RESTORATION OF INTERIOR OF TREASURY, BY C. CHIPIEZ[50].]>