Whatever interpretation be put upon the myth, it seems clear that Argos could not feed its great cities without artificial irrigation, and this it owed to Danaus and his fifty daughters, “who were condemned perpetually to pour water in a tub full of holes,”—that is to say, into irrigation ditches which the thirsty soil kept draining dry.
Now our study of the Mycenæan remains has already constrained us to distinguish in the Argolid two strata of Mycenæan peoples, one of them originally dwelling on dry land in sunken huts, the other occupying pile settlements in lakes and swamps. And since tradition squares so remarkably with the facts in evidence, may we not venture to identify the marsh-folk with the Danaans and the landsmen with the Achæans?
But Achæans and Dorians were not alone in shaping and sharing Mycenæan culture; they had their congeners in other regions. Foremost among these were the Minyan founders of Orchomenos. As lake-dwellers and hydraulic engineers they are assimilated to the Danaans, whose near kinsmen they may have been, as the primitive islanders, whose abode we have found copied in the stone vases, must have been related to them both. Tradition has, in fact, preserved an account of the colonisation of Thera by a people coming from Bœotia, although it is uncertain whether it refers to the original occupation or to a settlement subsequent to the great catastrophe.
From the Danao-Minyan stock, it would appear that the Achæans parted company at an early date and continuing for a time in a different—most probably a mountainous—country, there took on ways of living proper to such environment. Later than the Danaans, according to the consistent testimony of tradition, they came down into the Peloponnesus and by their superior vigour and prowess prevailed over the older stock.
To these two branches of the race we may refer the two classes of tombs. The beehive and chamber tombs, as we have seen, have their prototype in the sunken huts: they belong to the Achæans coming down from the colder north. The shaft-graves are proper to the Danaan marsh-men. At Tiryns we find a shaft-grave, but no beehive or chamber tomb. At Orchomenos the Treasury of Minyas stands alone in its kind against at least eight tholoi and sixty chamber-tombs at Mycenæ. Hence, wherever this type of tombs abounds we may infer that an Achæan stock had its seat, as at Pronoia, in Attica, Thessaly, and Crete. Against this it may be urged that precisely at the Achæan capital, and within its acropolis at that, we find the famous group of shaft-graves with their precious offerings, as well as humbler graves of the same type outside the circle. But this, in fact, confirms our view when we remember it was the Danaid Perseus who founded Mycenæ and that his posterity bore rule there until the sceptre passed to Achæan hands in the persons of the Pelopidæ.[5] We have noted the close correspondence of the original fortress at Mycenæ with that of Tiryns, and its subsequent enlargement. Coincident with this extension of the citadel, the new type of tomb makes its appearance in the great domes,—some of them certainly royal sepulchres,—although the grave-circle of the acropolis is but half occupied. That circle, however, ceases thenceforth to be used as a place of burial, while the humbler graves adjacent to it are abandoned and built over with dwellings. With the new type of tomb we note changes of burial customs, not to be accounted for on chronological grounds: in the beehive tombs the dead are never embalmed, nor do they wear masks, nor are they laid on pebble beds—a practice which may have owed its origin to the wet ground about Tiryns.
There is but one theory on which these facts can be fully explained. It is that of a change in the ruling race and dynasty, and it clears up the whole history of Mycenæ and the Argive Plain. The first Greek settlers occupied the marshy sea-board, where they established themselves at Tiryns and other points; later on, when they had learned to rear impregnable walls, many of them migrated to the mountains which dominated the plain and thus were founded the strongholds of Larissa, Midea, and Mycenæ.
But while the Danaans were thus making their slow march to the north the Achæans were advancing southward from Corinth—a base of great importance to them then and always, as we may infer from the network of Cyclopean highways between it and their new centre. At Mycenæ, already a strong Perseid outpost, the two columns meet—when, we cannot say. But about 1500 B.C., or a little later, the Achæans had made themselves masters of the place and imposed upon it their own kings.
We have no tradition of any struggle in connection with this dynastic revolution, and it appears probable that the Achæans did not expel the older stock. On the contrary, they scrupulously respected the tombs of the Danaid dynasty—it may be, because they felt the claim of kindred blood. In manners and culture there could have been but little difference between them, for the Achæans had already entered the strong current of Mycenæan civilisation.
Indeed, we discern a reciprocal influence of the two peoples. Within certain of the Achæan tombs (as we may now term the beehives and rock chambers) we find separate shaft-graves, obviously recalling the Danaid mode of burial. On the other hand, it would appear that the typical Achæan tomb was adopted by the ruling classes among other Mycenæan peoples. Otherwise we cannot explain the existence of isolated tombs of this kind as at Amyclæ (Vaphio), Orchomenos, and Menidi—obviously the sepulchres of regal or opulent families; while the common people of these places—of non-Achæan stock—buried their dead in the ordinary oblong pits.
Achæan ascendency is so marked that the Achæan name prevails even where that stock forms but an inconsiderable element of the population. Notably this is true of Laconia, where the rare occurrence of the beehive tomb goes to show that the pre-Dorian inhabitants were mostly descended from the older stock, which we have encountered at Tiryns and at Orchomenos.[d]