TREASURIES OF ATREUS. 233 Athens one day asked my friend Mr. Cockerell how Englishmen amused themselves in Greece? His reply was, in examining antiquities and ancient cities which were greatly celebrated in the accounts of historians. The next question was, do those same historians in their accounts ever tell you where to find sequins? Descending down a slope flanked with enormous walls, we arrived at a plain entrance, noble in its simplicity and magnitude, being ten feet in breadth by eighteen in depth, whilst one of the stones composing the architrave or lintel of this portal, being a single block, is twentyseven feet long, sixteen broad, and four deep: immediately over it is a triangular aperture, which probably once contained sculpture pertaining to Egyptian rites: the pyramidal form of the triangle is considered an emblem of the fiery element. The chief apartment of this treasury is a dome, very similar in shape to one of our English bee-hives: it is curiously constructed, like the galleries of Tiryns, with large blocks in parallel horizontal courses, each course projecting over the one immediately below it, whilst the interior surface is cut into form by aid of the chisel. The diameter of the area is forty-seven feet: at the end of the first quadrant, to the right of the entrance, is a passage leading to an inner room (about twenty-seven feet by twenty in dimensions), the walls of which are not lined by any kind of masonry; probably however this was the depository of the treasure, holes being visible in the blocks for the admission of folding doors, whereas nothing of the kind is observable in the great entrance of the circular dome. Here we lighted a fire of straw and dry faggots, which brought from their lurking places such a numerous host of bats, that we made a precipitate retreat into the outer chamber: the height of this vault appeared about fifty feet, finished at the top by a single stone, like the treasury of Minyas at Orchomenos; however, it is not a key-stone, for the principle of the arch is totally unapplied to this peculiar mode of construction: the inner surfaces of the blocks are pierced with nu 234 TREASURIES OF ATREUS. merous holes from which many bronze nails have been extracted*: it is supposed, and not without probability, that these nails served to fasten plates of the same metal over the whole interior surface of the edifice, in the same manner as the pantheon at Rome was cased, and the forum of Trajan, which was admirable for its brazen roof accord, ing to Pausanias, who cites it for the purpose of illustrating that brazen chamber in which Acrisius confined his daughter Danaet: similar no doubt were the Cyclopéan chambers of the daughters of Protus near Tiryns so also was the brazen vessel in which, according to Homer, Mars was kept a prisoner thirteen months by Otus and Ephialtes (xaλxéw iv xspáμw, Il. E. 385), whilst the subterranean brazen vase in which Eurystheus is said to have hid himself upon the return of Hercules to Mycenæ, may have been a similar building to that under consideration. There is nothing in the expression of Pausanias which makes it necessary to suppose that Atreus built these subterranean vaults, but only that he applied them to the purpose of concealing his treasures: they may have been erected in ages far anterior to his time by the early Egyptian colonists or artificers, and may have been also connected with their religious rites and ceremonies: I am aware that some travellers of high consideration view them in the light of sepul Mr. Parker procured one of them at the village of Kravata. They have been analyzed, and proved to consist of copper and tin in the proportion of 88: 12. The metal therefore, as Dr. Clarke observes, is, properly speaking, the xaλròs of Homer, or bronze; a compound distinguished from the orichalchum of later ages, or brass, which consisted of copper and zinc-See Clarke's Travels, Part ii. Sec. ii. p. 698. + The expression of Pausanias regarding the chamber of Danae is very similar to that which he applies to the treasuries of Atreus, calling it a karáyatov dikocoμýμа 1. ii. c. xxiii. It is not at all improbable but that the Argive chamber was also a treasury, such buildings being sometimes used for the confinement of prisoners: that of Messene was the scene of Philopomen's murder. Let the reader comof the Atrida with that of Myron King of Sicyon at Olympia. Ἐν δὲ τῷ Θησαυρῷ και pare this treasury ΧΑΛΚΟΥ μὲν δὴ αὐτὸς ἑώρων Θαλάμους δύο ἐποίησε, τὸν μὲν Δώριον, τὸν δὲ ἐργασίας τῆς Ιώνων. sipyaouέvas Paus. Eliac. c. xix. 1. The earliest form of the temple seems to have been that of a cavern: Pausanias mentions one upon the Tænarian promontory, before which stood a statue of Neptune, “ ἐπὶ δὲ τῇ ἄκρᾳ ναὸς ἐικασμένος onλáy," 1. iii. c. xxv. 4; and Parnassus was held particularly sacred on account of its caves: so also was Becotia. Learned orientalists refer all these caverns to the great Mithratic grotto as their origin. DEFENCE OF THE ARGIVE CHARACTER. 235 chral caverns, and fix upon this particular edifice for the tomb of Agamemnon. Yet it did not, I must own, give me the least idea of a sepulchre, nor has any thing, I believe, appertaining to funereal rites ever been discovered in it: the structure is too vast for the tomb even of that "king of men," and though I would not lay any great stress upon the lines of Sophocles quoted in the margin*, still they seem to mark the sepulchre of Agamemnon for an elevated monument, not a subterranean cavern like this, whose summit is quite level with the surface of the ground, inasmuch as the water-course abovementioned is carried over it, and a person might stand upon the top without being conscious that the earth was hollow under his feet. I shall refrain from taking up the reader's time with a more extended detail of these ruins, interesting as they are, since the subject has been so admirably treated by Sir William Gell in his Itinerary of Argolis. But there is one incident connected with the demolition of this city which it is impossible to pass over without a few observations, inasmuch as if it were true, it would be sufficient to render the Argive name not merely an object of scorn and detestation, but of disgust and horror, so long as one spark of virtue remained to animate the human race. Can it be conceived that so demoniacal a spirit could ever have taken possession of a people as that which, according to Pausanias†, urged the Argives to the destruction of Mycena? a people too that produced a Cleobis and Biton, that boasted a Telesilla, and erected a statue of the "mild Jupiter" within the precincts of their walls! Can it be credited that such a people would have united to overthrow a noble city, through mere envy because eighty of its sons had earned the meed of immortal glory with Leonidas at Ther * Chrysothemis returning from the tomb of her father, informs Electra that she found the summit of the tumulus flowing with libations of milk, and the sepulchre encircled with garlands of various flowers: Ὁρῶ κολώνης ἐξ ἄκρας νεορρύτες + Corinthiaca c. xvi. 4. Πηγὰς γάλακτος, και περισεφῆ κύκλο Πάντων ὅσ ̓ ἐτιν ανθέων θήκην πατρος Soph. Εlect. 894. 236 DEFENCE OF THE ARGIVE CHARACTER. mopyla? Yet Pausanias asserts the fact without a commentary upon it in his description of Mycena. It is fortunate for the Argive character that Diodorus Siculus not only gives a colour to this fact*, but mentions it among many other reasons which induced the people of Argos to make war upon their neighbour: and what is very extraordinary, Pausanias himself in a different part of his work, as if unconscious of his former assertion, lets out by accident the true reason; viz. the fear entertained by the Argives of the Lacedemonian power, and their inability to withstand it without destroying the other cities of the plain and uniting their strength to that of Argos. Having said thus much to palliate rather than to vindicate this action of the ancient Argives as a measure at least of political necessity, a vindication which modern statesmen will surely not oppose, I shall soon take leave of their descendants. * He represents the people of Mycenae as sending these eighty of their citizens to Thermopyla in opposition to the general decree of the cities of Argolis, and thereby rendering themselves suspected of favouring the Lacedemonian interests. Lib. xi. 275. Cross the Plain of Argos-River Inachus-Cave of the Nemean LionNemea Cleona-Arrival at Corinth-Excellent Character of the young Bey-His great Hospitality-Failure in our Attempt to ascend the Acrocorinthus-Ascent of an adjoining Mountain-Departure and Passage over the Isthmus-Megara-Interesting Discovery made there by Mr. Jones-Plain of Eleusis and Saronic Gulf-First View of Athens-Arrival there-Visits of Ceremony from the Inhabitants. NEXT morning, after having distributed a variety of small presents among the family of our host, we resumed our journey across the plain of Argos. Leaving Mycenæ a short distance to the right, we soon entered some defiles leading to Mount Tretus and the plain of Nemea : * *It appears very extraordinary that these ruins which are certainly of prodigious magnitude compared with those of almost all the Grecian cities, were entirely overlooked by Strabo, who says that not a single vestige of Mycenæ was to be seen: ὥτε νῦν μηδ ̓ ἴχνοςἐυρίσκεσθαι τῆς Μυκηναιων πόλεως. T. i. p. 540. |