The destruction of Carthage is as famous for its completeness as that of Jerusalem, which, indeed, it resembled in other respects, and it is natural that but few traces of this magnificent Queen of the Sea should have been preserved. Recent French and English investigations under Bente and Davis describe the considerable remains of the fortification walls of the Byrsa, built of colossal blocks of tufa. Their great thickness, 10 m., permitted the formation of semicircular chambers in three superposed stories, which, being accessible from within, served as casemates and magazines. The numerous rock-cut tombs are, as in Phœnicia, provided with steps from above, and form an oblong crypt, about which the deep niches for the reception of bodies are grouped.
The remains of barbaric temples upon Malta and the neighboring islands are of subordinate importance, if indeed they are to be mentioned at all, in the consideration of Phœnician art. The double temple upon Gozo is the most important of them. It consists of two adjoining spaces, each concluded by a semicircular apse, having upon both sides similar niches, so that the entire enclosure appears as a combination of apses around an oblong. The pavement is partly of rectangular blocks, so stepped as to show an interior division; but the Cyclopean masonry of the walls is so rough that, in its entire lack of ornamental treatment, the structure has but little interest for the history of art, and permits no conclusions concerning Phœnician architecture, which elsewhere produced such incomparable masonry of hewn stones.
The funeral monuments of the remaining Punic lands, of the Balearic Isles, and notably of Sardinia, though of greater artistic value, are fully as uncertain in their origin. Their form is at times like that of the monuments of Amrith; yet they may very possibly be of Etruscan derivation, for, apart from their resemblance to the tombs of Etruria, they are almost exclusively upon the eastern coast of Sardinia, the side turned towards Italy, while the Phœnicians would more naturally have come in contact with the western part of the island.
The most advanced outpost of the extended civilization of Phœnicia was Asia Minor. Under the dominion of the Seleucidæ and of the Romans, the influence of Greek art was so felt upon the Syrian coast, and even as far as the banks of the Tigris, that purely national works of architecture and sculpture are comparatively rare. But this influence was doubly great in the land of which, from the earliest times, the Ionians had possessed the seaboard, and where they had founded a number of flourishing cities which had attained to a degree of prosperity and culture not less than that of their relatives upon the peninsula of the Peloponnesos. Yet, although Ionian art bore some of its finest fruit upon Asiatic soil, and from roots which may partly be traced back to Mesopotamia, this can be historically treated only in connection with the civilization of Greece and its common origin and development. Hellenic Asia Minor and the countries under its influence—that is to say, the coasts and islands of the Ægean, Propontis and Pontus—cannot be separately considered. All the sculpture of these regions must therefore be reserved for a later page; but there are a few architectural monuments of the southern coast and of the interior which require our present attention as being peculiarly national. Yet even in these territories, divided according to their ancient population into Lycia, Phrygia, and Lydia, all the monumental architecture was greatly affected by the long Asiatic sway of the Diadochi, and by the military power of Rome. The temples and public edifices gave up their national peculiarities for manners of building characteristic of Greece and Rome. It was only in the tombs that original conceptions retained a stubborn hold. These, when cut in the rock, became imitations of the dwellings of the country. Types of house construction were represented which had been determined by the climatic necessities and by different building materials of each province. By their massive simplicity and by the popular consideration that a changeless dwelling best suited the quiet repose of the dead, the rock-cut tombs retained their primitive peculiarities without sensible alteration, being exposed only to unimportant modifications. Little reference was made in them to the advance of artistic or constructional methods from age to age. Though we have to deal exclusively with the tombs of the country, they allow us to draw conclusions concerning the appearance of other buildings, whether temples or dwellings, which they had taken as their models.
Fig. 112.—Rock-cut Tomb at Myra.
Next to the Phœnician coast, and opposite Phœnician Cyprus, lies Lycia, embracing the greater part of the southern sea-line of Asia Minor. It calls for chief consideration because of its almost numberless tombs, some of which are admirably preserved, and because of their instructive variety. Entire cliffs, like the Necropolis of Myra, shown in Fig. 93 at the head of this section, are literally covered with such monumental façades, picturesquely grouped according to the natural configuration of the rock. The greater number are excavated grottoes, the fronts of which are careful imitations of timbered houses. They might be called log-house tombs if other than the roof beams were of unsquared trunks. The interstices between the framing, when not remaining open as an entrance, are closed by panels. The individuality of these monuments is as marked as could have been possible among the dwellings of Lycian mountaineers, whose wealth was not great, and whose architectural demands did not much vary. An exact imitation of the ingenious carpentry is cut in the rock down to the smallest detail: the stiles of the panelling, the round unhewn timbers of the roof, the clamping and dovetailing of the beams, and the primitive tree-nails with which these are secured are shown with the greatest distinctness. The appearance of the whole, when intact, must have resembled a petrified village. These groups of tombs are among the most curious and striking remains of antiquity. The attempt was made by several races of early civilization to prepare a funeral-chamber which should resemble as closely as possible the dwellings inhabited during life; but this intention was not elsewhere so thoroughly carried out, and never resulted in so piquant a contradiction to the material in which it was executed. The native rock was made completely to deny its nature, and to present the image of a distinctively wooden construction. Upon abrupt cliffs this was usually restricted to a façade, which at times was very simple, but quite characteristic, as in a tomb at Antiphellos (Fig. 110), where the wooden framing underneath the flat projecting roof forms two windows, left open as entrances to the cavern. A somewhat more complicated example is shown by another tomb of this site (Fig. 111), which is especially remarkable on account of the carefully imitated coping of the cross-beams. In this case only one of the door and window panels is open, and a gabled roof appears, which seems to have been customary in Asia Minor, and to some degree in Phœnicia. The framing of an interior or of side walls is also shown by the stone imitation, as in the case of a fine example at Myra (Fig. 112), which seems to illustrate the utmost limit of the style. But here the contradiction between the form and the material is so glaring that the curious elegance of the result does not redeem it. The repeating of wooden constructions in stone without any modification—which is at first sight, and in less extent, pleasing and piquant—has here become disagreeably obtrusive. This is still more striking upon the rarer monumental sarcophagi at Phellos and Myra, where the block-house is carved in the full round from the native rock. These works represent the wooden model upon all four sides, so completely and conscientiously that it would be possible, by their aid, to reconstruct the dwelling-house of a Lycian mountaineer in wood—to repeat from such a petrified copy the original, though its frail materials perished more than twenty centuries ago. It is curious how greatly the present huts of the country resemble their antique predecessors.
Near these tombs, in some instances even connected with them, though usually independent, stand upright monuments of the nature of obelisks, but with an upper member characteristic of Lycia. In place of the pyramidal point of Egypt, or of the hemispherical or stepped termination of Phœnicia and Assyria, there is here a cornice of projecting slabs, upon which rests a small but comparatively high block. The most important example is that known as the Monument of the Harpies (Fig. 113), now in considerable part transported to the Lycian Hall of the British Museum. It consisted of a gigantic monolith bearing a small burial-chamber, the enclosing slabs of which were ornamented by the famous reliefs, so important in the history of Greek sculpture.
The third group of Lycian sepulchral monuments, the smaller sarcophagi, is the most numerous, forming at times an extended necropolis. Though the majority are not free from Hellenic influences, they yet generally maintain the peculiar national characteristics, being imitations of wooden constructions somewhat similar to the rock-cut tombs. The lid in some instances appears to be of slat-work, and, instead of the semicircular gable common in Phœnicia, presents a pointed arch. The cornice dentils distinctly betray their derivation from the projecting ceiling beams, which, upon the block-house tombs, had still preserved the round form of unhewn timbers. A tomb at Antiphellos (Fig. 114) has a channel cut upon the summit of the lid, probably to serve as a socket for the ridge-crestings. The heads of lions and other projecting ornaments upon the sides enrich the architectural treatment. The monument cannot be spoken of as a sarcophagus, in the true sense of the word, for its lid was not movable, the body being introduced from the front, where window-like openings were provided for the purpose.
A fourth class of Lycian rock-cut tombs, those with a façade resembling a small temple-front, is of particular interest to the history of architecture. Many among these display the influence of a late Hellenic period, yet some preserve such primitive forms as to make it certain that Lycia took a prominent part in the development of the Ionic style—that the southern coast of Asia Minor was an important station, marking the advance of artistic culture from Mesopotamia to the Ægean Sea. These tombs generally represent the front of a temple in antis—that is to say, of a portico with two columns between the advanced side walls. The predominant Ionic forms are singularly primitive in the capital and entablature, the greater number of the examples showing no trace of the decline of the style, or of the Roman type, so easily recognizable by the formal character of the details. These differ greatly, and seem to show the experiments of an early period of development, which may still have been contemporaneous with a far higher advance of the style upon the more northern coasts of the Ægean Sea and Sporades, being influenced in a different degree by the same Western Asiatic motives. The important combination which characterizes the perfection of Ionic architecture—the conjunction of the volute with the Doric echinos beneath it—does not appear upon these capitals; the spiral has not a graceful curve, and the contraction of the side rolls of the volute is lacking; the abacus is badly profiled, and the shafts are often joined without a curve to the clumsy bases. (Compare Fig. 116.) As was always the case among the Orientals, who knew of no independent gable and roof formation above the ceiling, the entablature consisted of only two members,—the epistyle, uniting the columns, and the terminating cornice. The triple division of the entablature, of so marked importance in the perfected style, was not known; even the two members here occurring were not sharply defined, and the dentils of the cornice were fully developed at a time when their original constructive significance had not yet been forgotten in their decorative application. The gable acroteria are clumsy knops, similar to the circular ridge ornaments and the horn-like corner pieces of Phœnician monuments. In short, we may trace in the rock-cut tombs of Lycia, if not a Proto-Ionic style, yet a distinct parallel development of the most primitive Ionic forms. These did not exclude the influence of Greece, after the full perfection of the style had been attained, but rather prepared its way. An example of such later semi-Hellenic work may be observed in the magnificent monument of Xanthos, built in the middle of the fourth century B.C. as a trophy after the capture of Telmissos by the Xanthians. This also has been in part transported to the British Museum. This structure was not cut from the solid rock, but was built of quarried stones. It shows the full development of Ionic forms. Upon a comparatively high substructure there stood a cella surrounded by columns—of a peripteral arrangement rare in Lycia, where all the tombs which represent temples seem to show that the national places of worship, like those of Assyria and Phœnicia, were restricted to a portico in antis, the evolution of the peripteros being an improvement of the Greeks. The naïve originality observable in the Ionic does not exist in the more isolated Doric forms, although a few very archaic monuments of the latter style are known. Their existence is explained by the vicinity of Crete, that southern outpost of early Doric culture, as well as by the neighboring Doric colonies which flourished upon the southwestern extremity of Asia Minor.
Fig. 116.—Details of Columns from Telmissos, Myra, and
Antiphellos.
Fig. 117.—So-called Tomb of Midas.
Lycia appears to have had but little influence upon the other countries of the seaboard, which were almost entirely Hellenized; nor did its influence penetrate as far into the interior country as Phrygia, where the civilization of the Greeks was introduced only by way of the Ægean and Pontic coasts. There were neither frequented ports nor navigable streams to open the way. The tracklessness of wooded mountains restricted the commercial and intellectual horizon of the Phrygians, who, as a nomadic people, were contented with the slightest artistic exertion. In the same way as the Lycian carved his wooden hut upon the face of the cliff, that he might retain after his death the beloved dwelling of his life, the Phrygian ornamented the front of his grotto graves by a representation of his movable house, the nomadic tent. Only the cloth of the tent, with its woven pattern, was shown; its constructive ribs, not visible upon the exterior of the original, were omitted from the imitation. The most important of these tomb frontispieces, between Kiutahija and Sivrihissar upon the Saquaria, which are attributed to Phrygian kings, is called by the Turks Yasili-Kaia (the inscribed stone). (Fig. 117.) It is known as the Tomb of Midas from the one legible word, Midai, occurring in an unintelligible inscription. Upon the face of the cliff there is cut a square surface, 11 m. broad and about 9 m. high, terminated above by a low gable, which, with the acroterium, adds 3 m. to the height of the whole. The triangle is framed by a light lattice-work in low relief, and crowned with two volutes, similar to the circular ridge decorations of Phœnician tombs. The tympanon is not carved, but probably, with the entire front, was painted. The extensive rectangular surface beneath is covered with a complicated meander ornament in relief—a play of lines evidently taken from a woven pattern and resembling the decorations of Moorish walls, where the fundamental motive was also the tent-cloth. The border of this surface represents, without conventionalization, an edging set with precious stones, such as may have been customary upon costly Syrian stuffs. The small interior chamber was only large enough for the reception of a sarcophagus. The entrance to it was not marked by any architectural features—even as the tent itself was not provided with a door—but the passage was originally closed by a slab, upon the face of which the woven pattern was without doubt continued. A second tomb of the vicinity, also marked by an undecipherable inscription, is of similar character. (Fig. 118.) The gable represents a wooden construction, somewhat like the framing of Lycian sarcophagi; its double acroterium is decorated with three rosettes. The principal surface, the square below, is without carving, and had probably a painted pattern. A third frontispiece of this type shows a floral frieze of alternate palmettoes and buds, resembling an Assyrian motive, but inverted, perhaps because its direct model was the border of a carpet. It recalls the hanging rows of pomegranates upon the columns Jachin and Boaz of Solomon’s Temple. The cliffs of Phrygia are honey-combed by such rock-cut tombs. Especially in the district north of Seid-el-Ar are there numberless small grottoes, the entrances to which are either perfectly plain or provided only with a simple triangular gable—all giving proof of the rarity of artistic effort among these idyllic mountains.
The influence of Assyrian and Persian methods is evident even to the west of the river Halys, the border of the Mesopotamian dominion before Cyrus; but upon its farther banks, in Eastern Phrygia, Oriental art is universally prevalent. At Eyuk there are remains, supposed to be those of a temple, with a portal flanked by monsters like the cherubim of Nineveh and Persepolis. At Boghaz-Kieui, besides rock-cut reliefs entirely similar to those of Persia, there are the foundations of a terrace with the ruins of a palace, built upon the plan of the royal dwellings of Persepolis.
Lydia, the last of the three independent countries of Asia Minor, was so near to the Ionic cities of the coast, and so exposed to the influence of their civilization, that but few national peculiarities were preserved in the historical period. The tumulus was there, as in early Greece, the customary form of the monumental tomb. In Lydia, as in Etruria, numbers of these mounds stood in an extended necropolis. The conical tumulus is as characteristic a form for the extreme west of Asia Minor, for the Troad, as the strictly geometrical pyramid is for Egypt, or its terraced variation for Mesopotamia. The mound of earth was at times reveted with a masonry of large polygonal blocks, or placed upon a low cylindrical drum of such Cyclopean walls; the only architectural ornaments were simple base and cornice mouldings. The best-preserved, though not the most important, monument of this kind is the so-called Grave of Tantalos upon Mount Sipylos, near Smyrna, one of a group of twelve. (Fig. 119.) The rectangular chamber in its centre, 3.5 m. long and almost 3 m. high, is roofed by a false vault, the horizontal, gradually projecting stones being cut within to the outline of a pointed arch. The entrance to this tumulus, like the shafts of the Egyptian pyramids, was hidden by the casing of exterior masonry. The fragments of a stone pier near by, somewhat like the Meghazil monument of Amrith, probably belonged to the ornament upon the summit of the cone, which, with a diameter of plan equal to 33.6 m., attained a height of 27.6 m. Of greater grandeur, though in an entire state of destruction, are the royal graves of the Lydian capital. The world-renowned name of Sardis has been preserved in the appellation of the squalid village Sarabat now standing upon its site. In its vicinity are the remains of more than one hundred tumuli. The most important of these, with a cylindrical drum 257 m. in diameter and 18.5 m. high, still rises to an elevation of 61.5 m. It is with some probability identified with that monument of Alyattes described by Herodotos, who exaggerates its dimensions to a diameter of 400 m. The cone of rammed earth was apparently not reveted with stone. Upon its apex there was a pier of five blocks, which bore a hemispherical termination; of this various fragments have been found.
Fig. 119.—The So-called Grave of Tantalos.
These tumuli approach in dimensions closely to the pyramids of Egypt. The elevation of the cone upon a cylindrical base was a certain advance, but its execution was such as to allow of no comparison between the monuments of the two countries. The pyramids of Egypt were built; the tumuli of Lydia were merely heaped up of earth. The former demanded great technical ability and the assistance of a commanding and calculating mind; the latter were the works of an enslaved people alone. But, on the other hand, the Lydian cones more closely resembled the natural form of a funeral mound than did the pyramids of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and on this account were capable of greater development. Such tumuli are to be met with from Asia to Etruria, and were adopted even by the great architects of Greece: the highest artistic civilization always gives preference to the simplest solution of a problem.
Fig. 120.—View of the Athenian Propylæa. Restoration.
HELLAS.
THE Mediterranean Sea was the heart of the Old World; the important lands of the early history of civilization were grouped about its richly indented shores, generally decreasing in respect of culture as they receded from it. The northeastern part of the Mediterranean, because of its many islands, having an even greater proportionate coast-line, was the centre of the countries ennobled by Hellenic civilization. Separating and uniting at once, like all the waters of the earth, the Ægean Sea formed the boundary between the two chief races of Greek intellectual life—the Dorians and the Ionians; while it was, at the same time, the favoring medium of exchange for the productions of their genius. European Greece, with its predominating Doric population, and the almost exclusively Ionic coasts of Asia Minor, equally looked upon this sea as their own, traversing it with thousands of ships, and gaining more from the trackless waters before them than from the interior lands of the immense continents whose seaboard alone they were content to occupy. In Asia the Greeks were restricted to the countries upon its uttermost western border; in European Greece the development was chiefly directed towards the eastern coast, paying even less attention to their own shores on the Adriatic than to the early colonized ports of Magna-Græcia and Sicily. The Archipelago itself provided convenient strongholds and outposts in every direction. The numerous harbors and anchoring-places of its many islands offered protection against the notorious treachery of the Ægean main—a protection imperatively necessary for the primitive seafarers of antiquity. But, as in the history of all civilization, the currents of Greek intellectual and artistic progress moved distinctly from east to west. The European (Doric) culture was in itself less calculated to influence Asia than the Asiatic (Ionic) to affect the younger continent. It was, as decided by nature, upon European soil, upon Attica—the most advanced promontory of European Greece—that the two branches of the Greek race united, and bore in Athens that double fruit at which we marvel. The Dorians, displaced, in some measure, by the rapid growth of Ionic Asia and Europe, turned still farther westward, and settled upon the shores of Sicily and the Gulf of Tarention, where imposing monuments still attest the extent of their power.
The legends of the wanderings of Hellenic tribes, and especially of the so-called Doric migration, were based upon the busy currents of intercourse between Asia and Europe, over seas and straits, and between the European continent and the Morea, the Island of Pelops. The relations and the quarrels of Hellenic and semi-barbaric peoples upon each side of the Ægean are illustrated by the tales of the Argonauts and their voyage, and of the Trojan War, both of which bear the stamp of a certain piratical rivalry. The fatal lack of unity, resulting from the separate development of neighboring districts, could not be more distinctly characterized than by the fact that the Greek races, although they felt themselves divided from other nations—from barbarians—by an impassable gulf, and were aware of their own absolute intellectual superiority, yet lacked any comprehensive designation for themselves: the name Greeks, or Hellenes, is of comparatively recent origin.
The Homeric epics prove that the intellectual development of the people to whom the immortal poet belonged stood, at least as early as the ninth century B.C., at a height to which nations of such primitive civilization as the Egyptians and Chaldæans had never attained. Phenomenal as the appearance of those poems may have been, they still could not have stood so high above their time—which they evidently represent with a certain transfiguration—that contemporaries were not able to comprehend and enjoy them. The creative arts stood, at this epoch, in strange contrast to so great an intellectual height; they were far surpassed by the advance of poetry. Though certain textile and ceramic manufactures (the making of wooden and bronze utensils, woven stuffs, and pottery) must have been practised to some extent in Greece proper, the better artistic productions are continually referred to as imported from the civilized countries of Asia. Larger objects, and notably buildings, were either exceedingly primitive, or, in the lack of trained native ability, were erected and ornamented in foreign styles. The Homeric epics know nothing of a columnar temple, nothing of artistic images of the gods, nothing even of dwellings corresponding to the importance of their princely heroes. Even at a much later time a Spartan, accustomed to erect his own house with saw and axe alone, might be astonished at the squarely hewn beams of a ceiling, which he previously had seen formed only of round trunks, like those imitated upon the Lycian block-house tombs.
It is of this exceeding simplicity that we must picture to ourselves the palaces of the kings, one of which is so attractively described by the singer of the Odyssey, in the account of the royal dwelling at Ithaca. The entire establishment must have been similar to a grange—a wall enclosing a number of buildings with the court before them. The rustic parallel is clearly brought to mind by the description of this farm-yard, where the compost-heap, surrounded by swine and geese, was the bed of the old watch-dog, who, in Homer’s truly idyllic account, alone recognizes his master, and, dying, wags his tail in greeting. From this yard a gate led to an inner court, comparable to the peristyle of later buildings, but without the ornament of columns, and in all respects extremely primitive. Goats and beeves were driven in here without further ado to be slaughtered. This adjoined upon one side the chambers of the men, upon the other those of the women, so separated that the tumultuous massacre of the suitors in the principal hall did not disturb the slumber of Penelope, and only reached the ears of the maids like distant moaning. Upon the third side, probably opposite the entrance, was the hall of the men, a ceiled space, which must have been of considerable extent, as the hundred and eight unwelcome guests could here unite in the banquet and other amusements. Its ceiling, like that of the armory and that of the royal sleeping-chamber, was supported by upright beams of wood. We may imagine these similar to the shafts in the Palace of Oinomaos at Elis, one of which, bound together with iron hoops, was preserved as a relic in the time of Pausanias. The ceiling beams of the hall were smoked and blackened by open fires and torch-lights as in rustic dwellings. Of the walls there is no mention, though the supposition is not improbable that the bright metal sheathing of the palaces of Menelaos and Alkinoös existed here also. It would be explained by the Phœnician overlaying of wood-work with beaten bronze, or, to speak more correctly, with copper. The space could not have been without openings for light and air. These are not directly mentioned by the poet, but may be assumed, from the analogies offered by other civilized nations of early antiquity, to have existed in the wall, immediately under the ceiling. Here the interstices between the immense horizontal beams, which rested upon the walls, were left open, and the motive of the subsequent Doric metope resulted of itself. That the timbers overhead were not sheathed with boards is evident from a Homeric simile: Athene rose to the ceiling, and there sat, “like unto the resting swallow;” that is to say, upon the cross-beams of the open triangle formed by the roof-framing. Further evidence is offered by the account of the hanging of Epicaste upon a ceiling beam, which must have been exposed from all sides.
The tholos of the palace at Ithaca was an isolated circular structure, before the court, and may perhaps be identified with the high thalamos to which Telemachos descended. In this also lay gold and metal in heaps; while shrines containing garments, and amphoras filled with oil and wine, etc., stood around. Its double door, of careful workmanship, agrees with the character of a treasury. If this identification of the tholos and thalamos be accepted, no doubt can remain that we have here to deal with a space similar to many yet remaining in Greece, generally known under the name of treasure-houses. Examples exist at Orchomenos, near Pharsalos, Amyclæ, Menidi, and in Mykenæ.
Fig. 121.—Plan and Section of the Tholos of Atreus.
Fig. 122.—Restoration of the Tholos of Atreus. Portal.
(Clarke.)
One of the five in Mykenæ, known as the Treasury, or the Tholos, of Atreus, remains in an admirable state of preservation, especially as regards the interior. This consists of a space of circular plan, 15 m. in diameter, and of the same height, formed like a pointed vault. (Fig. 121.) Its walls begin to curve from the floor, which is of stamped clay pisé. Upon this the first circular course of masonry immediately reposes. The walls then rise, in parabolic outline, to a pointed apex. They are not constructed upon the principle of a vault—that is to say, with wedge-shaped stones, and with the direction of joints to a common centre—but are laid in horizontal beds, each course so projecting over the one beneath it that, by this diminution of the concentric circles, they finally unite at the summit. They were smoothly cut upon the jointing surfaces, while the face was not chiselled until after the completion of the masonry. The blocks were rectangular, and the joints, which consequently increased radially in plan, were filled with the same pisé used for the floor; the interstice between the wall door and the rock-cut inner chamber upon one side being also cemented with this substance. An entrance-passage, the dromos, led from the valley to the tholos in a gently inclined ascent. It was bordered by walls of cut stone, but nowhere ceiled. Its floor, 6.20 m. broad and 36 m. long, was paved with pisé. Thisentrance-passage was terminated without by a terraced retaining-wall, and within by an elaborate portal façade. The recent investigations of Stamatakis and Thiersch have given sufficient information concerning the composition and details of this front to permit a restoration of its chief masses. (Fig. 122.) The lower part was constructed of long stones, carefully cut and jointed. The stepped jambs of the opening, peculiar to all antique doors, were probably cut after the blocks were in position. Upon either side were decorative engaged columns, which are so entirely similar to the one represented upon the Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ that it is possible completely to understand their nature by that general guide; by the help of fragments which still exist, and others drawn in former publications, though now lost; by traces upon the wall, and especially by the sockets cut for the swallowtail clampings of the bases and capitals. The shaft, instead of being diminished, increases as it ascends, as does also the column upon the relief over the Gate of the Lions. Its base, from this analogy, and from the narrow space left for it by the clampings, seems to have consisted of a simple tore. The abacus and parts of the mouldings beneath it still exist; the coronation was formed by two roundlets, separated by a scotia, the lower being considerably smaller in height and diameter than the upper. (Fig. 123.) Without the lower member, there is a certain similarity of the capital to a Doric echinos, which is increased by the proportions of the boldly projecting abacus; but the whole is so similar to an Asiatic (Ionic) base that it was not natural to believe it a capital, and the fragment published by Donaldson has hitherto been believed to be the foot of the shaft. The columns were entirely covered with an ornamentation in relief of zigzag lines alternating with the well-known spiral wave; they stood upon rectangular pedestals, of which the triply stepped plinths have been preserved. The existence of bronze ornaments upon the lintel of the door is evident from the traces of nails; five lion-heads can be distinctly recognized. An epistyle extended from capital to capital across the entire front of the portal; it projected far beyond the lintel, upon which it partly reposed. Above this entablature was a surface, like an attica, which masked the triangle formed by the relieving blocks over the lintel. The upper walls were not originally visible, having been reveted by thin slabs of stone, secured in position by dowels. Fragments from Mykenæ deposited in the British Museum, in the Munich Antiquarium, and in Athens appertained to this upper façade; they all show spiral ornaments between horizontal grooves, and are similar to many other decorations of the same age. The borders of the casing over the relieving triangle and its extreme upper corner were patterned in like manner, as is plain from the mitre-joint of some of the slabs, and from a small fragment exactly fitting the upper angle of the opening. The entire triangle was probably closed by some light stone carving, since it could have had no function as a passage for light. The door, as may be seen from traces of pivots upon the sill and lintel, had two wings, which, from their bolt-holes, appear to have been so large that, when closed, they considerably overlapped. Upon the exterior jambs a broad strip of metal was affixed, still to be traced by two vertical rows of nail-holes, in which fragments of bronze occasionally remain. This work leads to the supposition that the wings of the door were themselves overlayed with metal, and, with the characteristic forms of the decoration upon the monument, points to the peculiarities of Asiatic art. It is natural to attribute this to the influence of Phœnicia; indeed, the effect of the civilization of that country upon early Greece can hardly be overestimated. A broad, horizontal strip of metal sheathing existed also upon the exterior, and small fragments of it are repeatedly met with in the rubbish filling the tholos; similar vestiges are found in a second monument of the kind near by. This overlaying of walls with sheet copper was by no means uncommon in ancient Greece. The subterranean bronze chamber of Danae may be explained as a tomb sheathed with metal. In mythical ages, in the sanctuary at Delphi, as well as in later times, in the Chalkioicos of Athene at Sparta, this wall-treatment appears employed for temples, even as Homer described it in palaces at Sparta and the Island of the Phæacians. The Tholos of Atreus was itself subterranean; the exterior of the conical mass of masonry was covered with a hill of earth. In consideration of the almost perfect preservation of the interior, it is evident that some remains of a strictly architectural exterior would have been recognizable, had it existed. A tumulus covered and protected the structure; though its earth is now, for the greater part, washed away, to it must still be ascribed the good condition in which the kernel has remained.
The recently discovered grave at Menidi, in Attica (Lolling), is a parallel construction. As regards beauty of execution and richness of ornament, it is far inferior to the Tholos of Atreus; it is also much smaller, having an average diameter of 8.35 m. and 9 m. original height. Its only peculiarity is that the relieving blocks over the lintel, instead of projecting one over the other so as to form a triangle, are so placed as to leave four voids between as many horizontal beams, in a manner similar to the arrangement for relieving the ceiling of the principal chamber of the great pyramid of Gizeh.
The Tholos of Atreus offers a welcome commentary upon the thesauros of the royal palace at Ithaca, but only in respect to its construction. The purpose of the circular buildings still existing in Greece seems to have been entirely different from that of the treasure-house described in the Odyssey. It is true that eminent authorities deny this difference—and the analogies of the round Homeric building, of the treasure-vaults at Mykenæ mentioned by Pausanias, and of the treasury of Minyas in Orchomenos, lend their arguments some weight, and, at least, a greater probability than the suppositions that the structures of tholos form were intended for spring-houses (Forchhammer) or places of worship (Pyl). But there are reasons against all these assumptions. The treasure-houses of the Pelopidæ must have been upon the acropolis, inside the fortification walls, not at various distances outside their limits, as is the case with those of Mykenæ. Still less could such vaults for hoarded valuables have been as distant from the city as was the Tholos of Baphio from the ancient Amyclæ, which stood entirely isolated in the midst of an open plain, without the possibility of communication with any royal residence. The tumuli of earth above the crypts would have but ill suited them to form a part of the palace building; while for a cell which was only to receive precious goods—for a magazine of deposit—the rich overlaying of the interior walls with sheet metal, and especially the elaborate carving of the portal front, seem out of place. These peculiarities, not to mention some of less importance, point to another purpose, for which they are, one and all, fitted—namely, the destination of the structures as tombs. Their position, before the acropolis and without the city walls; the covering of the chamber with earth in a tumulus form; the impossibility of their having had any communication with other buildings; the elaborate decoration of the entrance, and the princely wealth of metals in the interior—all support, with the striking analogies beyond the Ægean, this conception of the tholos buildings advocated by Welcker and Mure. It is possible that it is to these structures that Pausanias refers as the treasure-houses of the Atridæ; but Pausanias, like us, knew Mykenæ only by its ruins. That patron of all ciceroni upon classic ground was not exacting for proofs of their legends. The hypothesis of Pyl may in so far be correct that the tholos itself did not serve as the place of sepulchre, which was provided by the small side chamber, but was a chapel for the funeral worship naturally to be assumed in connection with an heroic dynasty.
It is not possible to assign these tombs to individuals, like those of the early Persian monarchs, or even to dynasties: the questionable identification of the graves discovered in the agora of the acropolis, ventured by Schliemann, would here be inadmissible. It is reasonably certain, however, that the best-preserved tholos, that known by the name of Atreus, is about contemporaneous with the Gate of the Lions, and dates from the most flourishing period of the heroic age—before the downfall of the Atridæ upon the return of Agamemnon.
A small chamber, only of sufficient size to receive the cinerary urn, in the centre of an upheaval of earth, was sufficient for the graves of the heroes who fell before Troy. Several of these tumuli exist. The larger of them, those of Hector and of Achilles, had a considerable elevation, and, standing upon a low promontory, were visible far at sea. They were without architectural features or decoration, mere cones of earth and stones; terminated, as Homer relates concerning those of Ilos, Sarpedon, and Elpenor, by a monument like a column, which must have resembled the piers upon Lydian tumuli. It is questionable whether the trees which grew in later times upon the mounds of Protesilaos before Troy, and of Alcmæon in Arcadia, were originally and intentionally there placed, and are to be deemed characteristic of such works. Those planted upon the tumulus of Augustus in Rome may certainly be referred to his individual desire. From the account given by Pausanias of the tumulus of Æpytos at Pheneos, in Arcadia; from foundations remaining upon the island of Syme, and from later ruins at Kyrene—not to mention a well-preserved tumulus of very considerable dimensions, reveted with stone, which, from its situation in Algerian territory, might perhaps be ascribed to the Carthaginians, or even to the Romans—from all these examples, it is evident that such mounds, like the tumuli of Lydia and Etruria, were, for the greater part, elevated upon cylindrical foundations. But whether the interior were chambered or solid, whether the cone of earth rose directly from the earth or from a drum substructure, the tumulus appears to have been, in primitive times, the most customary form of monumental tomb for persons of high rank.
The common man was probably buried in pits, as at the present day, the grave being marked by an upright stone, with or without some slight ornament. Schliemann’s discoveries in the agora of Mykenæ show that, under certain circumstances, this procedure was adopted even for princes. The kingly importance of these sepulchres is assured by their position, and by the immense quantity of gold and valuables found within them. The decorative style of these objects dates them conclusively to the heroic age; but the assignment of the different graves to Agamemnon and his associates is a mere hypothesis.
Fig. 124.—Pyramid of Kenchreæ.
A pyramidal form was only in isolated instances substituted for the tumulus. Of a pyramid, described by Pausanias as existing between Argos and Epidauros, there now remains a mass of masonry measuring 12 m. in the line of the diagonal. A second, near Kenchreæ, between Argos and Tegea, is better preserved. (Fig. 124.) Its plan is oblong, 14.5 m. long and nearly 12 m. broad; the two chambers of the interior are at present unroofed. The structure appears to have served as a common place of sepulchre for the fallen, and, at the same time, as a memorial of victory. This destination is also evident in two further pyramidal remains, in Laconia and near Lessa, which are described by Curtius and by Ross. The Greeks adopted both Asiatic and Egyptian forms for their funeral monuments; but in the construction of both tumulus and pyramid they introduced comparatively large chambers, early striving for ends foreign to those despotic lands:—a wise economy of material and labor and a gain of space.
Mausoleums and sepulchres are always among the first traces of civilization, and the most ancient examples of architectural art. In Greece, however, there are contemporaneous remains significant of other purposes. Chief among these are the fortifications of towns, although in general these works enclosed only the acropolis, which contained the residences of the rulers and the sanctuaries of the people. The true age of these defences can by no means be surely determined. Not all Cyclopean masonry is to be attributed to the earliest ages of Hellenic antiquity, for this manner of polygonal jointing remained in use long after a time when cut and squared stones were generally employed. On the other hand, immense rectangular blocks, laid in horizontal courses, frequently occur in city walls which are known to be of the greatest antiquity and even to have been totally ruined in the historical period, such monoliths being regularly used upon corners, the jambs of gates, etc., where especial strength and independent firmness were called for. When the surface of Cyclopean walls is perfectly smooth and exactly jointed, these may confidently be regarded as not of primitive antiquity; the erection of such masonry is a subtlety of greater difficulty than that of square blocks and horizontal beds. But walls built of enormous boulders, unhewn, and roughly piled up without calculation, the larger interstices being filled with smaller stones, are of extreme age. Such masonry appeared to later generations to be the work of giants, of Cyclops, and hence a name which might more fittingly be changed to Pelasgic than to Poseidonic, as suggested by Gladstone. The walls of Tiryns (Fig. 125) are of such gigantic blocks—bulwarks mentioned by Homer and Hesiod, and admired in their ruins by Pausanias. They are built upon a ridge of rock, which is over 190 m. long, only 70 m. broad, and elevated 10 m. above the surrounding plain. The masonry is from 7 to 15 m. thick; of its original height, estimated as 18 m., there remains from 10 to 12 m. The enormous stones vary from 2 to 3 m. in length and 0.9 to 12. m. in thickness. In its greatest breadth the wall is provided with galleries, roofed by projecting stones laid in horizontal beds and cut to the outline of a pointed arch. Such spaces are provided with loopholes upon the exterior, and, without doubt, served as magazines and casemates. Within these fortifications must have stood the royal residence, famed in the legends of Heracles and Eurystheus; of it no recognizable traces remain.
Fig. 125.—Plan of the Acropolis of Tiryns.
The walls of Mykenæ are not of equally gigantic masonry, but are fully as old, and are especially interesting because of the city having been a complete ruin in the earliest historical times. Besides casemate galleries in the walls, there are in Mykenæ a number of highly important gateways and portals; those of the fortifications at Tiryns were entirely destroyed, an inclined plane leading to the eastern side of the acropolis is there alone to be recognized as an approach.
Fig. 126.—Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ.
Fig. 127.—Smaller Gate of Mykenæ.
The doors were naturally of greater technical perfection than the long line of bulwarks; having been created for both admittance and defence, they required a certain constructive calculation, and permitted the employment of more exterior ornament. The simplest possible form of a gateway is the combination of three stones—the two jambs and the lintel—observable in two examples at Mykenæ. (Figs. 126 and 127.) Such a construction had the disadvantage that the upright blocks could not be joined to the wall, and that the lintel, which necessarily lay clear for a considerable length, could not immediately receive the massive continuation of the masonry above it. Notwithstanding the convergence of the jambs upon the great gate of Mykenæ, the beam has a length of 4.6 m., with a span of 3.05 m.; the bottom of the door being 3.2 m. wide, and its height 3.25 m. A relieving gable was consequently constructed, similar to that common in Egypt during the age of the Pyramids, and to that described in the consideration of the Tholos of Atreus. A triangular opening remained above the lintel, by which the efficacy of the wall as a fortification was considerably impaired. The orifice was closed by one or two slabs, which did not press heavily upon the lintel; but they could not have been sufficient to escape fracture by heavy missiles, or to resist the blows of a battering-ram. The attack was therefore diverted from this vulnerable point by moral means. The panel received a certain consecration by some protecting sacred symbol being carved upon it—such, for instance, as a Gorgon’s head—a recourse which was effective in times when the slightest desecration of a divine emblem was deemed more impious than the bloodiest deed of human violence. Such a carving has been preserved over the gateway of Mykenæ, which has received its name from the lions represented upon it. As a work of sculpture, it will be considered below. The column between the animals has, however, a bearing upon the architectural forms of the epoch. It is the same shaft, diminishing from summit to base, which has been noticed upon the portal front of the Tholos of Atreus. A second gate of Mykenæ resembled the Gate of ºthe Lions, but was smaller and simpler. (Fig. 127.)
Fig. 128.—Portal upon Samos.
Fig. 129.—Gate of Phigalia.
The form of three blocks appears to have been soon changed, the wall itself serving in place of an especial jamb. The span of the lintel was decreased by two or four boldly projecting blocks as brackets. Examples of this development are offered by portals of Samos and Phigalia. (Figs. 128 and 129.) But in the same measure as the danger from the great span of the lintel was diminished, that of the brackets being pressed downward and disjointed was increased. A third manner of covering the opening, by stones leaned against each other at an angle, was a still further advance. (Fig. 130.) When the side thrust could be well borne—and for this the walls were always sufficient—such a gable could support any pressure that could possibly be imposed, while allowing a great breadth of passage. Finally, a triangular construction could be obtained by a gradual projection of horizontal stones, laid as they had been in so many instances for the relief of a lintel beneath them. This construction occurs in two varieties, differing in appearance, though not in principle: the projection of the horizontal courses of stone either began directly from the ground (Fig. 130), as has been noticed in the Tholos of Atreus (Fig. 122), or commenced at some height, the jambs being carried up vertically. (Fig. 132.) In both these varieties the line of the gable frequently appears concavely curved, as in the parabolic walls of the tholos, and the outline of a pointed arch was thus obtained. (Figs. 133 and 134.) In spite of their early familiarity with the abstract principle of the arch, as shown in Fig. 130, the Greeks refused to adopt the true arch, with its wedge-shaped stones, even in late historical ages, when they assuredly were acquainted with its construction. An illustration of their feeling in this respect is given by the aqueduct adjoining the Tower of the Winds in Athens, where the semicircles are cut from monoliths.