EXCAVATIONS IN AND NEAR THE ACROPOLIS—continued.

THE LIONS' GATE AND THE AGORA.

The Treasury excavated by Mrs. Schliemann—Older and less sumptuous than that of Atreus—The entrance, its ornaments—Archaic pottery found in the passage—Necklace beads—Fragment of a marble frieze—Threshold of the Lions' Gate—The great double row of parallel slabs, probably not of a remote antiquity—The Acropolis only partly accessible to chariots—The gateway double, like the ScÆan Gate at Troy—Corridors of Cyclopean house-walls—Hera-idols and arrow-heads of bronze and iron—Door-keeper's lodge—Retaining walls—Tower of the Acropolis resting on a massive wall—The double circle of slabs formed the enclosure of the royal tombs and the Agora—Arguments in proof of this view—Objects of interest found there—A vast Cyclopean house with cisterns and water conduit, probably the ancient Royal Palace—The spring Perseia—No windows in the house—Objects of art and luxury found there—An onyx seal-ring—Vase-paintings of mail-clad warriors—Hand-made pottery in the Acropolis.

MycenÆ, Sept. 30, 1876.

Since the 9th inst. I have continued the excavations with the greatest energy, employing constantly 125 workmen and five horse-carts, and the weather being beautiful I have made excellent progress. In the Treasury, in which Mrs. Schliemann is excavating, we work with thirty labourers and two horse-carts, and find the very greatest difficulty in removing the hundreds of huge wrought stones which have fallen from the vault.

The interior walls of this Treasury have never been covered with brazen plates like the Treasury of Atreus here and the Treasury of Minyas in Orchomenus; at least, I see nowhere in the stones the holes of the bronze nails by which the metal plates were fastened; but I cannot avoid mentioning that on the inner east side of the Treasury, there protrudes from between the stones the fragment of a bronze plate, which sticks so fast that it cannot be drawn out; I therefore suppose that it was fastened there when the Treasury was built. It appears hardly possible that this could have happened merely by accident, but on the other hand I find it difficult to believe that this bronze plate could be a remnant of an ancient wall-coating of bronze plates, which were not fastened to the stones with nails but were attached in the joints between them, because in this case, I presume, we ought to find remnants of those plates in many places.

This Treasury is less sumptuous, and appears to be more ancient, than the Treasury of Atreus here, or the Treasury of Minyas at Orchomenus.

The entrance, which is 13 ft. long and 8 ft. broad, is roofed with four slabs 18½ ft. in length; the holes for the upper door-hinges are 5 in. deep. From certain traces in the walls it appears that the entrance has been ornamented on the right and left with two semi-columns, which we hope to find by digging deeper. A remnant of an ornamentation with semicircles is visible on the slab above the entrance, and the same can easily be distinguished in the engraving of the Treasury.[227] After having been buried for ages in the damp dÉbris, the large wrought stones of the walls of the approach (dromos) and of the faÇade of this Treasury have contracted by exposure to the sun, and, as may be seen from the engraving, a great number of them have crevices.

As in the Treasury of Atreus and in the Lions' Gate, the triangular space above the entrance is formed by an oblique approximation of the ends of the courses of stone. On all three sides of this triangle can be seen cuttings, which make it highly probable that it has once been filled up by a triangular piece of sculpture similar to that above the Lions' Gate.[228]

Among the archaic pottery found in the "dromos" before the Treasury, the very rudely modelled men on horseback holding the horse's neck with both hands, of which also several were found in the tomb at Ialysus, deserve particular attention; further, the fragments of large painted vases profusely covered with an ornamentation of key patterns, zigzag lines, stripes of ornaments like fish-spines, bands with very primitive representations of cranes or swans, or circles with flowers, and occasionally with the sign ?.[229] Vases with such geometrical patterns are sometimes found in Athens, and have hitherto been universally considered to be the most ancient pottery of Attica, but I perfectly share my learned friend Mr. Chas. T. Newton's opinion, that the vases with geometrical patterns are later than all the different sorts of terra-cottas found in the five Royal tombs, and hereafter to be described. Of vases with other patterns I have found but very few fragments. Together with these fragments of pottery there was found part of a necklace with a large bead of white glass (No. 205), two beads of fluor-spar of a transparent bluish, and three of a red-bluish colour, all perforated and strung on a thin copper wire (Nos. 206, 207, 208, 209); also the fragment of a white marble frieze with an ornamentation.[230] Just above the lower part of the "dromos" are the foundations of an Hellenic house, apparently of the Macedonian period.

The Archaeological Society in Athens has not yet sent an engineer to consolidate the sculpture above the Lions' Gate, and to repair the Cyclopean wall close to it; but they intend still to do so. Meanwhile they have allowed me to continue the excavations at the Lions' Gate on the condition that I leave to the right and left of it a considerable portion of the dÉbris in situ in order to facilitate the raising of the blocks which are necessary for the repairs. Therefore I have been able to resume the excavations at the Lions' Gate, and I have brought to light its enormous threshold. Two exact drawings of this are appended. It consists of a very hard block of breccia 15 ft. long and 8ft. broad. The ruts caused by the chariot-wheels, of which all guide books speak, exist only in the imagination of enthusiastic travellers, but not in reality. The immense double parallel row of closely joined slabs, which I have brought to light in close proximity to the Lions' Gate, would now altogether bar the access of chariots to the Acropolis. But as I cannot ascribe a very remote antiquity to the wall which sustains the double row of slabs in the lower part of the Acropolis, so neither can I claim a high antiquity for the circle of slabs itself, and before its erection chariots could certainly have had access to the Acropolis. But on account of the precipitous slopes of the cliff, it is impossible that chariots should ever have penetrated further than the first or lowest of the six natural or artificial terraces. Thus it is obvious that chariots were but little in use here, and that beasts of burden, horses, mules, or asses, were employed in their stead. No doubt the fifteen small straight parallel furrows, which are cut all along the surface of the threshold to prevent the beasts of burden from slipping, might have been mistaken for ruts of chariot-wheels. But again, the threshold having been deeply buried in the dÉbris for ages, and at all events since the capture of the Acropolis by the Argives (468 B.C.), no mortal eye can have seen it for more than 2300 years.

There is a quadrangular hole, 1 ft. 3 in. long and 1 ft. broad, in the middle of the threshold, where the two doors of the gate met. The threshold further shows on its east side a straight furrow, artistically cut, 1 ft. broad, and on its west side another which forms a curve. Both these seem to have served as channels for rain water, the rush of which must have been great, the threshold being lower than the natural rock forming the floor of the passage, which rises gradually. In the side of the threshold which faces the north is a long artificial hole of a peculiar form, which must have been connected with the gate in some way or other, for a cutting of exactly the same form exists in the large flat stone in the middle of the gate at Troy. At a distance of 11½ ft. from the threshold on either side of the passage there is, as at Troy,[231] a quadrangular mass of Cyclopean masonry, 2 ft. broad and high, and 3 ft. long, which marks the site of a second gate of wood.

Further on to the right I have brought to light, below the foundations of an Hellenic house, quite a labyrinth of Cyclopean house-walls, forming a number of parallel corridors from 4 ft. to 6½ ft. broad, filled with stones and dÉbris, which I am now clearing out. One of the corridors leads straight into the Cyclopean house already described.[232] In several places the walls retain traces of their clay-coating. I found here many Hera-idols, also three arrow-heads, all of bronze; two have barbs (??????e?); the third has the form of a pyramid, like the Carthaginian arrows which I found last year in my excavations in MotyË in Sicily.

To the left of the entrance is, first, the small chamber of the door-keeper, and then follows a wall of huge stones, intended merely to sustain the masses of dÉbris (24 ft. to 26 ft. high) which have been washed down from the mount in the course of ages. Further on, in the same line, is a Cyclopean wall (166 ft. long and 30 ft. high) of enormous stones joined together with small ones, which, as already mentioned, is crowned by the ruins of a tower, and gives the Acropolis a peculiarly grand aspect.[233] This wall was imbedded from 10 ft. to 12 ft. deep in the dÉbris, and has now been brought to light down to the rock on which it is founded.

My supposition that the double parallel row of large slabs would be found to form a complete circle has been proved correct. One-half of it rests on the wall which was intended to support it in the lower part of the Acropolis, the other half is founded on the higher flat rock, and touches the foot of the Cyclopean wall before mentioned; the entrance to it is from the north side.[234]

At first I thought that the space between the two rows might have served for libations or for offerings of flowers in honour of the illustrious dead. But I now find this to be impossible, because the double row of slabs was originally covered with cross-slabs, of which six are still in situ; they are firmly fitted in and consolidated by means of notches, 1¼ to 3? in. deep, and 4 in. broad, in the upper edges of the aslant standing slabs of the two parallel rows, which received similar projections on the cross stones, forming a mortice and tenon joint.[235] As these latter exist on all the slabs, there can be no doubt that the whole circle was originally covered in the same way. The vertical slabs are from 4 ft. 2 in. to 8 ft. 2 in. long and 1 ft. 8 in. to 4 ft. broad, and the largest are in the two places where the double row descends from the rock to the supporting wall. Inside, there is first a layer of stones 1 ft. 4 in. thick, for the purpose of holding the slabs in their place; the remaining space is filled up with pure earth mixed with long thin cockle shells in the places where the original covering remains in its position, or with household remains, mixed with innumerable fragments of archaic pottery wherever the covering is missing. This circumstance can leave no doubt that the cross slabs were only removed after the city had been captured and deserted, because all the fragments of archaic pottery must necessarily have been washed down by the rain from the five natural or artificial upper terraces of the Acropolis, and this can of course only have taken place after MycenÆ had been abandoned by its inhabitants.

It must be particularly observed that the whole arrangement of slabs slopes inwards at an angle of 75°; so that, the ground within the circle being raised, as just described, the horizontal slabs formed a continuous bench, on which people could sit, looking towards the enclosure, the inclination leaving convenient room for the feet, as is the case also with the stone seats for the priests in the theatre of Dionysus at Athens.

My esteemed friend, Professor F. A. Paley, has been the first to advance the opinion, accepted by Mr. Charles T. Newton and by myself, that the double parallel circle of slabs, having been in the most solid way covered with cross slabs, must necessarily have served as a bench to sit upon and as the enclosure of the Agora of MycenÆ. He thinks that the first idea for the form of an Agora was given by the circular-dances (??????? ?????) and the recitation of the dithyrambs.[236] The assembled people sat in a circle, and the orator stood in the centre, as we see in Homer,[237] and in Sophocles[238]; and just in the centre of this enclosure at MycenÆ I found a rock forming a slight elevation, which might well have served as the platform (?a), from which the speakers addressed those sitting on the circular bench.[239]

We therefore know with certainty, in the first place, that the Agora was round, and, secondly, that people used to sit there. The circular form of the Agora is also proved by Euripides,[240] who speaks of the "circle of the Agora" (?????? ??????). Professor Paley infers from the passage of Euripides already cited (Electra, 710), that the poet had known this Agora in the Acropolis of MycenÆ from personal inspection, and that by p?t???a ???a he means the enormous circular stone bench by which the Agora is enclosed, and that consequently on this bench he makes the herald stand, when in a loud voice he calls the people of MycenÆ to the Agora; he also believes that Euripides had perhaps in mind the ?a in the Athenian Pnyx. I should not hesitate to accept Professor Paley's opinion, had I not found the Agora deeply buried in the prehistoric dÉbris. But it may very well be that at the time of Euripides the Agora was not yet entirely covered, and that the greater part of the prehistoric dÉbris, with which I found it covered, was only after his time washed down by the heavy winter rains from the five upper natural or artificial terraces of the Acropolis. At all events it appears from the pottery of the later Hellenic city that the latter was not built till after the time of Euripides.[241]

Mr. Charles T. Newton calls my attention to the passage in Thucydides, who says of Corcyra, "the houses which lie in a circle around the Agora."[242] Also to the following passages in Pausanias, which prove that the heroic tombs were in the Agora of Megara. "Here they built the place for council in order that they might have the tomb of the heroes within the place for council;"[243] for there can be no doubt that this ???e?t????? was in the Agora. (It must be borne in mind that this was done at Megara by the advice of the Delphic oracle.) Further: "also the tomb of Coroebus is in the Agora of the Megarians."[244]

Another esteemed friend also calls my attention to the passage in Pausanias: "Here is the tomb of Opheltes, with an enclosure of stones and altars in the walls; (here) is also the tumulus, the sepulchre of Lycurgus, the father of Opheltes."[245] But Opheltes was a son of the Nemean King Lycurgus and Eurydice, and he was killed by a serpent whilst his nurse, Hypsipyle, showed a spring to the seven heroes when on their expedition to Thebes. Owing to this event the people of Nemea founded in his honour the Nemean games, and he, as well as his father, was interred in the sacred grove of the Nemean Jove, where their tombs were seen by Pausanias, who mentions nothing of an Agora.[246]

Professor Paley reminds me of Pindar's Pythian Ode (V. 69-98), in which we read:[247] "(Apollo) caused the valorous descendants of Hercules and Aegimius to dwell in Lacedaemon, and at Argos, and at sacred Pylos. Now they say that from Sparta came my own much cherished race. Sprung from thence the heroes called Aegidae came to Thera, even my ancestors,—not indeed without the guidance of the god, but a certain destiny brought thither a festive rite attended with much sacrificing; and from thence receiving thy Carnea, Apollo, we honour at the banquet the grandly built city of Cyrene, possessed as it is by the brass-loving strangers, Trojan descendants of Antenor. For they came thither with Helen, after they had seen their native city become a smoking ruin in the war. And the horse-driving race is religiously received with sacrifices, and propitiated by offerings (at their tombs), by the men whom Aristoteles (Battas) brought, when he opened the deep highway of the sea for his swift vessels. He founded also larger groves of the gods, and laid down a paved road, cut straight through the plain, to be smitten with the feet of horses in processions to Apollo for averting evil from mortals; and there he lies in death, apart from the rest, at the furthermost end of the Agora. Happy did he live while among men, and afterwards he was blessed as a hero worshipped by the people. And away from him, in front of their palaces [but of course also in the Agora], lie other consecrated kings that have their lot with Hades."

From this passage in Pindar we see that Battas, also called Aristoteles, the founder of Cyrene, 640 B.C., and its first king, descended from Hercules, and that his ancestors, the Heracleids or Dorians, had emigrated from Sparta to Thera. As Pindar saw his tomb, as well as those of other consecrated kings (probably the successors of Battas), in the Agora of Cyrene, Professor Paley thinks that it was an ancient Doric and not an AchÆan custom to bury the kings in the Agora. But this is in contradiction with the above statement of Pausanias (I. 43, §§ 4, 8), that the Megarians had the sepulchres of Coroebus and other heroes in their Agora, because Coroebus was an Elian Olympic victor in the stadium (Ol. I.), and, according to tradition, he killed ?????, sent by Apollo to the Argives.[248] Besides the Megarians had nothing whatever to do with Doric customs.

In like manner as at Megara and Cyrene, so in the Acropolis of MycenÆ, in honour of the illustrious personages who lie buried here, the Agora was erected in a circle around their tombs. Had the circle of slabs served only as an enclosure for the five royal tombs there would have been no necessity either to make it double and slanting and to cover it horizontally, or to build a huge wall for the sole purpose of sustaining it in the lower part of the Acropolis, and of raising it to the level of that part which rested on the rock in the higher part of the Acropolis; nay, one single circular enclosure, following the sinuosities of the rock, would in my opinion have done just as much honour to the five royal sepulchres as the artificially levelled and covered double row.

No. 211. A fish of Wood. (3½ M.)
Actual size.