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.

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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.

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The excavations of recent years have given us abundant information on three important points, first as to the architectural decoration of these splendid memorials of the dead, second as to their purpose, and third as to their date. On each of these subjects I must briefly touch.

There have been for a long time in the British Museum interesting fragments from the doorway of the Treasury of

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Atreus, and attempts have been made, on the ground of these fragments and others once known which have disappeared, to reconstruct the entrance of the building. Such attempt has best succeeded in the hand of M. Chipiez[52], who has produced a design at once faithful to the data, and of noble architectural effect. A more recent discovery is that of the decoration, in relief, of the ceiling of the side-chamber of the tomb of Orchomenus, which was excavated by Dr. Schliemann in 1880[53] (Fig. 17). The pattern of this ceiling bears a close resemblance to some of the Egyptian patterns in use for painted ceilings, thus giving us a valuable suggestion as to the origin of the art of the Mycenaean age.

That the conical underground buildings of early Greece were really erected as burial-places of the kings and nobles is now certain. Pausanias, in whose times less was known as to primitive Greece than is now known, calls the beehive tomb at Orchomenus the treasury of Minyas, and those at Mycenae the treasuries of Atreus and his sons. And doubtless they were in a sense treasuries, since in them were stored all the rich spoils which at that time were so freely bestowed on the great dead. But primarily they were burial-places, and the use as treasure-houses was only a derivative one. A few years ago this was a matter of dispute among the learned, K. O. Müller taking one side and Welcker the other. But in this case, as in so many others, the spade has cut the Gordian knot which the wit of man could not untie. Excavation has brought to light within the beehive grave of Menidi, in Attica, six skeletons; and at Vaphio, though the bodies which had been buried in the conical chamber had passed into dust, yet the disposition of the rich booty which was found buried beneath the floor showed that it was certainly a sepulchral deposit.

In the case of the more elaborate tombs with two chambers, there can be little doubt that the smaller side-chamber was that wherein the corpses were laid, while the outer chamber served for the purposes of the cultus with which the dead were honoured: thither was brought the tribute of sacrifice and offering which the dead demanded from the living. But in those cases where there is a single chamber, the dead rested beneath the floor of that chamber in the midst of their wealth, their arms and ornaments and vessels of silver and gold.

A number of recent discoveries, a full account of which would take us too far from our immediate subject, have helped us to determine the date of the beehive tombs of early Greece. The earliest date indicated for them seems to be about the fifteenth, and the latest the tenth, century before our aera. They belong to the age of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth dynasties of Egypt, when the land of the Pharaohs was more than once exposed to invasion by the powerful chiefs of the islands of the north. As the mists of the past are lifting, we gain a clearer and clearer view of a somewhat highly developed civilization in Hellenic lands at a time long before the Greece which is known to us came into being, of kings before Agamemnon, and palaces older and more splendid than those described in the Homeric poems. We may venture, though perhaps not without some trepidation, to ascribe the tombs of which we have spoken to the Achaean heroes whose fame still echoes in the earliest poetry of Greece; though it is certain that after their erection great changes had taken place in the country before the Homeric poems acquired anything like their present form. Our trepidation arises from the fact that the last word is certainly not said, nor the last theory put forth in this matter. The claims of the Carians and the Pelasgi to the remains of the Mycenaean age find adherents. Mr. Helbig, in an able recent work[54], has tried to prove that the contents of the Mycenaean tombs are almost entirely Phoenician. But the verdict of the majority of archaeologists goes in favour of the Achaeans, and the sober judgement of M. Perrot has accepted their claims in his great work on _La Grèce primitive_.

It is supposed by many archaeologists that the graves which were dug in the rock just within the Lion-gate of Mycenae, those tombs the rich spoil of which dazzled Europe a few years ago, are of older period than the beehive tombs. It is not unusual to recognize in the graves of prehistoric Greece two periods, an older period of rock-cut graves, and a later of beehive graves. But this distinction rests on no solid proof. There is no reason for deciding that the contents of the beehive tomb at Vaphio belonged to a later age than the contents of the Mycenaean rock-tombs. In the opinion of Professor Petrie, an opinion eminently worthy of consideration, they belong to an earlier time. Mr. Evans, another excellent authority, has accepted a view, first put forward by myself, that the bodies and the treasures found in the rock-graves at Mycenae had been moved thither, on some alarm of invasion, from an earlier resting-place in the beehive tombs which lie outside the acropolis walls of that city. In any case we are justified, in the present state of knowledge, in declining to recognize the line of division of which we have spoken. And so we may persist in regarding the sculptural decorations of the rock-tombs as not earlier than the architectural decorations of the beehive tombs. Very probably they may be later, but in any case they belong to the same race and the same age.

Over several of the rock-cut fosses in which the wealth of the early kings of Mycenae lay mingled with their bones, there was erected, either at the time of burial or later, an upright slab to mark the spot. Some of these slabs were plain, but others were carved with reliefs, of which some account must here be given, as it is desirable to compare them with the sepulchral reliefs of later Greece.

These slabs were made of the calcareous stone of the district: with time their surface has naturally suffered, but we can still trace on them the scenes sculptured by hands evidently quite unaccustomed to dealing with such materials. The designs are in many cases mere patterns, such as appear with far greater appropriateness on the gold plates used for the adornment of the dead. But in a few cases we have transcripts from the life of the period. Fig. 18[55] represents part of one tombstone. We here see a warrior charging the foe in a chariot, the horse of which gallops with an almost preternatural energy. The driver holds with his right hand the reins, while the left hand grasps the hilt of a sword slung to his side by a sword-belt. In front of him flies an enemy who brandishes a leaf-shaped sword. The whole field is occupied by spiral designs. Fig. 19[56] presents

a scene still ruder in execution, but similar in design, save that the enemy is still defiant, instead of in flight, though

the lance of the charioteer has already pierced him. A third stele (Fig. 20[57]) represents a mixed scene of war and the chase. In the background a warrior charges in his chariot as before; the enemy has fallen before him, and lies under the horse’s feet, endeavouring vainly to shelter himself under his huge shield. In the foreground a lion pursues a stag. Here it may be doubted whether the lion stands in a close relation to the charioteer or not. When Rameses II, on the monuments of Egypt, charges his foes, a lion gallops beside him, and shares in the fray. Have we some such scene here in imitation of Egyptian art? Or is the lion merely seeking his own prey? Or is he, as is not impossible, only a dog?

All three of these scenes come from slabs erected over one grave at Mycenae, the fifth. The other slabs with reliefs are in too fragmentary a condition to be studied to much purpose; and in fact it is to be feared that the reader may accuse us of somewhat straining evidence in interpreting these more complete scenes, though in reality none of our statements is open to much doubt.

We need but carry our thoughts for a minute to the sculptures which adorned the walls of the palaces of the kings of Assyria, which are full of the triumphs of those powerful monarchs alike over human foes and the beasts of the field, in order fully to recognize the meaning of the Mycenaean reliefs. Here also we doubtless have a court chronicle, though material and style will not bear for a moment any comparison with the magnificent records of Nimroud. Here also we may discern the king, in whose honour the slab was set up, slaying and pursuing his enemies. And although at Mycenae we are in a time of comparative barbarism, yet at least for the choice of subject we may find parallels in the later age of Greece. Dexileos riding down his foe on horseback on the splendid monument of the Cerameicus (Pl. XII) may be considered a parallel to the nameless chief of Mycenae who pursues his enemy in the chariot of an earlier age. But a still closer resemblance of subject is to be found in monuments of Asia Minor, in the paintings of the sarcophagi of Clazomenae, which date from the sixth century[58]. On these we have frequent battle scenes, and chiefs riding in two-horse chariots occur. The graves of Lycia and the sarcophagi of Sidon also preserve in their reliefs extracts from the lives of the chiefs buried in them, of their military expeditions, hunting exploits and domestic enjoyments.

The extraordinary inferiority of the sculpture of Mycenae in comparison either with the architecture of walls and gates, or with the working of the gold and silver cups and ornaments found in the tombs, may at first surprise us. But in spite of this inferiority, there are touches of similarity between the representations on the stone and those in the metal plates which show them to belong to one age. We may account best for the curious discrepancy by reflecting how very closely art is dependent on material. The artists of Mycenae were evidently used to gold and metal work. They had learned to adapt their devices perfectly to a material which could be engraved and hammered. But to making reliefs in stone they were clearly quite unaccustomed. No mason who thought as a mason would attempt so absurd a task as the working out on stone of these spiral and interlaced patterns. They are taken straight from metal to limestone. And complete ignorance of the art of working in relief is shown also in the way in which the scenes are executed, each figure being quite flat, and the outlines only made clear against the ground of the relief. A distant report of reliefs in stone to be found in the lands of the far east and the south seems to have reached the workmen of Mycenae, and set them to work, when they naturally carried with them into the new branch of art the style of the _repoussé_ metalwork which was familiar to them. Even the Lion Gate of Mycenae, though a work of a character very superior to that of the tombstones, is very weak on the side of technique.