Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/505

 OKCHOMENUS. widens, and in the lowest part of the town the en- closed space is nearly square. It is defended on the lowest side by a wall, which crossed the slope of the hill along the crest of a ledge of rock, which there forms a division in the slope. In this wall, which is at three-fourths of the distance from the castle to the monastery, there are some foundations of the gate which formed the lower entrance into the city; and on the outside are many large masses of wrought stone, the remains, apparently, of some temple or other public building. The southern wall of the city, which follows a line parallel to the Cephissus, is traceable, with scarcely any intermission, through a distance of three- quarters of a mile ; and in many places several courses of masonry are still extant. The wall derives its flank defence from square towers, placed fur the most part at long intervals, with an intermediate short flank or break, in the line of wall. In a few places the masonry is of a very early age, but in general it is of the third kind, or almost regular." The former belongs to the earlier Orclio- menus, the latter to the later city, and dates from the time of its restoration either by Philip or the Pho- cians. •' Towards the middle of the northern side the hill of Orchomenus is most precipitous, and here the walls are not traceable. The circumference of the whole was about 2 miles. The citadel occupies a rock about 40 yards in diameter, and seems to have been an irregular hexagon; but three sides only re- inain, no foundations being visible on the eastern half of the rock. At the northern angle are the ruins of a tower, and parallel to the north-western side there is a ditch cut in the rock, beyond which are some traces of an outwork. The hill is com- manded by the neighbouring part of Mount Acon- tium, but not at such a distance as to have been of importance in ancient warfare. The access to the castle from the city was first by an oblique flight of 44 steps, 6 feet wide, and cut out of the rock ; and then by a direct flight of 50 steps of the same kind." PLAN OF ORCHOMENUS. A A. The Cephissus. B B. The Mela8. C. Mount Acontium. D. Orchomtiius. 1. Tlie Acropolis. '2, Treasury of Minyas. 3. Monastery. 4. Village of SkripH. a a. Road from I.ivadhia. b b. Road to Talmida. ORCHOMENUS. 489 The monuments, which Pausanias noticed at Orchomenus, were temples of Dionysus and the Charites, — of which the latter was a very ancient building, — a fountain, to which there was a de- scent, the treasury of Minyas, tombs of Minyas and Hesiod, and a brazen figure bound by a chain of iron to a rock, which was said to be the ghost of Actaeon. Seven stadia from the town, at the sources of the river Melas, was a temple of Hercules. The Trea- sury of Atreus was a circular building rising to a summit not veiy pointed, but terminating in a stone, which was said to hold together the entire building. (Pans. ix. 38.) Pausanias expresses his admira- tion of this building, and says there was nothing more wonderful either in Greece or in any other country. The remains of the treasury still exist at the eastern extremity of the hill towards the lake, in front of the monastery. It was a building similar to the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae. It was a circular vault of massive masonry embedded in the hill, with an arched roof, surmounted probably by a tumulus. The whole of the stone-work of the vault has now disappeared, but its form is vouched for by the circular cavity of the ground and by the descrip- tion of Pausanias. It had a side-door of entrance, which is still entire, though completely embedded in earth up to the base of the architrave. There were probably two great slabs in the architrave, as at Mycenae, though one only is left, which is of white marble, and of which the size, according to Leake, is 16 feet in its greatest length, 8 in its greatest bre.adth, and 3 feet 2^ inches in thickness. The diameter of the vault seems to have been about 41 feet. Respecting the origin and destination of this, and other buildings of the same class, some remarks are made under Mycenae. [Vol. II. p. 383.] Strabo remarks (ix. p. 416) that the Orchomenus of his time was supposed to stand on a different site from the more ancient city, the inundations of the lake having forced the inhabitants to retire from the plain towards 3It. Acontium, And Leake observes, that this seems to accord with the position of the treasury on the outside of the existing walls, since it can hardly have been placed there originally. The acro- polis, howevei-, must always have stood upon the hill ; but it is probable, that the city in the height of its power extended to the Cephissus. COIN OF ORCHOMENUS. The monastery of Shripu, which stands about midway between the treasury and the river, proba- bly occupies the site of the temiile of the Charites ; for the pedestal of a tripod dedicated to the Charites, which is now in the church, was found in an ex- cavation made upon the spot. Some very ancient inscriptions, of which two are now in the British Museum, were found in the church of the nionasteiy. They are in the Orchomenian-Aeolic dialect, in which the digamina was used. (K. 0. Mitller, Orchomenos und die j]/M//e?-,Breslau, 1844, 2nd ed.; Uodwell, Classical Tour, vol. i. p. 227, seq.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 144, seq. ; Mure, Tvuy