Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/331

 3o6 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. order, so as to have a constant and ample supply of water ; ^ the citadel however, even for the ancients, had been so long silent and desolate, that we may safely infer both passage and steps as belonging to the Mycenian epoch, when the defence of the acropolis whereon the kings and their families were domiciled was of supreme importance. Troy and Tiryns afford examples of stairways and galleries contrived inside the walls ; but there Fig. 94. — Mycenae wall. they led to posterns intended to facilitate a sally ; here, as we have shown for Amasia, in Asia Minor, their purpose was of a purely economic nature.*^ The passage we are considering has a mean height of four metres fifty centimetres, by one metre fifty centimetres in breadth. Its construction is that which prevailed at that remote period. At the entrance, each successive ring of stones is set in advance of the one below, and the Fig, 95. — Entrance to passage contrivetl in the north wall. gallery rises to the usual acute arch ; by the reservoir the roof is horizontal. The circuit-wall shows traces of two gateways ^ We have evidences that Mycenae was inhabited in the third and second century B.C. ; but when and through what circumstances the little town, which in its public deeds styled itself k-w/iiy Mwaveoii', settled here is not known. The words just cited are to be read in two inscriptions, found in 1886, almost on the surface of the acropolis. The date of one is fixed from the name of Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, mentioned in it ; the other appears, from internal evidence, to belong to the same period. Both are written in the local Argian dialect. • 2 Q, Perrot and E. Guillaume, Explor, archeologique de la Gaiade.