Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/378

 Mycen^. 35 t away in them. The word flijeraugoV must primarily have been applied to such cellars as these. The grains deposited in them were less exposed than they would have been in apparent buildings, to fire, plunder, or the action of the weather. By analogy, the appellation was extended to buildings the object of which was to preserve substances of any kind, as for example the chapels of Delphi and Olympia, in which the costly offerings made to the shrine by the Greek cities were kept. Were the public stores at Cyzicus subter- raneous buildings ? We know not, except that they are said by Strabo to have been, one the granary, the second the arsenal, and the third a store for all kinds of implements and machinery of the commonwealth.^ There are literary evidences that the word fli^eraugo^ was usually understood to indicate underground structures, hermetically closed except at rare intervals, and lighted by a single aperture at the top.^ Can we wonder that antiquaries on the threshold of their science should have identified them with Qr^traupol? The temptation was all the more irresistible that Mycenae and Orchomenos were reputed to have been the most opulent cities of prehistoric Hellas, and, above all, to have had an abundance of the precious metals.^ The inference to be deduced from them was that the Argian and Minyan kings had built strong and lasting structures, to place their hoards above temptation. The domed-buildings of Orchomenos and Mycenae seemed to fulfil these conditions. They were of considerable size, built of stones dressed fair, and not wanting in a certain degree of stateliness which brought them in harmony with the greatness and splendour of heroic kings. Hence the denominations found in Pausanias, who assuredly had not invented them, were at first accepted by authoritative European scholars without a 1 Strabo. -^ Herodotus mentions the riches of Sardanapalus : ijivXaiToo/jieya iv Oritravpolc fcarayaioitn ; Plutarch, Philoposmen : Koniaavrtq avrov cc tov icdKov/jiivov ®ri<ruvp6t', oiKTifJia Kardyaiov, ovt€ irvcu/ia Xafif^avoy ovre <^Qq H^ttadLV^ ovrt dvpac typv, ilWd ptyaXw (6t^ irtpiayofiiv^ fcarajcXcto/xfiKov, ivravOa KareOeyro koI tov iOoy ivippd^ctyrtQ dvZpaQ tviirXovQ kvkX^ rrepuorritrav. ^ Homer calls Mycenae iroXvypvaoq^ "rich in gold"; and Achylles finds no better way of expressing his indignation of the injury inflicted upon him than by roundly telling the Achaean envoys that he will never yield to their entreaty, not if they offered him all the wealth amassed at Orchomenos or Egyptian Thebes, whose houses are filled with precious objects (I/iad^ ix. 381, 382).
 * silos" of Southern Europe, all sorts of provisions were stowed