Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/387

 360 Primitive Greece : Mvcenian Art. sometimes hewn into an irregular vault (Fig. 124); and some- times, though rarely, we find a second and smaller division at the back of the vault (Fig. 127) or at the side (Fig. 128), separated from the main chamber by a very short passage, referred to above. The chambers average from three to four metres by four or five metres ; and reach a height of two or two and a half metres at the sides, and three metres in the middle, under the gable. These tombs do not form a single cemetery, but are scattered about in groups of five, twenty, or more among the ruins of the lower city, mustering particularly strong at the point called Asprochoma (Fig. 88). The fact that a number of graves were discovered in the inhabited regions, points to the dead having been interred among their own people, where they had lived. This primitive custom will prevail through- out the monarchical period. But when the old hereditary dynasties shall have made way for the city, the citizens, now members of the body politic, will feel a personal interest in moving towards the Agora, where new regulations are tossed this way and that way before they become law, tribunals where these same laws are enforced, halls where magistrates hold their sittings, temples where sacrifices are offered for the public weal, theatres where every soul is stirred by emotions common to all. The houses of the citizens will cluster around these buildings, where the best and noblest portion of their life will be spent ; a wall will enclose this new quarter, which new conditions of existence have brought into being, so as to guard it against a sudden assault. Then will their burial-places be transferred beyond the circuit, now too narrow to contain them, and each town will have its cemetery or cemeteries by the way- side leading to its gates. Some Greek cities, however, especially Sparta, reluctantly adopted the new change ; the latter was not enclosed by a circuit-wall until the reign of the tyrant Nabis, in the third century B.C. Two hundred years before, Thucydides, writing of Sparta, had said: *' Should ever Lacedaemon be razed to the ground, and should none of her temples or other public buildings remain except the foundations, having had no circuit- walls, later generations would deem that her fame had been over-rated, and had far transcended the power she once had wielded. As the Spartans have not gathered around a common