Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/393

 366 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. may suppose that want of space in the citadel counselled the transfer of the burial-ground to the lower city, where as much room as was required to dower the single graves with the needful stateliness could be had at will. Perhaps also because on the acropolis the limestone which on many points comes to the surface is much harder than the tufaceous mass of the lower town ; where, too, the layer of vegetable earth was much deeper, so that the chambers in question could be erected with much greater ease. If, as there is some reason to think, the princes who built this class of tombs were aliens to Grecian soil, it was necessity which impelled them to seek beyond the castle-precincts a site which would permit them to retain habits contracted in another land, but endeared to them by old associations, and which they acclimatized in their adoptive home. It remains to notice the ancient road-tracks which Steffen and Lolling discovered at the approaches of Mycenae (Fig. 88),^ and which were built to connect the town with the Heraeum, situate at the head of the plain of Argos in one direction, and on the other with Corinth. Three different roads led to the latter, across the steepy heights parting the two townships. In pre-Homeric times alone the hegemony of Mycenae had been important enough to be the centre towards which converged the high-roads of the region. After the Dorian conquest Argos stepped in the foremost rank, and Mycenae, being too far removed from the sea and the fertile tract of land skirting it, fell in the rear. The Cyclopaean style of masonry seen about these road-tracks and bridges cast athwart precipitous ravines, proves that they are coeval with the oldest portion of the citadel circuit and the sus- taining walls of the lower town (Fig. 129). Every precaution was taken to secure these roads against invasion. Here a watch- tower rears its head at the entrance of a defile ; there a fortified square has been levelled out, spacious enough to hold three or four thousand men.^ The most curious of these entrenched camps occupies the summit and part of the crest of Mount Elias,^ at an altitude of 800 metres. It is fenced in by a rampart wherever the rocky side does not dip vertically. West and east of the summit are sheltered nooks and hollows, which show traces of small, ill-built houses, proving that the fortress was actually garrisoned. The question naturally arises, why and
 * Steffen, Kartcn von MykenaL 2 /^,;/ s /^-^^