Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/401

 374 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. no other during his hurried visit to Mycenae. Unlike localities which had preserved their sanctuaries, the place did not detain him because of inscriptions to be read, lists of statues and offeringrs to be made, or local traditions to be collected, all the lower city had to show were pieces of masonry just visible above ground, the rest having been destroyed by the Argives, and the stones composing it re-used in building the Hellenistic and Roman city ; the practised eye of an architect alone could have followed its sinuous line in and out of labyrinthine substructures and ruinous masses. What most impressed the traveller was the rampart of the PerseidcC and Atridse, boldly flung above the dizzy heights of the ravines, and circling the hill with its ponderous and indestructible courses, the lofty rock being itself enframed and ruled by loftier mountains. Remembering that the seven or eight tombs of Pausanias were supposed to be *' within" the circuit, and that all our domed-buildings are ** outside " it, the theory which would identify them with the former falls to the ground ; besides which, neither Pausanias nor his contemporaries suspected the funereal character of the bee-hive erections, and looked upon them as treasuries. It being clear that the graves which have been opened on the acropolis are not those cited by Pausanias, we are left to face two hypotheses : either these tombs are still buried somewhere within the area enclosed by the Cyclopaean wall, or else they are the shaft-graves of the stone-circle un- covered by Schliemann. There is not much probability that the first assumption is correct. If the acropolis has not yet been thoroughly explored, and finds may still be expected from that quarter, the western side of the platform, and the gentle ac- clivities above which rose the palace, exhibit house foundations seemingly closely serrated the one against the other. It would have been vain to find in this region space for the lodgment of all the royal tombs, except by the Lions Gate, or in that species of blind alley to the eastward of the citadel. Now, remembering the traditions that were still afloat in the time of Pausanias in regard to the royal sepultures, is it likely that they would be relegated to a remote corner of the acropolis, with no means of egress save a narrow postern leading to the open country ? It seems much more natural to place the site at the entrance of the upper city, by the road along which