Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/412

 Tombs of the HERiCUM and Nauplia. 385 way out of Nauplia, on the north-east declivity of the hill which carries the stronghold of Palamidi, with the houses of the Pronia suburb extending at the base. We read in Strabo that Cyclopsean grottoes and a labyrinth were extant in his day at Nauplia.^ From the way he speaks of Mycenae and even Argos, it is evident that he was ignorant or had a very superficial knowledge of the country, and was mainly dependent on former travellers for his information. The words '* subterranean graves " and '* passages" may have set his imagination working, and made him jump to the conclusion that here was another relic of the Cyclopes, whose achievements he so much admired. The so- called labyrinths are either quarries, which, as at Gortyna, furrow the flank of the neighbouring mountain, or the tombs lately dis- covered. These are connected with each other by narrow corridors, mostly choked up with fallen and undisturbed earth ; hence a complete restoration of the burial-place is out of the question. Nevertheless, the partial clearance permits us to guess a com- plicated arrangement of chambers, a crossing and re-crossing of galleries vaguely suggestive of a maze, and the inhabitants may have fallen into the habit of so designating to visitors the sombre vaults and passages of the prehistoric necropolis.*' Be that as it may, the chambers enclosed by this so-called labyrinth were plundered at an early date. The explorers also came upon undis- turbed sepultures whose entrance passage, being hidden under the herbage growing on the mountain slope, effectually saved them from grave-seekers. But these lie some distance apart from each other, and are not comprised in the above group (Figs. 132, 133). In both we find a dromos from four to seven metres long, ver- tically sunk in the tufa rock to the depth of cir. three metres. The width of the vault at the bottom of the pit averages one metre twenty centimetres to one metre sixty centimetres, and is somewhat less at the top, to facilitate the closing.^ The work is slovenly and hastily done ; the axis does not pass through the ^ Strabo : 'E^eJ^c ^£ rij NavTrXi^ tq. ffTrifXaia n'oi o iv avroiq otKO^ofirfTol Xa€vpivBoi' KvKu)ir€ia o oyofidiovaiv. Again, about the Tirynthian walls built by the Cyclopes : koI 'iatjQ ra airrjXaia rd irepi Ti)v 'SavwXiay uaJ rd Iv ahroiQ tpya Tovrutv nrwvvfid Iotiv, ^ The same contrivance is noticeable in the neighbouring tomb of the Herneum and at Spata. VOL. I. C C