Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/417

 390 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. The Donied'Tombs of Laconia, The Homeric tales represent Laconia as intimately united with Argolis throughout the heroic period. An Atrid prince, Menelaus, reigns over Laconia ; Messenia, as yet unknown by that name, has large dealings with Mycenae. Nestor, the aged king of sandy Pylos, is the companion and counsellor of Agamemnon before Troy. Telemachus during his journey in search of his father, finds ready welcome along his route, whether from Nestor or Menelaus. These are, of course, poetical fictions which cannot be taken literally; yet higher criticism accepts the main lines of the picture as reminiscences of a time when the whole of Peloponnesus was swayed by one civilization, at least on the coasts turned towards Egypt and Asia, during the golden day of Achaean supremacy over the peninsula. The scholars who have devoted their time and energies to the finding of monuments which owe their existence to Mycenian culture, were sure to explore, some day or another, such antique sites as Laconia and Messenia, where there might be some chance of coming across traces of the arts and industry of pre- Homeric Greece. In 1887 Schliemann examined the plain of Sparta, notably the crest of the heights skirting the left bank of the river opposite the old town. Attached to the place were the name and worship of Menelaus, and these raised hopes which study of the ground has not confirmed. He found nowhere Cyclopaean walls or mounds, in the depths of which might lurk very archaic graves. Disheartened to find nothing but pottery of the classical age on the surface, he gave up the task as hopeless.^ M. Tsoundas, on behalf of the Archaeological Society, brought to light on the Menelaean heights, hard by the reputed site of Therapnae, broken Mycenian pottery, but no. architectonic relic of any kind.^ In the small plain of Arkinae, Arkina which is hemmed in on every side of the compass by the spurs of the Taygetus, he discovered a rude, small domed-grave, four metres seventy centimetres in diameter. The objects found in it are of the poorest description : a few stone beads, and one gold ornament ; ^ Athenische Mittheilungen, Tsoundas, 'Epcwac iy tq Aa^'bii/u'^ koI 6 rdi^i Tov Ba^ciov ('E^iy/Lifpcc ap^nio- XoyiKt)),