Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/445

 41 8 PRiMitivE Greece: Mycenian Art. Next to the plain of Attica is that of Eieusis, where an independent community maintained itself throughout the primitive period. The border warfare carried on between the two neigh- bouring states is remembered in history. Here and there, on the hill of Eieusis, traces of very ancient structures crop up amidst foundations of Hellenic and Roman times. The tomb, recall- ing at a distance the domed-buildings of Mycenae (Fig. 147), has already been referred to. Dorpfeld would also place in the first period the corner of a retaining, wall, north-eastward of the great Initiatory Hall. The blocks composing it are smaller than those at Mycenae and Tiryns, but like these they are almost in the rough, and the intervals left between the single units are made good with pebbles and mud. Here and there the method is identical. The Domed-Tomb at Orckomenos, In Attica we have met with none but second-class buildings. To find an edifice from which may be guessed the sustained effort of a wealthy and powerful dynasty, we must cross Cithaeron and descend into Boeotia. There, on a lofty elongated ridge rising to the left of Cephisus, and overlooking both lake and plain, formerly stood a city, a queen among the other townships of Hellas, the main centre of a great Minyan clan, that hardy race of navigators who had launched the Argo, and joined hands with the Theban Cadmaeus in bringing the fat land of Boeotia under cultivation. This was Orchomenos, a town already decadent in the day of Homer, but whose ancient fame lived on in minstrelsy. The Treasury of Minyas, respecting which Pausanias rebukes the Greeks for undujy lauding the edifices of other nations at the cost of their own master-pieces, is even now visited by travellers, and in its palmiest days must have challenged comparison with the finest instances of Mycenian art. Orchomenos is not the only citadel which the Minyans possessed in this district. On the other side of the lake, at the foot of Mount Ptoon, a rocky mass which, until the late works, had generally its base washed by the flood, carries the ruins known under the name of Palaeo-Kastro of