Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/125

 96 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. situation on the mountain side, the style of the masonry, which consists partly of enormous blocks dressed fair, partly of units left in their native rudeness, have all the appearance of leading back to remote antiquity ; nor is the presumption that there is at least a passing allusion to the sacred grove of Cynthus in the Odyssey devoid of verisimilitude.' Even admitting this much will not enable us to confidently place the construction of the grotto in the Mycenian period ; for it may after all only date from the Kii^. i93. — Cyiiiluis. Sacrcl ^foi'". time when the soaring genius of Ionia began to awake, causing her to take possession about the same time of the Cyclades, and the strip of coast, in Asia Minor, which intervenes between the mouths of the Hermus and Mseander. As regards the temple on Mount Ocha, there is some difficulty in believing that so important an edifice can have been erected at an elevation of cir. 1400 metres by semi-savage tribes sparsely distributed over the island, whose name history does not record. We have a different hypothesis to put forward. Might not this be a much later work of wealthy Karystos, situated at the very foot of Ocha ? ' Odyssey.