Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/162

 The House and the Palace. 127 good by a deep layer of silted-up earth and rubbish on which they afterwards laid the foundations of a Doric temple (Fig. 1 16). Tiryns alone has preserved a complete plan, which requires no additions to be made, save here and there some pieces of wall whose course may be traced with certainty from the exist- ing parts (PI. II.). The distinguishing features of the three plans are, first a great hall, the largest in the building, whose breadth is in every instance cir, ten metres; whilst the length varies from ten metres at Tiryns to twenty metres at Troy ; ^ so that the length of the Trojan hall is double its breadth ; but the difference between width and length, though marked, is much less at Tiryns, and hardly perceptible at Mycenee ; here, the first impression gained is that of a square room. All these halls are preceded by a vestibule, which is single at Troy, and double at Tiryns and Mycenae. In the two last edifices it decomposes itself into a portico (aMotxra Sojeaow), which opens in front on the court, and a covered and closed ante-chamber, which interposes between the porch (TrpoiofjLog) and the principal apartment ; this in either instance has no direct communication with the outside. It is not hard to guess at the part which the hall played in the existence of the inhabitants of the fort, and the needs it was intended to meet. Everything was cal- culated to afford accommodation for a large number of people, and facilitate movement to and fro. The entrances, of which there are three at Tiryns, are all very wide ; they stand between the portico and the inner vestibule (Fig. 83). The porch and vestibule served as waiting-rooms to such visitors as were pre- cluded by their inferior rank or functions from passing to the reserved part of the building without previous leave. Such would be clients and persons soliciting favours, who had to wait for their turn to be received in audience. Here, too, were servitors, when their presence was not required elsewhere. The hall had no door, the entrance being closed by a simple curtain, which generally was drawn on one side. We recognize in it the Homeric megaron, be it from its dimensions or the ^ The exact dimensions of the megaron are as follows : At Troy (PI. I. a) twenty metres by ten centimetres, and (Fig. 59) eleven metres fifty-five centimetres by nine metres ten centimetres ; at Mycenae, twelve metres ninety-two centimetres by eleven metres fifty centimetres (Fig. 116); at Tiryns, eleven metres eighty-one centimetres by nine metres eighty-one centimetres.