Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/533

 476 Primitivk Greixk: Mycenian Art. Did our judgment rest on the sole testimony of the menu- ments, we should none the less divine that there came a day when Mycenian art had to yield to another art, that of archaic Hellas. Thus, at a feeble depth from the present level of areas enclosed by Cyclopsean walls, sherds of the eighth and seventh centuries are picked up; and on the soil and ruin of the Tiryn- thian and Mycenian palaces the explorers have come across the remains of Doric temples. We should doubtless have been justi- fied to infer from this progressive change of styles that events such as subversion of dynasties and commonwealths had taken place in the centuries intervening between the two eras, but we could not have proved our case. Fortunately it is found that tradition, though so halting and uncertain throughout the primitive age of the Grecian world, assumes almost the consistency of history, from the very threshold of the following period, ushered in by conflicts in consequence of which part of the population is driven from European Hellas to Asia and the adjacent isles. The tales dealing with these struggles and violent displacements are still mixed up with matter of a fabulous nature ; but the sequence of the facts is well established. Such convulsions and movement of migration were no doubt induced by what the ancients called the ** return of the Heraclidae," and which we term the Doric invasion. At this distance of events upon which no contemporary in- formation sheds any light, it is impossible to estimate the effects of an invasion, implying wholesale plunder, destruction, and cruel hardships of every sort, such as a sudden and abiding influx of population could not fail to bring about. We cannot doubt that all these collisions and expulsions caused the march of progress to stand still, or rather to recede. When the Dorians overran Peloponnesus and laid waste the country, storming citadels or starving out the defenders, there occurred an unavoidable inter- ruption in the direct or indirect relations between towns boasting to have had heroes from over the sea as their founders, and Phrygia, Caria, Lycia, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Maritime trade, either brought to a deadlock or greatly paralyzed, ceased to feed an industry which was fast rising to an artistic level, and had actually reached it in some of its works ; so that instead of pursuing its onward course, it must ever^^where have languished, and on many a point have fallen to a very low ebb indeed.