CHAPTER XI.

TIRYNS.-MYCENÆ.-ARGOS.-BALL AT NAPOLI.-
LERNEAN MARSH.-TEGEA.

[11TH AND 12TH FEBRUARY.
x.]

WE set forth early this morning on our Argive excursion in the carriage already mentioned, something of the nature of a barouche, but old and clumsy, and much meaner in appearance than the worst London hackney-coach. The mules were wretched, half-starved animals, with a driver to match; yet for this affair we paid more than we should have done in western Europe for the hire of a handsome equipage.

Tiryns was our first object; situated close

upon the main road to Argos, and about a mile and half from Napoli. The very remote antiquity of the walls, and their massy construction, struck us very forcibly. Tiryns, however, if we were to judge by what we could trace of its remains, must have been little more than a fort, for a few minutes' walk took us round it, and it seems to be almost in the state in which Pausanias left it.

"On turning to the right (on the way from Argos to Epidaurus) you will see the ruins of Tiryns. The Argives subverted the kingdom of the Tirynthians, wishing to bring the inhabitants into their city, and thereby to aggrandize Argos. The wall is all that is left of the ruins, and is, according to report, the work of the Cyclops. It is built of rough stones, each of which is so large that the least cannot be moved out of its place but by a yoke of mules; but formerly small stones were inserted, that each of these might fit in as much as possible with the great ones."-Paus. Corinth, 25.

This description-which is perfect at this day-gives, I believe, the earliest definition of what is called Cyclopean archi

tecture.

Above this wall, in a ploughed field, is an ancient well; and round some part of the walls, and between their exterior and interior faces—for they are twenty feet thick, as well as 3000 years old-runs a covered way, probably for the communications of the garrison, formed by the stones gradually approaching towards the top, and making a rude gallery. The whole stands about forty feet above the level of the plain, and is completely isolated; about two hundred and twenty-six yards long, by sixty feet at the greatest breadth, with two gateways, one defended by a square tower, built of immense stones. I must add, to prevent misconception, that these are only foundations, but sufficiently distinguishable to satisfy us of the exact force and propriety of Homer's epithet Τίρυνθα τειχιόεσσαν, which Cowper, with all his boasted accuracy, omits wholly, and which Pope pardonably amplifies

'Strong Tirynthus' lofty walls."

Our tour in Greece has satisfied me of the importance of every word of him, who was the great father of history and topography, as well as of poetry.

After a short visit, which afforded, I own, nothing more interesting than the corroboration of the Homeric epithet-we proceeded onward, passing one or two villages, near which we noticed fragments of white marble; a well or two, and here and there a chapel, until we arrived at Krabata, from which a walk of a few minutes brought us near the walls of Mycenae, where again Pausanias will be a safer guide than the current traditions, which are often (and I think in this instance particularly) founded on a misconception of his meaning. After stating the destruction of Mycena through the envy of the Argives, because the Mycenæans had sent eighty men to Thermopylæ, and had gained a glory which the Argives had forfeited, he proceeds :—

Some parts of the old enclosure remain, and a gate,

TOMB OF AGAMEMNON.

255

with lions standing on it, and it is said that these were the works of the Cyclops, who made the walls of Tirynthus: amongst these ruins there is a fountain called Persea, and a subterranean habitation of Atreus and his sons, in which they deposited their treasures. There is also a sepulchre of Atreus, and of those who, returning from Troy with Agamemnon, were slain at a banquet by Ægisthus."-Paus. Corinth, c. 16.

All this our guides would persuade us that we saw, and some of the objects we certainly did see.

Of the Gate of Lions there can be no doubt; but we had many about the cavern, which is now called both the Treasury of Atreus and Tomb of Agamemnon. It is entered from the side of the hill, and over it runs a small watercourse, supposed to be supplied from the fountain Persea; the building is like a hollow cone, in diameter forty-eight feet, in height fifty. Over the door is a single stone, twenty-seven feet by sixteen: the only way in which we could imagine that so large a mass could have been placed in its present position, was by shaping it on the upper side of the hill, in which