DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0114
92
New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. IV.
Japan, to the far-famed Yo-Semite Valley in California,
or the high peaks of the great Cordilleras, and I confess
that the prospect from the citadel of Tiryns far exceeds
all of natural beauty which I have elsewhere seen." This
beautiful plain contains the sites of three famous cities.
They cannot all have flourished together, and we know
that the supremacy belonged to various of them at different
times. Mycenae, placed at the head of the plain, is a great
mountain fastness, fit for a stronghold in unquiet days,
when the seas were full of pirates, and a city nearer to the
sea ran a risk of sudden sack by them. In more quiet
times Argos, which naturally dominates the centre of the
plain, would secure the primacy in virtue of its more con-
venient site and richer territory, and would, as in fact it
did, establish a port on the sea, whence it could com-
municate with the outer world, Nauplia, the natural gate
of the valley, but never its ruler. The stronghold of
Tiryns is about three miles from the sea. The site was
fitted for the seat of a powerful family, who wished
to preserve communication with both sea and land,
but it was not adapted for a large population. It was not
large in area, to begin with, and possessed neither the
grasp of the land obtained by Argos, nor the hold on
the sea which made the fortune of Nauplia. Hence it was
destined to fade, away with the growth of great cities,
population, and trade, which began in so marked a manner
in the ninth and eighth centuries in Greece ; and its bloom
was past when Sparta had scarcely eclipsed its neighbour
Amyclae, and Athens was disputing with Megara the
possession of Salamis.
The huge walls of Tiryns are pointed out to every
traveller. Their massiveness of construction surprises the
visitor, as it surprised Pausanias in the time of Hadrian, and
drew from him the somewhat exaggerated statement, that
the stones of which they are built are so huge that the
New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. IV.
Japan, to the far-famed Yo-Semite Valley in California,
or the high peaks of the great Cordilleras, and I confess
that the prospect from the citadel of Tiryns far exceeds
all of natural beauty which I have elsewhere seen." This
beautiful plain contains the sites of three famous cities.
They cannot all have flourished together, and we know
that the supremacy belonged to various of them at different
times. Mycenae, placed at the head of the plain, is a great
mountain fastness, fit for a stronghold in unquiet days,
when the seas were full of pirates, and a city nearer to the
sea ran a risk of sudden sack by them. In more quiet
times Argos, which naturally dominates the centre of the
plain, would secure the primacy in virtue of its more con-
venient site and richer territory, and would, as in fact it
did, establish a port on the sea, whence it could com-
municate with the outer world, Nauplia, the natural gate
of the valley, but never its ruler. The stronghold of
Tiryns is about three miles from the sea. The site was
fitted for the seat of a powerful family, who wished
to preserve communication with both sea and land,
but it was not adapted for a large population. It was not
large in area, to begin with, and possessed neither the
grasp of the land obtained by Argos, nor the hold on
the sea which made the fortune of Nauplia. Hence it was
destined to fade, away with the growth of great cities,
population, and trade, which began in so marked a manner
in the ninth and eighth centuries in Greece ; and its bloom
was past when Sparta had scarcely eclipsed its neighbour
Amyclae, and Athens was disputing with Megara the
possession of Salamis.
The huge walls of Tiryns are pointed out to every
traveller. Their massiveness of construction surprises the
visitor, as it surprised Pausanias in the time of Hadrian, and
drew from him the somewhat exaggerated statement, that
the stones of which they are built are so huge that the