Gell, William: The itinerary of Greece: With a commentary on Pausanias and Strabo and an account of the monuments of antiquity at present existing in that country (London, 1810)

KRABATA. MYCENAE. S3

edifice it describes at Orchomenos, exactly similar to this at
Mjcenae, sufficiently proves that the building at Krabata is what the
Greeks called a treasury. Both Orchomenos and Mycenae were
famous for opulence. Odyssey 3. 305. and Speech of Achilles in the
Iliad. The brass nails which are placed at regular distances
throughout the interior, have not heads, which might have served for
ornament. They consist of 88 parts of copper and 12 of tin.

They must have served to fasten plates of the same metal to the
wall, and the seeming fables of brazen chambers and brazen temples
may be easily explained by this circumstance.

Danae was confined in a similar apartment, as may be proved by the
description given of her chamber at Argos. See Argos. The Thalamoi
of the daughters of Pros tus atTiryns,were probably of the same species.

Treasuries were also used as prisons, for " the Messenians having
taken prisoner Philopaemen," placed him in a treasury, which was
under ground and without light; it had no door, which seems a curi-
ous circumstance for a treasury, but they placed a large stone so as
to prevent his escape. Plutarch's Life of Philopamen. Homer also
mentions the brazen chamber in the Odyssey, in a manner that makes
it probable he meant a prison.

There was a very ancient temple of Apollo at Delphi, said to have
been built by bees; but this was probably an allusion to the form of