DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0108
66 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
they are on a higher level than the men's, but this is due
simply to the nature of the ground. Still in the Mycenae
palace we find a staircase leading to a second story or ter-
race, and even the private houses at Mycenae (as we shall
presently see) sometimes have an upper story.
Hence we are not to assume any radical difference in
plan and structure between the prehistoric and the Homeric
Unity with palace; at most, the latter has undergone modifi-
divemty cations to adapt it to the requirements of a later
age. Moreover, it goes without saying that, as the palaces
of the Argolid do not correspond in every detail, and the
palace at Gha differs widely from both of these, so neither
were the Homeric palaces built according to one fixed and
invariable type. The nature of the site, the circumstances
of the individual prince, and other considerations without
number would control the architect. Planning for a Priam
with fifty sons and a dozen daughters, most of them wedded
and biding at home,1 he would take one line; building for
an Odysseus, in a long lineage of only sons,2 he would take
quite another. So the sharp hill of Aetos would deter-
mine one ground plan, the leveled terrace of Tiryns an-
other, the island-rock of Gha still another. "With such
allowances, it is safe to say that the student of Homer
may justly conceive the palaces of Alcinous, Menelaus and
Odysseus as measurably realized in the actual palaces whose
foundations we have uncovered.
1 Iliad, vi. 243.
'2 Odyssey, xvi. 117 f.
they are on a higher level than the men's, but this is due
simply to the nature of the ground. Still in the Mycenae
palace we find a staircase leading to a second story or ter-
race, and even the private houses at Mycenae (as we shall
presently see) sometimes have an upper story.
Hence we are not to assume any radical difference in
plan and structure between the prehistoric and the Homeric
Unity with palace; at most, the latter has undergone modifi-
divemty cations to adapt it to the requirements of a later
age. Moreover, it goes without saying that, as the palaces
of the Argolid do not correspond in every detail, and the
palace at Gha differs widely from both of these, so neither
were the Homeric palaces built according to one fixed and
invariable type. The nature of the site, the circumstances
of the individual prince, and other considerations without
number would control the architect. Planning for a Priam
with fifty sons and a dozen daughters, most of them wedded
and biding at home,1 he would take one line; building for
an Odysseus, in a long lineage of only sons,2 he would take
quite another. So the sharp hill of Aetos would deter-
mine one ground plan, the leveled terrace of Tiryns an-
other, the island-rock of Gha still another. "With such
allowances, it is safe to say that the student of Homer
may justly conceive the palaces of Alcinous, Menelaus and
Odysseus as measurably realized in the actual palaces whose
foundations we have uncovered.
1 Iliad, vi. 243.
'2 Odyssey, xvi. 117 f.