DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0381
328 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
extensive morass. The founders, therefore, must have
chosen this rock for their settlement, not because it was a
stronghold in itself, but because it was protected by the
swamp out of which it rose.1
What is true of Tiryns holds for Orchomenos as well.
The original site2 was down in the plain until the periodic
Orchomenos inundations of the lake forced the inhabitants to
Copa°icher rebuild on the slopes of Mt. Akontion; and
towns Orchomenos was not the only primitive settlement
in this great marsh. Tradition tells us also of Athenae,
Eleusis, Arne, Mideia — cities which had long perished, and
were but dimly remembered in historic times. To one of
these, or to some other whose name has not come down to
us, belong the remarkable remains on the island of Goulas
or Gha, which is connected with the shore by an ancient
mole. During the Greek Revolution this island-fort was
the refuge of the neighboring population who found
greater security there than in the mountains.3
It is usually held that, when these Copaic cities were
founded, the region was in the main drained and arable,
whereas afterwards, the natural outlets being choked up,
the imprisoned waters flooded the plain, turned it into a
lake, and so overwhelmed the towns. But, obviously, this
is reversing the order of events. To have transformed the
lake into a plain and kept it such would have demanded
1 In this connection, we may recall a curious diseovery made by the engineer
Solymos while deepening the harbor of Nauplia in 1883. At a depth of eight
feet below the shallow bottom, near the arsenal, he found, among other pottery
of "a style quite unprecedented," an almost perfect vase some eight inches
high. Thus the alluvial accumulation since the vase was deposited amounts
to eight feet, and the discoverer is probably right in his conjecture that this
primitive pottery belonged to a pile-settlement in this quiet corner of the bay.
— See Uapvaaaov, t6ix. Z', 1883, p. 32 ; cf. Lampros, Historika Meletemata.
2 Strabo, ix. 2, 42.
3 See Appendix B.
extensive morass. The founders, therefore, must have
chosen this rock for their settlement, not because it was a
stronghold in itself, but because it was protected by the
swamp out of which it rose.1
What is true of Tiryns holds for Orchomenos as well.
The original site2 was down in the plain until the periodic
Orchomenos inundations of the lake forced the inhabitants to
Copa°icher rebuild on the slopes of Mt. Akontion; and
towns Orchomenos was not the only primitive settlement
in this great marsh. Tradition tells us also of Athenae,
Eleusis, Arne, Mideia — cities which had long perished, and
were but dimly remembered in historic times. To one of
these, or to some other whose name has not come down to
us, belong the remarkable remains on the island of Goulas
or Gha, which is connected with the shore by an ancient
mole. During the Greek Revolution this island-fort was
the refuge of the neighboring population who found
greater security there than in the mountains.3
It is usually held that, when these Copaic cities were
founded, the region was in the main drained and arable,
whereas afterwards, the natural outlets being choked up,
the imprisoned waters flooded the plain, turned it into a
lake, and so overwhelmed the towns. But, obviously, this
is reversing the order of events. To have transformed the
lake into a plain and kept it such would have demanded
1 In this connection, we may recall a curious diseovery made by the engineer
Solymos while deepening the harbor of Nauplia in 1883. At a depth of eight
feet below the shallow bottom, near the arsenal, he found, among other pottery
of "a style quite unprecedented," an almost perfect vase some eight inches
high. Thus the alluvial accumulation since the vase was deposited amounts
to eight feet, and the discoverer is probably right in his conjecture that this
primitive pottery belonged to a pile-settlement in this quiet corner of the bay.
— See Uapvaaaov, t6ix. Z', 1883, p. 32 ; cf. Lampros, Historika Meletemata.
2 Strabo, ix. 2, 42.
3 See Appendix B.