DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2532#0047
26
(iENERAL INTRODUCTION
him to have secured his accounts from the most trustworthy sources, — at the Ileraeum
and at Argos. I am well aware that a vast amount of wholly imaginative matter has
been mingled with these myths, hut I believe that a residuum of historical truth is
not only contained in the stories but is attainable by us. I am not here concerned with
any individual name or figure, not with Phoroneus, Proetus, etc.; but what I do feel is
that the succession of Argive rulers, as handed down in the genealogy given by Pausanias,
confirms the evidence we derive from other sources, — that there was a continuous
" political" community in the Argive Plain long before the advent of the Atridae.
The first important evidence as to the age of the Ileraeum is to be derived from the
comparison of the walls of Mycenae with those of Tiryns. All authorities to my know-
ledge are agreed upon considering the circuit wall of Mycenae later than those of Tiryns
and Midea. To quote the words of Schuchhardt: 1 " The Avails of Tiryns give one
the impression of being older than even the oldest part of the circuit wall of Mycenae.
They consist of colossal blocks very little hewn and show no trace of having been
restored at a later time. The circuit wall of Mycenae, on the other hand, was built origi-
nally of somewhat smaller stones, and has been subsequently strengthened and completed
at various times with carefully executed ashlar and polygonal masonry."
Now the Cyclopean supporting wall of the older Heraeum corresponds to the oldest
parts of the wall of Tiryns. The colossal unhewn blocks— some of which are as much
as thirteen and eighteen feet long, larger than any I have seen at Tiryns — are piled up
one upon the other, supported in places by smaller stones inserted between them, and
tax our imagination to suggest the methods applied by the early peoples in moving them
about. We can well understand how in the minds of the Greek people the legends con-
cerning the Lycian Cyclopes should have been grouped round such structures. Now, as
we shall see, according to tradition it was Proetus who brought these Lycian craftsmen to
build the Avails of Tiryns, and to the same hands are to be ascribed the foundation Avails
of the temple of the Heraeum. On the other hand, as Ave shall see, tradition placed the
founding of Mycenae tAAro generations later than Proetus, —ascribing it to Perseus.
The remains which our excavations have laid bare confirm the earlier date of Tiryns
in a striking manner. The upper platform upon Avhich the Old Temple stood, facing to
the east, with the broad flattened space in front, OArerlooked the plain towards Tiryns
and Midea. Access to this front was gained either over the lower hills to the east,
from the northeast, or from the southeast, where the present path from Chonica leads
up to the temple. The entrance to the older sanctuary at this southeast corner passed
over the elevation upon which the Second Temple AAras subsequently built, either at the
east or more probably at the Avest end; and it is here, on the slope of the Second
Temple, that Ave found, below the remains of the steps that in later times of Argive
supremacy Avere built for the Second Temple, a large number of A-ery early objects,
especially primitive terra-cottas.
The buildings below the original temple platform Areer round more and more, as it Avere,
towards the west. Here they extend down toAArards the stream, not only because of the
Eleutherion rites, to which reference has been made above, but, as is clearly the case in
building VIII, which distinctly reminds one of a propylaeum, because Ave here approach the
road leading from Mycenae. It is, moreover, on this site, about two hundred yards along
the road to Mycenae, that Ave discoArered three beehive-shaped tombs, with " Mycenaean "
objects that are certainly connected with the Heraeum. Thus in this second period of
1 Schliemann's Avsgrahungen. 2cle<l., p. 119.
(iENERAL INTRODUCTION
him to have secured his accounts from the most trustworthy sources, — at the Ileraeum
and at Argos. I am well aware that a vast amount of wholly imaginative matter has
been mingled with these myths, hut I believe that a residuum of historical truth is
not only contained in the stories but is attainable by us. I am not here concerned with
any individual name or figure, not with Phoroneus, Proetus, etc.; but what I do feel is
that the succession of Argive rulers, as handed down in the genealogy given by Pausanias,
confirms the evidence we derive from other sources, — that there was a continuous
" political" community in the Argive Plain long before the advent of the Atridae.
The first important evidence as to the age of the Ileraeum is to be derived from the
comparison of the walls of Mycenae with those of Tiryns. All authorities to my know-
ledge are agreed upon considering the circuit wall of Mycenae later than those of Tiryns
and Midea. To quote the words of Schuchhardt: 1 " The Avails of Tiryns give one
the impression of being older than even the oldest part of the circuit wall of Mycenae.
They consist of colossal blocks very little hewn and show no trace of having been
restored at a later time. The circuit wall of Mycenae, on the other hand, was built origi-
nally of somewhat smaller stones, and has been subsequently strengthened and completed
at various times with carefully executed ashlar and polygonal masonry."
Now the Cyclopean supporting wall of the older Heraeum corresponds to the oldest
parts of the wall of Tiryns. The colossal unhewn blocks— some of which are as much
as thirteen and eighteen feet long, larger than any I have seen at Tiryns — are piled up
one upon the other, supported in places by smaller stones inserted between them, and
tax our imagination to suggest the methods applied by the early peoples in moving them
about. We can well understand how in the minds of the Greek people the legends con-
cerning the Lycian Cyclopes should have been grouped round such structures. Now, as
we shall see, according to tradition it was Proetus who brought these Lycian craftsmen to
build the Avails of Tiryns, and to the same hands are to be ascribed the foundation Avails
of the temple of the Heraeum. On the other hand, as Ave shall see, tradition placed the
founding of Mycenae tAAro generations later than Proetus, —ascribing it to Perseus.
The remains which our excavations have laid bare confirm the earlier date of Tiryns
in a striking manner. The upper platform upon Avhich the Old Temple stood, facing to
the east, with the broad flattened space in front, OArerlooked the plain towards Tiryns
and Midea. Access to this front was gained either over the lower hills to the east,
from the northeast, or from the southeast, where the present path from Chonica leads
up to the temple. The entrance to the older sanctuary at this southeast corner passed
over the elevation upon which the Second Temple AAras subsequently built, either at the
east or more probably at the Avest end; and it is here, on the slope of the Second
Temple, that Ave found, below the remains of the steps that in later times of Argive
supremacy Avere built for the Second Temple, a large number of A-ery early objects,
especially primitive terra-cottas.
The buildings below the original temple platform Areer round more and more, as it Avere,
towards the west. Here they extend down toAArards the stream, not only because of the
Eleutherion rites, to which reference has been made above, but, as is clearly the case in
building VIII, which distinctly reminds one of a propylaeum, because Ave here approach the
road leading from Mycenae. It is, moreover, on this site, about two hundred yards along
the road to Mycenae, that Ave discoArered three beehive-shaped tombs, with " Mycenaean "
objects that are certainly connected with the Heraeum. Thus in this second period of
1 Schliemann's Avsgrahungen. 2cle<l., p. 119.