The Historians' History of the World 03

We have seen that Mycenæan art was no exotic, transplanted full grown into Greece, but rather a native growth—influenced though it was by the earlier civilisations of the Cyclades and the East. This indigenous art, distinct and homogeneous in character, no matter whence came its germs and rudiments, must have been wrought out by a strong and gifted race. That it was of Hellenic stock we have assumed to be self-evident. But, as this premise is still in controversy, we have to inquire whether (aside from art) there are other considerations which make against the Hellenic origin of the Mycenæan peoples, and compel us to regard them as immigrants from the islands or the Orient.

In the first place, recalling the results of our discussion of domestic and sepulchral architecture, we observe that neither in the Ægean nor in Syria do we find the gable-roof which prevails at Mycenæ. Nor would the people of these warm and dry climates have occasion to winter their herds in their own huts—an ancestral custom to which we have traced the origin of the avenues to the beehive tombs.

Again, we have seen reason to refer the shaft-graves to a race or tribe other than that whose original dwelling we have recognised in the sunken hut. To this pit-burying stock we have assigned the upper-story habitations at Mycenæ. If we are right, now, in explaining this type of dwelling as a reminiscence of the pile-hut, it would follow that this stock, too, was of northern origin. The lake-dwelling habit, we know, prevailed throughout Northern Europe, an instance occurring, as we have seen, even in the Illyrian peninsula; while we have no reason to look for its origin to the Orient or the Ægean. It is indeed true that the island-folk were no strangers to the pile-dwelling, but this rather goes to show that they were colonists from the mainland.

But, apart from the evidence of the upper-story abodes, are there other indications of an element among the Mycenæan people which had once actually dwelt in lakes or marshes?

Monuments like the stone models from Melos and Amorgos have not indeed been found in the Peloponnesus, or on the mainland, but in default of such indirect testimony we have the immediate witness of actual settlements. Of the four most famous cities of the age, Mycenæ, Tiryns, Orchomenos, and Amyclæ, it is a singular fact that but one has a mountain-site, while the other three were once surrounded by marshes. The rock on which Tiryns is built, though it rises to a maximum elevation of some sixty feet above the plain, yet sinks so low on the north that the lower citadel is only a few feet above the level of the sea. Now this plain, as Aristotle asserts, and as the nature of the ground still bears witness, was originally an 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.

What is true of Tiryns holds for Orchomenos as well. The original site was down in the plain until the periodic inundations of the lake forced the inhabitants to rebuild on the slopes of Mount Acontion; and Orchomenos was not the only primitive settlement in this great marsh. Tradition tells us also of Athenæ, Eleusis, Arne, Midea—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 neighbouring population who found greater security there than in the mountains.

It is usually held that, when these Copaïc 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 the co-operation of populous communities in the construction of costly embankments and perpetual vigilance in keeping them intact. Where were such organised forces to be found at a time anterior to the foundation of the cities themselves? Is it not more reasonable to believe that the builders of these cities—instead of finding Copaïs an arable plain, and failing to provide against its inundation—were induced by the very fact of its being a lake to establish themselves in it upon natural islands like the rock of Goulas, on artificial elevations, or even in pile-settlements? It is possible, indeed, that on some unusual rise of the waters, towns were submerged, but it is quite as probable that without any such catastrophe the inhabitants finally abandoned these of their own accord to settle in higher, healthier, and more convenient regions.