Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/438

Thk Acropolis of Athens. 411 went to the making of the most important erection, whose apartments were ampler than those of the other houses. This may have been the "strong house of Erechtheus," where Pallas Athene betakes herself after having placed Odysseus under the protection of Nausicaa.' We have doubtless here the palace of the lords of the castle, and were it better preserved we should, in all likelihood, find it a reduplication of the palaces of Tiryns and MycenEE (Fig. 148, 3). The only Attic hero known to Homer is Erechtheus ; the name of Cecrops is not mentioned, Fig. 149.— Fragment of Pelasgic wall, ftonp the notih-vresl of the New Museum. and Theseus appears in lines admittedly interpolated, and in a passage of the Odyssey which is comparatively of recent date. As in other primitive citadels already described, here also are beheld secret passages, staircases built in the thickness of the wall, or in the rocky height leading to narrow posterns and sub- terranean reservoirs. Such would be the ramp, twenty metres or thereabouts east of the Erechtheion, which enters a split in the rock and comes out at the foot of the escarp, on the north- east side of the hill (Fig. 148, 4). There are still some steps in position towards the summit of the Acropolis, which gave access ' Odyssey : iSn ff "EpixOfloc vvkivov iofiov. Cf. f/iaJ.