REMARKS ON THE THESAURI OF THE GREEKS. 



563 



shrine for Apollo at Delphi, and a Thesaurus for Hyrieus." We may 

 suppose that in early times when no temples * (in the sense we usu- 

 ally attach to that word) were erected in Greece, religious ofTerings 

 as well as the treasures of the monarch were preserved in Thesauri ; 

 and places of greater security and strength can hardly be conceived. 



There is nothing more curious in the history of ancient art in 

 Greece, than the existence, at so remote an sera, of the Thesaurus of 

 Orchomenus (a work, according to Pausanias, which was as worthy of 

 admiration as the Pyramids of Egypt), and the great Kar«j3o'0pa, exca- 

 vated in the vicinity, for the purpose of receiving the waters of the 

 Copaic Lake, and conducting them by subterraneous canals to the 

 sea. The wealth of Orchomenus in the time of Homer was such as 

 to justify particular mention of it ; II. i. 381., 'Ou<T oaf eg Opxofiwov 

 irpoTtvio-o-ereu ; and we must suppose with Heyne that the last word in- 

 dicates the wealth to have been brought to Orchomenus, probably by 

 persons who visited that place with religious views, and carried with 

 them offerings of value. " What is most surprising," as Barthelemy 

 observes, c. 34. V. d'Anach. " is, that the canals and pits, the 

 KctruGoOpa, in the neighbourhood of Orchomenus, of which neither 

 history nor tradition have preserved any remembrance, must be attri- 

 buted to the most remote antiquity ; and that in those distant ages 

 we have no knowledge of any power in Bceotia capable of forming 

 and executing so vast a project." The time when Minyas lived, the 

 builder of the Thesaurus, belongs to a very remote and obscure aera 

 in the history of Greece ; he is placed by Pausanias four generations 

 before Hercules, or a century ; allowing twenty-five years to each 

 generation, and must have lived 1377 years B. C. 



The Greek Thesauri of a later age are of very different dimensions 



* On ne voit point qu' Homere ait eu la moindre idee de ce qu'on appelle ordre d'archi- 

 tecture; il parle des temples consacres a Minerve et a Neptune, et cependant il n'en fait 

 aucune description. The columns in his palaces are not ^STHAAl, a word which would in- 

 dicate stone ; but Kjo'vgf ; qui ne peut s'entendre que de poteaux de bois. — Goguet, lib. ii. 

 ep. ii. 192. 



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