The Sea-Kings of Crete | Page 2

Long Gallery, Knossos VIII. A Magazine with Jars and Kaselles, Knossos IX. (1) Magazine with Jars and Kaselles; (2) Great Jar with Trickle Ornament X. (1) Part of Dolphin Fresco; (2) A Great Jar, Knossos XI. Pillar of the Double Axes XII. (1) Minoan Paved Road; (2) North Entrance, Knossos XIII. Relief of Bull's Head XIV. Clay Tablet with Linear Script, Knossos XV. (1) Palace Wall, West Side, Mount Juktas in Background; (2) Bathroom, Knossos XVI. A Flight of the Quadruple Staircase; (2) Wall with Drain XVII. (1) Hall of the Double Axes; (2) Great Staircase, Knossos XVIII. The King's Gaming-Board XIX. Ivory Figurines XX. (1) Main Drain, Knossos; (2) Terra-cotta Drain-Pipes XXI. Theatral Area, Knossos: Before Restoration XXII. Theatral Area, Knossos: Restored XXIII. Great Jar with Papyrus Reliefs XXIV. The Royal Villa: (1) The Basilica; (2) Stone Lamp XXV. (1) Knossos Valley; (2) Excavating at Knossos XXVI. Great Staircase, Ph?stos XXVII. The Harvester Vase, Hagia Triada XXVIII. Sarcophagus from Hagia Triada XXIX. Minoan Pottery XXX. Late Minoan Vase from Mycen? XXXI. Kamares Vases from Ph?stos and Hagia Triada XXXII. Goldsmiths' Work from Beehive Tombs, Ph?stos
SKETCH MAP OF CRETE
PLAN OF KNOSSOS
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF CRETE To Illustrate THE SEA KINGS OF CRETE BY The Rev. James Baikie, F.R.A.S.]

THE SEA-KINGS OF CRETE
AND THE
PREHISTORIC CIVILIZATION OF GREECE
CHAPTER I
THE LEGENDS
The resurrection of the prehistoric age of Greece, and the disclosure of the astonishing standard of civilization which had been attained on the mainland and in the isles of the ?gean at a period at least 2,000 years earlier than that at which Greek history, as hitherto understood, begins, may be reckoned as among the most interesting results of modern research into the relics of the life of past ages. The present generation has witnessed remarkable discoveries in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, but neither Niffur nor Abydos disclosed a world so entirely new and unexpected as that which has been revealed by the work of Schliemann and his successors at Troy, Mycen?, and Tiryns, and by that of Evans and the other explorers--Italian, British, and American--in Crete. The Mesopotamian and Egyptian discoveries traced back a little farther streams which had already been followed far up their course; those of Schliemann and Evans revealed the reality of one which, so to speak, had hitherto been believed to flow only through the dreamland of legend. It was obvious that mighty men must have existed before Agamemnon, but what manner of men they were, and in what manner of world they lived, were matters absolutely unknown, and, to all appearance, likely to remain so. An abundant wealth of legend told of great Kings and heroes, of stately palaces, and mighty armies, and powerful fleets, and the whole material of an advanced civilization. But the legends were manifestly largely imaginative--deities and demi-gods, men and fabulous monsters, were mingled in them on the same plane--and it seemed impossible that we should ever get back to the solid ground, if solid ground had ever existed, on which these ancient stories first rested.
For the historian of the middle of the nineteenth century Greek history began with the First Olympiad in 776 B.C. Before that the story of the return of the Herakleids and the Dorian conquest of the men of the Bronze Age might very probably embody, in a fanciful form, a genuine historical fact; the Homeric poems were to be treated with respect, not only on account of their supreme poetical merit, but as possibly representing a credible tradition, though, of course, their pictures of advanced civilization were more or less imaginative projections upon the past of the culture of the writer's own period or periods. Beyond that lay the great waste land of legend, in which gods and godlike heroes moved and enacted their romances among 'Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire.' What proportion of fact, if any, lay in the stories of Minos, the great lawgiver, and his war fleet, and his Labyrinth, with its monstrous occupant; of Theseus and Ariadne and the Minotaur; of D?dalus, the first aeronaut, and his wonderful works of art and science; or of any other of the thousand and one beautiful or tragic romances of ancient Hellas, to attempt to determine this lay utterly beyond the sphere of the serious historian. 'To analyze the fables,' says Grote, 'and to elicit from them any trustworthy particular facts, appears to me a fruitless attempt. The religious recollections, the romantic inventions, and the items of matter of fact, if any such there be, must for ever remain indissolubly amalgamated, as the poet originally blended them, for the amusement or edification of his auditors.... It was one of the agreeable dreams of the Grecian epic that the man who travelled far enough northward beyond the Rhiph?an Mountains would in time reach the delicious country and genial