DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0068
JUSTIFICATION OF THF TERM MINOAN 43
so long as we restrict it to the Civilisation of Crete, not
only Mr. Evans's own fanciful play on the mysterious
" nine years " of Minos's kingship as we read of it in
the Odyssey,1 but the more significant fact of the common
occurrence of Minoa as a place name.' The examples that
we have already mentioned, the Antiochs and Seleucias
and Caesareas, remind us how frequently a name is
common to a dynasty when originally it is peculiar to an
individual ; while the Alexandrias show that the founder
of the dynasty may live centuries before the conqueror
who founds the towns. In Aosta, Augsburg,' and their
fellows, we have an example of place names arising from
what was never the ruler's personal name, but only his
title. Although there is no evidence that the word
Minos was a titular name such as Pharaoh in Egypt,
it is at least a curious coincidence that the most chrono-
logical of the Greek sources that hand it down to us
suggests a dynasty rather than a single individual. The
Parian Chronicle gives us one Minos in the fifteenth
century B.C. of its scheme of dating, and another in the
thirteenth ; 4 and Diodorus 5 and Plutarch 6 tell a similar
story. Though this tradition is unknown to our earliest
Greek authorities 7 and is crude enough in the form
in which it reaches us, the obscure genealogy of the
Minoan house, with its blend of Pelasgian, Phoenician,
and Doric elements," suggests that the name may have
had a long history. It should be remarked that not only
have English archaeologists adopted Mr. Evans's system,
but also the American excavators at Gournia,' and the
1 E.C. p. 4 ; Od. xix. 17S-9.
2 See pp. 11-3.
3 Augusta Pretoria and Augusta Vindelicorum.
4 M.P. 11, 19; F. Jacoby, 1904.
■ iv. 60. 6 Theseus, 20, Nu£ia«cd.
7 Homer, Thucydides, Herodotus. Jacoby, M.P. p. 59, traces
it back to Andron. E. Bethc in H. xxiv. 1889, p. 416, is wrong
in seeing it in the Platonic Dialogue, Minos, 318-20.
8 See p. 204. 9 Miss Boyd in C.R.A.C. p. 226.
so long as we restrict it to the Civilisation of Crete, not
only Mr. Evans's own fanciful play on the mysterious
" nine years " of Minos's kingship as we read of it in
the Odyssey,1 but the more significant fact of the common
occurrence of Minoa as a place name.' The examples that
we have already mentioned, the Antiochs and Seleucias
and Caesareas, remind us how frequently a name is
common to a dynasty when originally it is peculiar to an
individual ; while the Alexandrias show that the founder
of the dynasty may live centuries before the conqueror
who founds the towns. In Aosta, Augsburg,' and their
fellows, we have an example of place names arising from
what was never the ruler's personal name, but only his
title. Although there is no evidence that the word
Minos was a titular name such as Pharaoh in Egypt,
it is at least a curious coincidence that the most chrono-
logical of the Greek sources that hand it down to us
suggests a dynasty rather than a single individual. The
Parian Chronicle gives us one Minos in the fifteenth
century B.C. of its scheme of dating, and another in the
thirteenth ; 4 and Diodorus 5 and Plutarch 6 tell a similar
story. Though this tradition is unknown to our earliest
Greek authorities 7 and is crude enough in the form
in which it reaches us, the obscure genealogy of the
Minoan house, with its blend of Pelasgian, Phoenician,
and Doric elements," suggests that the name may have
had a long history. It should be remarked that not only
have English archaeologists adopted Mr. Evans's system,
but also the American excavators at Gournia,' and the
1 E.C. p. 4 ; Od. xix. 17S-9.
2 See pp. 11-3.
3 Augusta Pretoria and Augusta Vindelicorum.
4 M.P. 11, 19; F. Jacoby, 1904.
■ iv. 60. 6 Theseus, 20, Nu£ia«cd.
7 Homer, Thucydides, Herodotus. Jacoby, M.P. p. 59, traces
it back to Andron. E. Bethc in H. xxiv. 1889, p. 416, is wrong
in seeing it in the Platonic Dialogue, Minos, 318-20.
8 See p. 204. 9 Miss Boyd in C.R.A.C. p. 226.