DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0133
CHAPTER VIII
THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR
Before we pass to the general questions of race and lan-
guage that are involved in this classification of Minoan
History, it may be well to deal with another criticism on
a central point in Mr. Evans's position.
It may be argued that the question whether the palace
that Mr. Evans has unearthed at Knossos is or is not the
Labyrinth, is not a central point at all, but romance un-
worthy of the serious archaeologist. Such a superior
view is not that of Mr. Evans ; nor will it appeal to the
many who have been first attracted to the Cretan dis-
coveries by the memory of the great world story that
they first read perhaps in Charles Kingsley's Heroes, the
story of Theseus and Ariadne, the Labyrinth and the
Minotaur. Dr. Rouse at least 1 has got Kingsley's
wonderful description, or another like it, so thoroughly
and- firmly into his head, that he cannot bring himself to
believe that the corridors of the Palace were the scene of
Theseus's wanderings and the clue of thread that Ariadne
gave him. For him apparently the Labyrinth must be
some winding cavern in the hills, where Theseus could
meet the Minotaur " in a narrow chasm between black
cliffs," and hunt him " up rough glens and torrent beds,
among the sunless roots of Ida, and to the edge of the
eternal snow." If Kingsley really had ancient authority
for such a description as this,1 our corridors would indeed
1 J.H.S. xxi. pp. 268-74; Sat. Rev. July 26, 1902.
a Temple Classics, pp. 171-2. So Hock, Creta, i. p. 56 ; Cocker-
ell ap. Smith, Did. Geog. i. ad voc. Gortyna.
107
THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR
Before we pass to the general questions of race and lan-
guage that are involved in this classification of Minoan
History, it may be well to deal with another criticism on
a central point in Mr. Evans's position.
It may be argued that the question whether the palace
that Mr. Evans has unearthed at Knossos is or is not the
Labyrinth, is not a central point at all, but romance un-
worthy of the serious archaeologist. Such a superior
view is not that of Mr. Evans ; nor will it appeal to the
many who have been first attracted to the Cretan dis-
coveries by the memory of the great world story that
they first read perhaps in Charles Kingsley's Heroes, the
story of Theseus and Ariadne, the Labyrinth and the
Minotaur. Dr. Rouse at least 1 has got Kingsley's
wonderful description, or another like it, so thoroughly
and- firmly into his head, that he cannot bring himself to
believe that the corridors of the Palace were the scene of
Theseus's wanderings and the clue of thread that Ariadne
gave him. For him apparently the Labyrinth must be
some winding cavern in the hills, where Theseus could
meet the Minotaur " in a narrow chasm between black
cliffs," and hunt him " up rough glens and torrent beds,
among the sunless roots of Ida, and to the edge of the
eternal snow." If Kingsley really had ancient authority
for such a description as this,1 our corridors would indeed
1 J.H.S. xxi. pp. 268-74; Sat. Rev. July 26, 1902.
a Temple Classics, pp. 171-2. So Hock, Creta, i. p. 56 ; Cocker-
ell ap. Smith, Did. Geog. i. ad voc. Gortyna.
107