DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0168
142 CRETE AND THE EAST
secret message that was to bring Bellerophon to harm.
These " baneful signs," as the story tells us,1 were under-
stood alike in Corinth and in Lycia. It was always
puzzling, on the assumption that Cadmus, son of Phoenix,
was a Semite, that his sister was Europa, and his nephew
Minos. There are traces, too, even in Greek writers, of
a wider use of the term Phoenicia,8 and the specific word
" Sidonian " is used in Homer for the Semites, in what
is probably the oldest passage in which they are men-
tioned.5 We may add to Fick's suggestions an interesting
analogy from Egypt. There is no doubt that in later
Egyptian history the Semitic Phoenicians were actually
called " Keftians," the name that down to the sack of
Knossos was applied in Egypt to the Cretans and the
other " men of the isles in the midst of the sea." 4 In
name, as well as in the facts of commerce, the Semites
here entered upon the inheritance of the Minoan people.
Was it so also in Greece ?
There is all the difference in the world between sucli
views as these and the old Carian 6 and Phoenician6
theories that looked upon Mycenasan or Minoan civilisa-
tion as imposed from the outside by foreigners. Caria
played no such leading role in the early culture of West
Asia as to justify us in considering it as the origin or
centre point of a civilisation. The excavations that have
1 Iliad, vi. 152-78. The a-rifiara \vypu wore in a folded tablet.
If they had not been, Bellerophon could doubtless himself have
read them.
- Corinna and Bacchylides, ap. Athensus, 174.
3 Iliad, vi. 290-1. The name occurs also in the Odyssey, but
side by side with Phoenician. So also in Iliad, xxiii. 743-4. In
the latter passage they are called Phoenician in their function
as the carrying people, not as living in a particular district.
4 H. R. Hall, B.S.A. viii. p. 163 ; Von Bissing, ap. ibid. p. 165.
6 Furtwangler, A.G. iii. 15; Diimmler and Studniczka, Ath.
Mitt. xii. 1 seq.
> Helbig, H.E. 1887, and Q.M. 1896; Berard, P.O. 2 vols.
1902-3. For two good criticisms see Myrcs in C.R. x. 1896, pp.
350-7, and G. G. A. Murray in Q.R. April 1905.
secret message that was to bring Bellerophon to harm.
These " baneful signs," as the story tells us,1 were under-
stood alike in Corinth and in Lycia. It was always
puzzling, on the assumption that Cadmus, son of Phoenix,
was a Semite, that his sister was Europa, and his nephew
Minos. There are traces, too, even in Greek writers, of
a wider use of the term Phoenicia,8 and the specific word
" Sidonian " is used in Homer for the Semites, in what
is probably the oldest passage in which they are men-
tioned.5 We may add to Fick's suggestions an interesting
analogy from Egypt. There is no doubt that in later
Egyptian history the Semitic Phoenicians were actually
called " Keftians," the name that down to the sack of
Knossos was applied in Egypt to the Cretans and the
other " men of the isles in the midst of the sea." 4 In
name, as well as in the facts of commerce, the Semites
here entered upon the inheritance of the Minoan people.
Was it so also in Greece ?
There is all the difference in the world between sucli
views as these and the old Carian 6 and Phoenician6
theories that looked upon Mycenasan or Minoan civilisa-
tion as imposed from the outside by foreigners. Caria
played no such leading role in the early culture of West
Asia as to justify us in considering it as the origin or
centre point of a civilisation. The excavations that have
1 Iliad, vi. 152-78. The a-rifiara \vypu wore in a folded tablet.
If they had not been, Bellerophon could doubtless himself have
read them.
- Corinna and Bacchylides, ap. Athensus, 174.
3 Iliad, vi. 290-1. The name occurs also in the Odyssey, but
side by side with Phoenician. So also in Iliad, xxiii. 743-4. In
the latter passage they are called Phoenician in their function
as the carrying people, not as living in a particular district.
4 H. R. Hall, B.S.A. viii. p. 163 ; Von Bissing, ap. ibid. p. 165.
6 Furtwangler, A.G. iii. 15; Diimmler and Studniczka, Ath.
Mitt. xii. 1 seq.
> Helbig, H.E. 1887, and Q.M. 1896; Berard, P.O. 2 vols.
1902-3. For two good criticisms see Myrcs in C.R. x. 1896, pp.
350-7, and G. G. A. Murray in Q.R. April 1905.