DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0188
i6a THE COMING OF THE GREEKS
itself, Theseus has brought up the ring that Minos has
thrown into the sea, " the splendour of gold on his hand."
That fantastic story, familiar to us from the poem of
Bacchylides,1 may be an echo of the liberation of the
/Egean. Alliance with the sea has been symbolised in
some such way by many later Thalassocrats, from Poly-
crates : to Aristeides and the Delian League,5 from the
days when Xerxes was so sadly misinterpreted in his
efforts to conciliate the Hellespont, to the yearly marriage
of the Doge of Venice with the Adriatic.4
Whether the men who sacked Knossos themselves
belonged to this kindred mainland form of the old civili-
sation,6 or whether they were an early wave of pure
Northern blood, we cannot tell. The discoveries in
Crete, by showing that the y£gean civilisation derived
its inspiration from an island, and not the mainland,
have, as we shall see again in the next two chapters,
brought one result along with them. They have made
it more than ever doubtful whether all parts of the
/Egean were permeated, and made " Greek," at the
same date, or in the same manner.
1 Jcbb in his comment on Bacchylides xvi. (xvii.) p. 226, says
that the ring incident " looks like a free invention of poetical
fancy." It is true that it is not certain that it is shown on any
of the vases that tell the story, or even in Micon's painting of it
in the Thescum (see Frazer, ii. pp. 157-8, ad. Paus, i. 17, 3);
but A. H. Smith {J.U.S. xviii. p. 276) has convincingly shown
that Bacchylides's allusive and incomplete way of telling the
story of itself shows that the ring is an old tradition, and not
his own invention.
a Hdt. hi. 41.
3 Arist. 'Ad. n-oX. 23; Plut. Arist. 41. pvfyot thrown into the
sea.
* Sec the illuminating article by S. Reiuach in-Rev. Arch. 1905,
pp. 1-14, to which I owe my point.
c As is held by D. Mackenzie in D.S.A. xi. p. 222.
itself, Theseus has brought up the ring that Minos has
thrown into the sea, " the splendour of gold on his hand."
That fantastic story, familiar to us from the poem of
Bacchylides,1 may be an echo of the liberation of the
/Egean. Alliance with the sea has been symbolised in
some such way by many later Thalassocrats, from Poly-
crates : to Aristeides and the Delian League,5 from the
days when Xerxes was so sadly misinterpreted in his
efforts to conciliate the Hellespont, to the yearly marriage
of the Doge of Venice with the Adriatic.4
Whether the men who sacked Knossos themselves
belonged to this kindred mainland form of the old civili-
sation,6 or whether they were an early wave of pure
Northern blood, we cannot tell. The discoveries in
Crete, by showing that the y£gean civilisation derived
its inspiration from an island, and not the mainland,
have, as we shall see again in the next two chapters,
brought one result along with them. They have made
it more than ever doubtful whether all parts of the
/Egean were permeated, and made " Greek," at the
same date, or in the same manner.
1 Jcbb in his comment on Bacchylides xvi. (xvii.) p. 226, says
that the ring incident " looks like a free invention of poetical
fancy." It is true that it is not certain that it is shown on any
of the vases that tell the story, or even in Micon's painting of it
in the Thescum (see Frazer, ii. pp. 157-8, ad. Paus, i. 17, 3);
but A. H. Smith {J.U.S. xviii. p. 276) has convincingly shown
that Bacchylides's allusive and incomplete way of telling the
story of itself shows that the ring is an old tradition, and not
his own invention.
a Hdt. hi. 41.
3 Arist. 'Ad. n-oX. 23; Plut. Arist. 41. pvfyot thrown into the
sea.
* Sec the illuminating article by S. Reiuach in-Rev. Arch. 1905,
pp. 1-14, to which I owe my point.
c As is held by D. Mackenzie in D.S.A. xi. p. 222.