DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0235
CRETE AND PH.EACIA 209
manthus Minos's own twin brother ? What was he
doing in Corcyra ?
Such descriptions as the Palace of Alkinoos and the
Shield of Achilles take us back, behind even the earliest
phases of transition, to Late Minoan I. and II. Whether
or no their glories were put into verse by the Minoans
themselves we cannot tell. We may be sure at least
that the first Greek poems they inspired were sung by
men who had heard of them as living realities, even if
they had not themselves seen them ; men who had
walked the palaces perhaps, if not as their masters, at
least as mercenaries or freebooters.
These memories of Late Minoan I. and II. do not form
a considerable part of the Homeric poems. Their
story, as a whole, and the main texture of the civilisation
that it presupposes, refer to Late Minoan III. The
singers of the first Greek ballads upon which the Iliad
and the Odyssey are based, present to us the sea
power of Agamemnon as existing in this transitional
period, at the close of the Bronze Age. Whether or no
they were themselves of the same race or language
as the men whose deeds they were singing we have
no evidence.
Late Minoan III. is a long period, and marks the
successive stages of a gradually decaying culture. In its
later phases, as we have already seen,1 the Bronze Age
shades off into the Iron, and the tombs of Eastern Crete
show us strange in-and-out combinations characteristic
of the transition. The inference we draw from these
combinations, as well as from the cremation graves of
Salamis,' will probably largely depend on our general theory
as to the origin and composition of the Homeric poems.
Those who, like Professor Ridge way,3 Mr. Andrew Lang,4
1 Sec pp. 100-2.
2 Tsountas-Manatt, M.A. p. 388; Poulscn, Dip. 1905, p. 2;
Ridgeway, E.A.G. i. p. 32.
3 E.A.G. i. pp. 631-6. * H.A. 1906.
14
manthus Minos's own twin brother ? What was he
doing in Corcyra ?
Such descriptions as the Palace of Alkinoos and the
Shield of Achilles take us back, behind even the earliest
phases of transition, to Late Minoan I. and II. Whether
or no their glories were put into verse by the Minoans
themselves we cannot tell. We may be sure at least
that the first Greek poems they inspired were sung by
men who had heard of them as living realities, even if
they had not themselves seen them ; men who had
walked the palaces perhaps, if not as their masters, at
least as mercenaries or freebooters.
These memories of Late Minoan I. and II. do not form
a considerable part of the Homeric poems. Their
story, as a whole, and the main texture of the civilisation
that it presupposes, refer to Late Minoan III. The
singers of the first Greek ballads upon which the Iliad
and the Odyssey are based, present to us the sea
power of Agamemnon as existing in this transitional
period, at the close of the Bronze Age. Whether or no
they were themselves of the same race or language
as the men whose deeds they were singing we have
no evidence.
Late Minoan III. is a long period, and marks the
successive stages of a gradually decaying culture. In its
later phases, as we have already seen,1 the Bronze Age
shades off into the Iron, and the tombs of Eastern Crete
show us strange in-and-out combinations characteristic
of the transition. The inference we draw from these
combinations, as well as from the cremation graves of
Salamis,' will probably largely depend on our general theory
as to the origin and composition of the Homeric poems.
Those who, like Professor Ridge way,3 Mr. Andrew Lang,4
1 Sec pp. 100-2.
2 Tsountas-Manatt, M.A. p. 388; Poulscn, Dip. 1905, p. 2;
Ridgeway, E.A.G. i. p. 32.
3 E.A.G. i. pp. 631-6. * H.A. 1906.
14