Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

474 The Labyrinth at Knossos

Arthur Evans was justified in identifying it with the complex
palace that he excavated at Knossos. And this view can certainly
claim the support not only of such writers as Diodoros and Pliny,
who suppose a Cretan imitation of an Egyptian building1, but also
of the Attic painters of red-figured vases, who represent Theseus
as dragging the Minotaur forth from an edifice with a faqade. of
Doric (fig. 329)2 or Ionic columns3. Nevertheless, to admit that
Attic painters c. 450—430 B.C. regarded the Labyrinth as a sort
of palace is not necessarily to assert that such was its original
character. The red-figured vases in every case show to the right

Fig. 33°-

of the colonnade a broad band decorated with swastika-patterns
checker-work; and it is from behind this band that the body of

1 Diod. 1. 61, 1. 97, Plin. not. hist. 36. 84—86. The earliest writer that speaks of
it as a building is Apollod. 3. 1. 4 (01/07/xa Kajjarais ito\vt\6kois ir\avwv r-qv g^oBov). But
Pherekydes frag. 106 {Frag. hist. Gr. i. 97 Muller) appears to have mentioned the lintel
of its door {tov fvybv tt)s (top?) avco dvpas).

2 (1) Brit. Mus. Cat. Vases iii. inf. no. E 84 a kylix from Vulci, of which the
interior is reproduced in the Journ. Hell. Stud. 1881 ii. 57 pi. 10, Harrison Myth. Mon.
Anc. Ath. p. cxv fig. 25, Furtwangler—Reichhold—Hauser Gr. Vasenmalerei iii. 49 ft0.
fig. 22, and the central scene in Daremberg—Saglio Diet. Ant. iii. 883 fig. 4315.

(2) C. Torr Harroiv School Museum. Catalogue of the classical atttiquities from the
collection of the late Sir Gardner Wilkinson Harrow 1887 p. 18 no. 52 a kylix from Nola,
of which a small illustration is given by E. Strong in the Burlington Fine Arts Club.
Exhibition of Ancient Greek Art, igoj London 1904 p. 114 no. I 60 pi. 97, and two
photographs of the interior and exterior by P. Wolters in the Sitzungsber. d. kais. bayr.
Akad. d. Wiss. Phil.-hist. Classe 1907 p. n8f. pi. r.

3 Vasos griegos Madrid pp. 76 f., 119 no. 11, 265 pi. 33, Leroux Cat. Vases de
Madrid p. rroff. no. 196 pis. 25—28 a kylix signed by the artist Aison, first published
by E. Bethe in the Ant. Denkm. ii pi. 1, cp. Furtwangler—Reichhold—Hauser Gr.
Vasenmalerei iii. 48 fig. 21, 50 and Einzelaufnahmen no. 1730 (central scene).