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

480 The Labyrinth at Knossos

The Cnossian orchestra bears no slight resemblance to the
oblong theatre at Thorikos (fig. 346)1. Since Thorikos was once
a flourishing 'Minoan' settlement, it might be suggested that the
peculiar form of its theatre was a heritage from early times.
Perhaps we may venture even a step further and recognise certain
analogies between the Cretan Labyrinth and the ordinary Attic
theatre. If the former was occupied by dancers arranged as a
swastika, the latter had regularly its 'square chorus2.' If a 'clew'
was needed in the one3, a rope-dance (kordax) was executed in the
other4. Ariadne, as the mythographers put it, when deserted by
Theseus was taken up by Dionysos. Prof. R. C. Bosanquet points
out to me that even in Roman times the orchestra of the theatre at
Athens was laid out as a swastika-mosaic (pi. xxix)5. There was in

Fig. 346.

fact some excuse for Conrad von Querfurt, who, writing from Sicily
in 1194 A.D., tells his old friend the prior of Hildesheim how

1 W. Miller in Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 1885—
1886 iv. 1—34, W. Doerpfeld and E. Reisch Das griechische Theater Athens 1896 p. 110
fig. 43, A. Marquand Greek Architecture New York 1909 p. 338 fig. 372, Durm Baukunst
d. Gr.z p. 465 fig. 419, A. Struck Griechenland Wien u. Leipzig 1911 i. 194 fig. 221.

2 On the TeTpaywvos %op6s of tragic, comic, and satyric plays, and its relation to the
kijkXios xoP°s °f dithyramb, see Class. Rev. 1895 ix. 376.

3 Diels in Pallat De fabula Ariadnaea Berolini 1891 interprets the clew as a rope-
dance (Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. pp. 254, 603 n. 7).

4 I have discussed a 'Minoan' precursor of the Kop5a£ in Journ. Hell. Stud. 1894
xiv. 101 f.

5 The plan here given (very slightly restored) is based on Mr A. M. Poynter's careful
survey of the existing remains {Ann. Brit. Sch. Ath. 1896—1897 i ix - 176—179 pi. 15).