Evans, Arthur J.: Cretan pictographs and prae-Phoenician script with an account of a sepulchral deposit at Hagios Onuphrios near Phaestos in its relation to primitive Cretan (London, 1895)

[356] PRIMITIVE PICTOGRAPHS AND SCRIPT 87

characters with which we are dealing may also have been used by men of
Greek speech. And from the fact that in Cyprus a similar script, in its origin
apparently non-Hellenic, was in use amongst the Greek-speaking inhabitants
it becomes in itself not unlikely that the same phenomenon may have
occurred in Crete and the Peloponnese where a similar script was in use in
much earlier times. The Greeks of Cyprus spoke a dialect approaching to
Arcadian—may they not have taken over with their language a form of
writing once in use in the more Western area from which they may be sup-
posed to have migrated ?

In view of these possibilities it is worth while examining the grounds of
the presumption that the Greek settlement in Crete goes back to Mycenaean
times. In the lines of the Odyssey referred to, which belong to one of the
earliest passages preserved to us, Crete is spoken of as the home of several
races speaking a variety of tongues, Achaeans and Dorians, Pelasgians, Eteo-
krgtes and Kydonians :—

K-ptfrr) Tt? ycu ecni /xeaw evl oivotti ttovtw,
KaXr; zeal irleipa, 7repippVT0<;' iv 6" dvdpairot,
iroKKol, anreipiaioi, Kai ivvtf/covTa iroXrjes.
aXXrj 8' aWav y\&<r<ra fie/uy/j.evT)' iv p,ev 'Ayatot
iv S' 'Ereo/e^Te? /J.eyaX.ijrope'i, ev Be Kv8a>ve<;
Atsptee? re Tpi%di/ce<; Biol re TIeXaayot.

Here the indigenous Cretan elements are represented by the EteokrStes and
Kydonians; on the other hand it is evident that the Dorian settlement in
Crete at the time when this passage of the Odyssey was composed was of
at least sufficiently old standing for the Greek colonists to have assimilated
the story of Minos—set in a Dorian frame. In the next verses the poet
refers to Knosos,' the great city,'

ev6a re MtW?
evvecopos ftacrCkeve Aio? jxeydXov oapicrTrj*;,

where, as has been shown by Hoeck,41 there is a distinct reference to the
specially Dorian 41a time division of nine years or ninety-nine months,—the
double Olympiad,—at the end of which 'long year' Minos according to the
tradition used to return to the cave of Zeus to receive fresh instruction and
repeat what he had learned before.42 But Minos himself is not Dorian, and
the mythical genealogist is content with making the son of the Dorian
leader Teutamos, who came 'from Thessaly to Crete, adopt the children of the

41 Kreta, i. p. 246 seqq. From the later usage iweupos spiiter in allgemeinerer Bedeutnng

with reference to the election of the Spartan angewandt seyn, mag selbst schon Homer sich

Ephors Hoeck infers that the Dorian kings re- dieses Ansdrueks nicht mit jener bestimmten

quired a fresh religious sanction for their sore- Eiicksicht bedient haben : so lag doch der

reignty every nine years, so that they could be tiefste grund der Bedeutsamkeit dieser Neun-

said to reign 'nine years.' He concludes: zahl in jener al ten Jahresbestimmung.'

' Diess ist unstreitig der tiefere Sinn welclier 41a Dodwell, de Oycl. p. 316 seqq.

deni homerischen Mfaus ivviwpos fiaolXeve ,2 Plato, vi. p. 138. Cf. Schol. ad 0$,

unterliegt. Mag nun immerhin das Wort %xx.. 178,