WAS DISCOVERY OF MINOAN WRITING ANTICIPATED? 109

remote from that in which it was professedly written—namely, the reign of Nero. Its
historical setting in this way gains a wholly new importance.

The work itself, of course, belongs to the class of literary impostures, but the
point of present interest is an alleged discovery on the site of Knossos by which the
'Chronicles of Dictys' were said to have been first brought to light.1

According to the account preserved in the prologue of this work, as given in Alleged
Septimius's version, Dictys, who as an eyewitness and a companion of the Cretan chiefs J'tnscrffJed
Idomeneus and Meriones had written his account of the Trojan War, returning to tablets at
Knossos in his old age ordered it to be enclosed in a tin chest and placed in his tomb. nossos-
In the thirteenth year of the reign of Nero, however, an earthquake that had caused
a great overthrow at Knossos exposed the interior of the tomb of Dictys. Some
passing shepherds, observing the chest, opened it in search of treasure, but found
instead documents of lime-bark2 inscribed with letters that were unintelligible to them. Theun-
They took them accordingly to their master Eupraxides, and he, conjointly with the s^pdnter-
then governor of the island, Rutilius Rufus, presented the documents to Nero, supposing preted as
that they contained secret matters. Chronicle

The Emperor, believing that the letters were Phoenician, called in Semitic
experts, and they (not unnaturally at Nero's bidding!) forthwith proceeded to
interpret them. On learning that these were the memoirs of one of the ancients
who had been present at the siege of Troy, Nero further commanded that they
should be translated into Greek, and placed the work in his Greek library under the
title of ' Dictys '.3

The very fact that this 'Auncient Historie and trewe and syncere Chronicle

of the Warres between the Grecians and the Trojans'—to quote the title of its earliest

English adaptation by John Lydgate4—was a fictitious compilation does not necessarily

prove that the account of the discovery on the site of Knossos was itself a pure

invention. There was, indeed, all the greater need to tack on the work to some

genuine find. The details, so far as they go, fit in well with the history of Nero's Storyprob-

reign and with his personal fondness for the Tale of Troy. As a matter of fact the *n yTe^e

thirteenth year of Nero's reign corresponds with his mad progress through Achaia, exposure

and Crete was actually ravaged by an earthquake at that period.5 But the effect of an containing

earthquake shock, especially at the more declivitous Southern end of the Palace site tablets

of Knossos, might well have been to bring to light some cist containing a hoard of earth?

inscribed tablets. The half-burned clay slips themselves might well be confused with quake at

Knossos.

1 My friend Mr. F. C. Conybeare first directed my Dictys, comes Idomenei, conscripsi oratione ea quam

attention to the statement of the professed translator of maxime inter tarn diversa loquendi genera consequi ac

Dictys regarding the discovery of his materials. comprehendere potui, litteris Punicis ab Cadmo Danaoque

* Tilias in the prologue, libros ex philyra in the dedi- traditis.'

calory epistle. * Lydgate dedicated his metrical adaptation of Dictys

5 In the dedicatory letter of Septimius the documents and Dares of Troy (based on that of Guido dalle Colonne)
are spoken of as written in Greek but with Phoenician to Henry VI. I quote from the title of the edition pub-
characters. This seems to be a travesty of the original lished by Robert Braham in 1555.

version as it appears in the prologue. In c. xvii we have " Cf. W. Ramsay, art. ' Dictys' in Smith's Did. of

the sufficiently vague statement: ' Haec ego Gnosius Biog.