DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0386
THE PROBLEM OF THE MYCENAEAN RACE 333
that their conquest of the Peloponnese was in part effected
by means of a fleet which launched from the Malian' Gulf;
and their kinsmen who settled in Melos, Thera and Crete, in
all probability, sailed straight from the same northern port.1
The Minyae, who founded Orchomenos, Curtius regards
as preeminently a seafaring race; and be seeks to account
for their inland settlement by assuming that they were
quick to realize the wealth to be won by draining and tilling
the swamp.2 But this is hardly tenable. Whatever our
estimate of Minyan shrewdness, they must have had their
experience in reclaiming swamp land yet to acquire and.
on this ground. It was the outcome of age-long effort in
winning new fields from the waters and guarding them
when won. The region
invited settlement
because it offered
the kind of security
to which they were
wonted ; the winning
of wealth was not the
motive but the for-
tunate result.
Again, if the Myce-
naeans had been from
the outset a maritime
race we should expect
pi,, , . p Fir. 15S. Mveenaeaii Boat
to nnd the ship tigur-
ing freely in their art-representations. But this is far from
being the case. We have at last one apparent instance of
the kind on a terra-cotta fragment found in the Acropolis
at Mycenae in 1892 and here reproduced (Fig. 158). On
1 See Willamowitz-Mollendorf on Euripides' Herakles, i. 267.
! Sitzungsbericht Berl. Akad. Wiss., 1892, p. 1188.
that their conquest of the Peloponnese was in part effected
by means of a fleet which launched from the Malian' Gulf;
and their kinsmen who settled in Melos, Thera and Crete, in
all probability, sailed straight from the same northern port.1
The Minyae, who founded Orchomenos, Curtius regards
as preeminently a seafaring race; and be seeks to account
for their inland settlement by assuming that they were
quick to realize the wealth to be won by draining and tilling
the swamp.2 But this is hardly tenable. Whatever our
estimate of Minyan shrewdness, they must have had their
experience in reclaiming swamp land yet to acquire and.
on this ground. It was the outcome of age-long effort in
winning new fields from the waters and guarding them
when won. The region
invited settlement
because it offered
the kind of security
to which they were
wonted ; the winning
of wealth was not the
motive but the for-
tunate result.
Again, if the Myce-
naeans had been from
the outset a maritime
race we should expect
pi,, , . p Fir. 15S. Mveenaeaii Boat
to nnd the ship tigur-
ing freely in their art-representations. But this is far from
being the case. We have at last one apparent instance of
the kind on a terra-cotta fragment found in the Acropolis
at Mycenae in 1892 and here reproduced (Fig. 158). On
1 See Willamowitz-Mollendorf on Euripides' Herakles, i. 267.
! Sitzungsbericht Berl. Akad. Wiss., 1892, p. 1188.