Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/108

 The People. 87 to build up in the fifth century b.c. The people which Minos covered with his protection paid him a tribute ; and members of the royal family were sent as military governors to the most important islands. There is evidence that certain districts on the mainland paid homage to the kings of Crete ; and legend, after its own fashion, asserts that at that time Athens was a dependency of Crete. So too the Homeric hymn to Apollo testifies to the influence which Crete exercised on Delphi and Central Greece ; whilst from the name of Minoa, borne by a Sicilian city, we may hazard the guess that Cretan sailors were not content to open new paths beyond Cape Malea and circumnavigate Peloponnesus, but that they boldly pursued their voyages in the wider waters of the west, and crossed the Hadriatic ; thus forestalling the great colonizing movement of the ninth and eighth centuries b.c. Crete was pre-eminently qualified by her natural resources, to assure commercial prosperity, by placing it on a solid basis. It has many climates, and the variety of its productions suffices for its own wants ; it possesses mountains of amazing height, whose snowy summits or " Monts Blancs" are visible as far as Caria, — secluded fertile valleys let in between the rocky crags of this mighty range, a vigorous and dense population, steeled by hard labour in the culture of steepy mountain sides, and the pursuit of large game in the vast forests of the interior. Again, its princes found, in the rich plain towards the sea, tracts teeming with traders and fishermen, as many recruits as they needed for carrying out their ambitious designs. Town life had here its beginning sooner than anywhere else. Homer, in speaking of Crete, uses the epithet IxaTOjtxxoXe^, ** hundred cities " ; its towns were so many that their number was unknown ; hence tradition placed here the cradle of the arts and religion. The Cretan sculptor whom they called Daedalus personified the first efforts and suc- cesses in the domain of plastic art. Though excavations have only been attempted on very few points, as far as they go they confirm the witness of antiquity. The most interesting by far were made in the cave of Zeus, close to the site of Cnosus. Here were found both monuments of Oriental origin, brought to the island by trade, and objects which the earliest native smelters and chisellers wrought in imitation of these models. We may look forward to fresh discoveries being made in the