Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/132

 The People. in religion, attention will be directed thereto in another section of this history. The original body of beliefs of which it is made up, certainly mount back to that primitive period whose historical significance we at this moment are trying to divine. We have no reason to doubt but that a certain class of small terra-cotta and bronze figures, attributed with great probability to this epoch, are simulacra of the deity ; whilst several intaglios seem to represent sacred scenes. The means however which the arts of drawing possessed in order to express their ideas were so limited, that these instances of the plastic art do not help us to interpret the religious creeds which they symbolize, nor do they supplement the silence of poetry and the absence of written documents. Only when in a position to interrogate the epic poems and complete their testimony by that of painting and sculpture, shall we venture to deal in a comprehensive manner with the religious evolution of Greek intelligence ; taking as our point of departure the vivid and confused impressions which it experienced when faced, on the threshold, by the spectacle of the world moving on to the ultimate and fruitful effort which gave birth to the great gods of the Hellenic Olympus.