LIFE UNDER THE SEA-KINGS
What manner of men were the people who developed the Bronze Age
civilization of Crete? Can we form any idea of their physical
characteristics, of their homes and social conditions, of the general
aspect of their daily life, and of the occupations in which they
were engaged? Such questions can only be answered more or less
generally in the absence of written material, or, rather, in our
lack of understanding of the written material that exists; but,
still, a considerable mass of evidence is in existence from which
some broad outlines may be deduced with moderate certainty, and
the object of this chapter is to present these outlines.
First, as to the physical characteristics of the race. Two lines
of evidence are here available. On the one hand, there is that
afforded by the actual remains of the bodies of men and women of
the Minoan race which have been exhumed from ossuaries of the Bronze
Age, and studied by anthropologists. Generally speaking, the result
of their investigations has been to show that the Minoans belonged
to the southernmost of the three great racial belts into which
the ancient peoples of Europe may be divided--the so-called
Mediterranean race. That is to say, they were a people of the
long-headed type, dark in colouring and small in stature. The average
height, estimated from the bones which have been measured, is somewhat
under 5 feet 4 inches, which is about 2 inches less than the average
of the modern Cretans, and corresponds more to the stature of the
Sardinians and Sicilians of the present time. A few skulls of the
broad-headed type appear among the general long-headedness, and
probably point to some intermixture of race; but, as a whole, the
people were long-headed. The shortness of stature indicated by the
bones is a feature which one would scarcely have inferred from
the other line of evidence available--the actual representations
of men and women of their own race which the Minoans have left in
their fresco-paintings; but allowance must, of course, be made
for the artistic convention which tended to accentuate slenderness
of figure, and therefore to increase apparent height.
Judging from the surviving pictures, the Minoan men were bronzed,
with dark hair and beardless faces; their figures were slender,
and their slenderness was made all the more conspicuous by the
fashion which prevailed of drawing in the waist by a tightly fastened
belt, which seems, in some cases at least, to have had metal edges;
but muscularly they were well developed, and the pictures suggest
litheness and agility in a high degree. 'One would say a small-boned
race, relying more on quickness of limb and brain than on weight
and size.' The hair of the men was worn in a somewhat elaborate
fashion, being done up in three coils on the top of the head, while
the ends of it fell in three long curls upon the shoulders. On the
other hand, their dress was extremely simple, consisting normally
of nothing but a loin-cloth, girt by the broad belt already mentioned,
the material of which the loincloth was made being frequently gaily
coloured or patterned, as in the case of the Cup-Bearer, whose
garment is adorned with a dainty quatre-foil design. That more
elaborate robes were worn on certain occasions of importance is
shown by the sarcophagus at Hagia Triada (Plate XXVIII.), where
the lyre player wears a long robe coming down to the ankles and
bordered with lines of colour, while the other men in the scene
wear tucked robes reaching a little below the knees (or possibly
baggy Turkish trousers); and also by the Harvester Vase, where
the chief figure in the procession is clad in a stiff garment,
which has been variously interpreted as a wadded cuirass, or as
a cope of some stiff fabric.
On their feet they wore sometimes shoes, with puttees twisted round
the lower part of the leg, and sometimes half-boots, as shown on
the Chieftain Vase and one of the Petsofa figurines. Indeed, the
footgear of the Minoans seems to have been somewhat elaborate. In
the representations of the Keftiu, on the walls of Rekh-ma-ra's
tomb, the shoes are white, and have bindings of red and blue, and
in some cases are delicately embroidered. Such examples as the shoe
on an ivory figure found at Knossos, and the terra-cotta model of
a shoe found at Sitia, show the daintiness with which the Minoans
indulged themselves in the matter of footwear. In personal adornment
the men to some extent made up for their simplicity in the matter
of dress. The Cup-Bearer wears a couple of thick bracelets on his
upper arm, and another, which bears an agate signet, on his wrist;
and such decorations seem to have been in common use. The King
whose figure in low relief has been reconstructed from fragments
found at Knossos, wears peacock plumes upon his head, while round
his neck he has a collar of fleur-de-lys, wrought, no doubt, in
precious metal.
The Minoan women are depicted with a perfectly white skin, which
contrasts strongly with the bronzed hue of the men. The deep coppery
tint of the men, and the dead white skin of the women is, of course,
to be accepted only as a convention, similar to that adopted by
Egyptian artists, meant to express a difference of complexion caused
by greater or less exposure to the weather; and we need not imagine
that there was so great a contrast between the colouring of men
and women in actual life as would appear from the paintings. If
the dress of the male portion of the populace was simple, that of
the female was the reverse. An elaborate and tight-fitting bodice,
cut excessively low at the neck, covered, or affected to cover,
the upper part of the body, which is so wasp-waisted as to suggest
universal tight-lacing. From the broad belt hung down bell-shaped
skirts, sometimes flounced throughout their whole length, sometimes
richly embroidered, as in the case of a votive skirt represented
in faïence among the belongings of the Snake Goddess found in the
Temple Repositories. In some cases--_e.g._, that of the votaress
of the Snake Goddess--the skirt, below a small panier or apron, is
composed of different coloured materials combined in a chequer pattern
distantly resembling tartan. A fresco from Hagia Triada represents
a curious and elaborate form of dress, consisting apparently of
wide trousers of blue material dotted with red crosses on a light
ground, and most wonderfully frilled and vandyked. Diaphanous material
was sometimes used for part of the covering of the upper part of
the body, as in the case of some of the figures from the Knossos
frescoes. Hairdressing, as already noticed, was very elaborate, and
above the wonderful erections of curls and ringlets which crowned
their heads, the Minoan ladies, if one may judge from the Petsofa
figurines, wore hats of quite modern type, and fairly comparable
in size even with those of the present day. A seal from Mycenæ,
representing three ladies adorned with accordion-pleated skirts,
shows that heels of a fair height were sometimes worn on the shoes.
Necklaces, bracelets, and other articles of adornment were in general
use, and the workmanship of some of the surviving specimens is
astonishingly fine (Plate XXXII.). Altogether, so far as can be
estimated from the representations which have come down to us,
the appearance of a Minoan assembly would, to a modern eye, seem
curiously mixed. The men would fit in with our ideas of their period,
but the women would remind us more of a European gathering of the
mid-nineteenth century.
The houses which were occupied by these modern-looking ladies and
their mates were unexpectedly unlike anything in the house-building
of the Classical period. There is little of the uniformity of style
and arrangement which characterizes the ordinary Greek house. The
Minoan burgher built his home as the requirements of his site and
of his household suggested, and was not the slave of any fixed
convention in the matter of plan. The houses at Gournia, Palaikastro,
and Zakro, which may be taken as typical specimens of ordinary
Minoan domestic architecture, must have been much more like modern
houses than anything that we know of in Greek towns of the Classical
period; and the elevations of Minoan villas preserved in the faïence
plaques from the chest at Knossos suggest the frontages of a suburban
avenue. Some of the Knossian plaques show houses of three and four
storeys, with windows filled in with a red material which, as Dr.
Evans suggests, may have been oiled and tinted parchment. In such
houses, as distinguished from the palaces, there was no separation
between the apartments of men and women. The fabric of the houses
was generally of sun-dried brick, reared upon lower walls of stone;
some of the Knossian villas, however, were plastered and timbered,
the round beam-ends showing in the frontage. Oblong windows took
the place of the light-wells which give indirect illumination to
the palace rooms. The accommodation must have been fairly extensive.
The smaller houses have six to eight rooms, the larger ones twice
that number; while one of the houses in Palaikastro has no fewer
than twenty-three rooms.
Within doors the walls were finished with smooth plaster, and probably
decorated with painting, though, of course, on a humbler scale than
in the palaces. The floors were of flagstones and cement, even
in the upper storeys, and in some cases of cobbles or of earth
rammed hard. The furniture of the rooms has perished, except in
the case of such articles as were of stone or plaster; but the
evidence we possess of the comfort and even the luxury of the life
of these times in other respects suggests that the townsfolk of
Gournia and the other Cretan towns were not lacking in any of the
essentials of a comfortable home life. The great chest at Knossos
which was once decorated with the faïence plaques was, of course,
part of the furnishing of a royal home, and we are not to suppose
that such magnificent pieces of furniture were common; but in their
own fashion the ordinary Minoan houses were doubtless quite adequately
appointed, and the great variety of domestic utensils which has
survived shows that life in the Bronze Age homes of Crete was by no
means a thing of primitive and rough-and-ready simplicity, but was
well and carefully organized in its details. It has been remarked
that 'cooking in Homer is monotonous, because no one eats anything
but roast meat'; but this accusation could not be brought against
the Minoans, who had evidently attained to a considerable skill
and variety in the way in which they prepared their viands for
the table. The three-legged copper pot which was the most common
vessel for cooking purposes was supplemented by stewpans with
condensing-lids, and a variety of other forms of saucepan, while
the number of different types of perforated vessels for straining
and other purposes shows the care with which the art of cooking
was attended to. Probably the Minoan kitchen, though we are still
much in the dark as to its form, was almost as well equipped for
its special functions as the kitchen of the present day.
We are, unfortunately, without any evidence as to the appearance
of the great palaces in their finished state. The inner plan can
be traced, but it is difficult to arrive at any idea of what these
huge buildings must have looked like from the outside. It is fairly
evident, however, that there cannot have been any symmetrical balancing
of the different architectural features. The palaces were more
like small towns than simple residences, and the impression made
upon the eye must have been due more to the great mass and extent
of the building than to any symmetry of plan. Probably we must
conceive of them as great complex blocks of solid building, rising
in terrace above terrace, the flat roofs giving an appearance of
squareness and solidity to the whole. On a closer approach the eye
would be impressed by the wide and spacious courts, the stately
porticoes, the noble stairways, and the wealth of colour everywhere
displayed; but, on the whole, so far as can be judged, it was only
from within that the splendour of the Minoan palaces could be fairly
estimated.
A palace such as that of Knossos sheltered an extraordinary variety
and complexity of life. An abundance of humbler rooms served for
the accommodation of the artists and artisans who were needed for
the service and adornment of the palace, and of whom whole companies
must have lived within the walls, 'dwelling with the king for his
work,' like the potters and foresters mentioned in Scripture. Several
shrines and altars provided for the religious needs of the community.
Rooms of state were set apart for public audiences and for council
meetings. In fact, the building was not only a King's dwelling-place,
but the administrative centre of a whole empire, and within its
walls there was room for the offices of the various departments
and for the housing of their records.
The domestic quarter of the palace still reveals in some of its
rooms the environment of luxury and beauty in which the Minoan
royalties lived. The Queen's Megaron may be taken as typical. A
row of pillars rising from a low, continuous base divides the room
into two parts. The upper surface of the base on either side of
the pillars is of stucco moulded so as to form a long couch, which
was doubtless covered with cushions when the room was in use. Light
was furnished in the day-time, according to Cretan Palace practice,
not by windows, but by light-wells, of which there are two, one on
the south and one on the east side. In one of these light-shafts
the brilliant white stucco surface which reflected the light into
the room is decorated with a modelled and painted relief, of which
a fragment has survived, representing a bird of gorgeous plumage,
with long curving wing, and feathers of red, blue, yellow, white,
and black. Near the light-well on the other side of the line of
pillars, outside nature was brought within doors by a beautiful
piece of fresco-painting which shows fishes swimming through the
water, and dashing off foam-bells and ripples in their rapid course.
Along the north wall of the room ran another gay fresco, representing
a company of dancing-girls on a scale of half life-size. One of
the dancers is clad in a jacket with a yellow ground and blue and
red embroidered border, beneath which is a diaphanous chemise. Her
left arm is bent, and her right stretched forward; her features are
piquant, if not beautiful, and a slight dimple shows at the corner
of her lips. Her long black hair, elaborately waved and crimped,
floats out on either side of her head as she turns in the movement of
the dance. The fragments of decoration which have survived help us
to realize a very beautiful room, gay with colour, yet never garish
because of the softness of the indirect illumination, in which we may
imagine the Minoan Court ladies, in their modern gowns, reclining
on the cushions of the long couch, discussing the incidents of the
last bull-grappling entertainment, the skill of the young Athenian
Theseus, and the obvious infatuation of Princess Ariadne, or employing
their time more usefully in some of the wonderful embroidery-work
in which the fashion of the period delighted. By night the scene
in the palace would be even more picturesque. Greatstone lamps,
standing on tall bases, and each bearing several wicks on the margin
of its broad bowl of oil, flared in the rooms and corridors, lighting
up the brightly coloured walls, and sending many-tinted reflections
dancing from the bronze and copper vases and urns which decorated
the passages and the landings of the stairways; while through the
breadths of light and shadow moved in an always changing stream
of colour the gaily dressed figures of the Minoan Court.
Even at this exceedingly early stage of human progress, the various
branches of industry had become fairly separated and specialized,
more so, perhaps, than in the Homeric period, and a considerable
variety of tools was employed in the various crafts. The carpenter
was evidently a highly skilled craftsman, and the tools which have
survived show the variety of work which he undertook. At Knossos a
carefully hewn tomb held, along with the body of the dead artificer,
specimens of the tools of his trade--a bronze saw, adze, and chisel.
'A whole carpenter's kit lay concealed in a cranny of a Gournia
house, left behind in the owner's hurried flight when the town was
attacked and burned. He used saws long and short, heavy chisels
for stone and light for wood, awls, nails, files, and axes much
battered by use; and, what is very important to note, they resemble
in shape the tools of to-day so closely that they furnish one of
the strongest links between the first great civilization of Europe
and our own.'[*] Such tools were, of course, of bronze. Probably
the chief industry of the island was the manufacture and export of
olive oil. The palace at Knossos has its Room of the Olive Press,
and its conduit for conveying the product of the press to the place
where it was to be stored for use; and probably many of the great
jars now in the magazines were used for the storage of this
indispensable article. As we have seen, Dr. Evans conjectures that
it was the decay of the trade in oil during the troubled days after
the sack of the palaces that drove the Minoans abroad from their
island home to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Besides the trade
in oil, it would seem that there must have been a trade in the
purple of the murex, and no doubt the Keftiu mariners found a ready
market for this much-prized product long before the Phnicians
dreamed of Tyrian purple. Minoan pottery was manifestly also an
article of export--a fragile cargo for those days. The fact that
two of the Keftiu envoys in the Rekh-ma-ra frescoes carry ingots
of copper of the same shape as those found by Dr. Halbherr at Hagia
Triada suggests that Crete may have exported copper to Egypt in the
time of Tahutmes III. as Cyprus exported it in large quantities
in that of Amenhotep III.
[Footnote *: C. H. and H. Hawes, 'Crete the Forerunner of Greece,'
p. 37.]
It is unfortunate that so far we have no large-scale representations
of the ships in which these early masters of the ocean conducted
the sea-borne commerce of the Ægean world. The various seal-stones
and impressions, and the gold ring from Mokhlos, are interesting,
but it would have been much more satisfactory had we been able to
see representations of the Minoan galleys as complete as those which
Queen Hatshepsut has left of the ships of her merchant squadron.
The vessels represented are almost universally single-masted, with
one bank of oars, whose number varies from five to eleven a side,
a high stern, and a bow ending either in a barbed point or an open
beak, which suggests resemblances to the galleys of the sea-peoples
who were defeated by Ramses III. In some instances the length of
the voyage undertaken appears to be indicated. A crescent moon on
the forestay, and another on the backstay of a vessel with seven
oars a side, may point to a two months' voyage, while a disc over
the beak of another which has no oars at all may indicate one of
a year's duration, or perhaps, more probably, one of a complete
month. The supreme part which the sea played in the life of the
Cretans is shown unmistakably by the fact that practically every
Minoan site of importance is on the coast, or within easy reach of
it, while the innate national delight in all the wonderful creatures
of the marine world is seen in the constant use of their forms as
motives in decorative work. No designs are so common on Minoan
pottery as those derived from the sea; the octopus, the murex, the
nautilus, the coral, and various forms of algæ, occur continually,
and are utilized with great skill, while such pictures as the Dolphin
Fresco (Plate X. 1) show the fascination which marine life had
upon the Minoan mind, and the care with which it was observed.
That commerce was thoroughly organized and attended to with that
careful precision which seems to have been characteristic of the
race is seen from the Zakro excavations, where Mr. Hogarth found
500 seal impressions in the house of a single merchant. Trade must
have been very far removed indeed from primitive conditions when
merchants were so careful about the security of their bales of
goods.
[Illustration XXVIII: SARCOPHAGUS FROM HAGIA TRIADA (_p_. 127)
_G. Maraghiannis_]
So far as the evidence goes, the Minoan Empire does not appear
to have been a specially warlike one. No doubt there was a good
deal of fighting in its history, as was the case with all ancient
empires. But the insular position of Crete, and the predominance
which the Minoan navy established on the sea, saved the island
Empire from the necessity of becoming a great military power, and
the absence of the spirit of militarism is reflected in the national
art. While an Assyrian palace would have been decorated from end to
end with pictures of barbarous bloodshed and plunder, while even
the milder Egyptians would have adorned their walls with records
of the conquests of their Pharaohs, the Kings of the House of Minos
turned to other and more gentle scenes for the decoration of their
homes. Flower-gatherers and dancing-girls, harvest festivals and
religious processions, appealed to their minds far more than the
endless and monotonous succession of horrors with which the Mesopotamian
monarchs delighted to disfigure their walls; and even the dangers
of the bull-ring, as seen on the Knossian frescoes, are mild and
gentle when compared with the abominations where Teumman has his
head sawed off with a short dagger, and other unfortunates are
flayed alive, or have their tongues torn out.
The archives of the palace at Knossos certainly show that a military
force was kept on foot, and was thoroughly organized and well looked
after. There are records of numbers of chariots, and of the issue
of equipments to the charioteers of the force; and many of the
tablets refer to stores of lances, swords, bows, and arrows, a
store of nearly 9,000 arrows being mentioned in one of the finds;
while an actual magazine, containing hundreds of bronze arrow-heads,
has been discovered. We may remember that in ancient warfare the
Cretan bowmen were as famous as the Balearic slingers or the archers
of England. On the whole, however, the genius of the Minoans, like
our own, was more commercial than military, though, no doubt, they
were not devoid of the fighting spirit when occasion arose. Their
kinsmen of Mycenæ and Tiryns, less happily situated, were forced
to develop the military side of life; but the position and the
maritime power of Crete secured for the fortunate island those
long centuries of tranquil growth which were so fruitful in the
arts of peace. With one possible exception, no records appear to
have been found as yet dealing with the Minoan marine; but it is
impossible to believe that a people so methodical, who kept such
careful record of their military stores, should not have had a
thoroughly organized department to deal with the infinitely more
important matter of their navy, and perhaps the records of the
Minoan Board of Admiralty may yet come to light and be deciphered,
to enable us to understand how the first great sea-power of history
dealt with its fleets.
Comparatively few agricultural tools have survived, probably because
few were used; but some bronze sickles have been found. These are
not curved like the modern ones, but are bent at an angle, and
have a longer handle, so that the peasants would not be obliged
to bend down so much in the work of reaping. The figures on the
Harvester Vase carry a curious implement, which has been variously
described, according as those who deal with it believe the vase
to represent a triumphal march of warriors returning from battle
or a harvest procession. In the first case it is described as a
kind of trident with a hook attached to it, for the purpose of
grappling the rigging of an opponent's vessel; in the second, it
is looked upon as a common hay-fork. The resemblance to a hay-fork
seems satisfactory enough, though the three prongs are much longer
than the two of the implement used nowadays, and the hook attached
remains unexplained; but if the implement must be supposed to be a
military weapon, it seems singularly ill-contrived and inadequate
for such rough service. It might conceivably be a trident for spearing
fish, but, on the whole, the hay-fork idea seems most satisfactory.
Hand-querns were used for the grinding of corn, and numbers of
these and of mortars for pounding grain remain. Indeed, in some
cases the actual grains of barley and the pease which were stored
for future use still remain in the great jars. In a jar at Hissarlik,
Schliemann found no less than 440 pounds of pease, and some of his
workmen lived for a time on this food, which might conceivably
have been stored against a siege of Troy earlier than that recorded
in the Iliad. The olive-tree was of great importance, as yielding
the staple product of the island, and the fig-tree seems also to
have been in general cultivation, and was held to be sacred; but,
strangely enough, though wine must have been in constant use, as
is shown by the vessels for its storage and service, there is only
one representation of the vine, and even in that case the identity
of the object depicted is doubtful. Weaving was an art in which
the Minoans were well skilled, to judge from the fabrics which
are represented in the frescoes. As in Penelope's time, it was a
domestic art, and probably almost every household had its loom,
where the women turned out the materials for ordinary wear. In
many of the houses have been found the loom-weights, mostly of
stone or clay, which took the place of the more modern weaver's
beam in serving to keep the threads taut; and there are also numbers
of the stone discs which were attached, in spinning, to the foot of
the spindle, to keep it straight and in motion. These loom-weights
and spindle-discs are frequently ornamented with spiral incisions.
But the arts in which the islanders were supreme were those of the
potter and the metal-worker, the chief evidences of whose skill
have been already discussed. The reputation of Crete as a centre
of metal-working became legendary in ancient times, and, in all
likelihood, the bronze-worker and his fellows, the gold- and
silver-smiths, attained the height of their skill before their
brethren the potters, since, as we have seen, many of the finest
pottery specimens are obviously designed on bronze, or, at all
events, on metal models, the resemblance even going so far as the
copying of the seams and rivets of the metal originals. Bronze
was smelted in furnaces, the remains of one of which still exist
near Gournia; and was cast in moulds, many of which have survived.
The tools and weapons which were made of the metal show an average
alloy of about ten per cent. of tin. For beaten work, copper in an
almost pure state appears to have been used. Gold was in extensive
use for the best class of ornamental work, and the Vaphio cups,
which are now held to have been imported to Laconia from Crete,
are evidence of the marvellous skill which the Minoan goldsmiths
had attained; while the necklaces and other articles of personal
adornment found at Mokhlos and in the beehive tombs at Phæstos
(Plate XXXII.), are only to be matched, among ancient work, by
the diadems of the Twelfth Dynasty Princesses, found at Dahshur
in Egypt. Silver is comparatively scarce on Minoan, as on other
Ægean sites, though a number of fine silver vessels have been found
at Knossos and elsewhere; and this scarcity is perhaps due, not
only to the greed of the plunderers, but also to the fact that,
during the greater part of the period covered by the Minoan Empire,
the metal itself was actually scarcer and more valuable than gold.
In Egypt, whose supplies of silver apparently came from Cilicia, it
maintained a higher value than gold until the time of the Eighteenth
Dynasty, or about the period of the fall of Knossos; but then and
thereafter its value fell, owing to increasing supplies, below that
of the more precious metal. It does not appear that the gold-silver
alloy--'electrum,' of which the Egyptians were so fond--was used
by the Minoans.
[Illustration XXIX: MINOAN POTTERY (_pp_ 198 & 204)
Reproduced from _The Journal of Hellenic Studies_, by permission
of the Council of the Hellenic Society]
Of the social life of the people in these prehistoric times we
know practically nothing. Only one inference, possibly precarious
enough, may be made from one of the features of the architecture of
Knossos. There is no attempt to seclude the life of the palace from
that of the town and country around it. On the contrary, the building
seems almost to have been arranged with the view of affording the
citizens of the Minoan Empire every facility for intercourse with
the royal household. The great West Court, with its portico and
its seats along the palace wall, suggests considerable freedom of
access for the populace to the immediate neighbourhood of royalty.
It is perhaps rather a large inference to conclude that 'the very
architecture of the Palaces of Knossos and Phæstos may testify to
the power of the democracy';[*] but at least the thoughtfulness
with which the comfort of the people visiting the palace was provided
for, and the general openness and lack of any jealous seclusion,
testified to by the whole style of the buildings, suggest that
the relations between the Kings of the House of Minos and their
subjects were much more human and pleasant than those obtaining
in most ancient kingdoms.
[Footnote *: Mosso, 'The Palaces of Crete,' p. 163.]
From their art one would, on the whole, conclude the people to
have been a somewhat attractive race, frankly enjoying the more
pleasant aspects of life, and capable of a keen delight in all the
beauties of Nature. Minoan art has little that is sombre about it;
it is redolent of the open air and the free ocean, and a people who
so rejoiced in natural beauty and delighted to surround themselves
with their own reproductions and interpretations of it can scarcely
have been bowed beneath a heavy yoke of servitude, or have lived
other than a comparatively free and independent life. How much the
Greeks of the Classic period imbibed of the spirit of this gifted
and artistic race we can only imagine. The artistic standpoint of
the Hellenic Greek is somewhat different from that of his Minoan or
Mycenæan forerunner, and he has lost that keen feeling for Nature
which is so conspicuous in the work of the earlier stock; but the
two races are at least at one in that profound love of beauty which
is the dominant characteristic of the Greek nature, and it may
well be that something of that feeling formed part of the heritage
which the conqueror took over from the conquered, and which, added
to the virility and intellectual power of the northern race, made
the historic Greek the most brilliant type of humanity that the
world has ever seen.