may in some points have resembled that afterwards held by Agamemnon,
embraced both Corcyra and likewise middle Greece, where Panopeus and
Pytho or Delphi lay.
We must, however, presume the empire of Minos to have been in great
part insular. There were contemporary kingdoms on the mainland, which
give no sign of dependence upon it.
2. That the Phæacians acted as subjects of Minos in carrying
Rhadamanthus by sea from one part of the dominions of that king to
another.
3. That Rhadamanthus went to punish Tityus as an offender within the
realm of Minos, and did this on the part and in lieu of Minos himself.
4. That though he was not Greek by birth, his person, and family, and
empire were all Greek in the view of Homer.
This conjectural interpretation of the legend derives support from many
quarters.
It is in thorough harmony, as to the extended rule of Minos, with the
Eleventh Odyssey, which represents Minos as acting in the capacity of
a sovereign in the shades below; which also exhibits, as suffering
judicially the punishments that he awarded, offenders connected with
various portions of Greek territory, and among them this very Tityus.
_Minos: post-Homeric tradition._
It is now time to look to the post-Homeric traditions.
The extent of the sway of Minos is supported by the tradition of
Pelasgus, in the Supplices of Æschylus[305], which represents the
whole country from (probably) Macedonia to the extreme south of the
peninsula, as having been formerly under one and the same sway. The
empire of Minos may have been magnified into this tradition.
The authority of Thucydides is available for the following
points[306]:--
1. That Minos was the earliest known possessor of maritime power:
thus harmonising with the hypothesis that the Phæacians, whose great
distinction was in their nautical character, were acting as his
subjects when they carried Rhadamanthus.
2. That his power extended over the Grecian sea, or Ægean (Ἑλληνικὴ
θάλασσα) generally (ἐπὶ πλεῖστον); thus indicating a great extent of
sway.
3. That he appointed his children to govern his dominions on his behalf
(τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ παῖδας ἡγεμόνας ἐγκαταστήσας): which supports the idea
that his brother Rhadamanthus may have acted for him at a distance.
4. That he drove the Carians out of the islands of the Ægean. This
statement receives remarkable confirmation from Homer, who makes the
islands up to the very coast of Caria contributors to the force of the
Greek army: while Lesbos and others, situated farther north, and more
distant from Crete, appear to have been, like Caria itself, in the
Trojan interest.
In the Minos ascribed to Plato[307] we find the tradition of his direct
relations with Attica, which were well known to the theatre. This
supports the notice in Homer of the marriage contracted between Theseus
and his daughter Ariadne.
Aristotle[308], like Thucydides, asserts the maritime power of Minos
and his sovereignty over the islands, and adds, that he lost or ended
his life in the course of an expedition to conquer Sicily[309].
Herodotus[310], like Thucydides, treats Minos as the first known
sovereign who had been powerful by sea. He states, that Minos expelled
his brother Sarpedon from Crete, and that Sarpedon with his adherents
colonised Lycia, which was governed, down to the time of the historian
himself, by laws partly Cretan[311]: and he also delivers the tradition
that Minos was slain in an expedition against Sicily at Camicus,
afterwards Agrigentum. A town bearing his name remained long after in
the island.
Euripides laid the scene of his Rhadamanthus in Bœotia: and a Cretan
colony is said to have established the Tilphosian temple there[312].
Höck finds traces of a marked connection between Crete and that
district[313].
_Minos: Laconian and Cretan laws._
More important, however, than any isolated facts are the resemblances
of the Lacedæmonian and Cretan politics, noticed by Aristotle[314],
in combination with the admission always made by the Lacedæmonians,
that their lawgiver Lycurgus initiated the Cretan institutions[315],
and with the universal Greek tradition that in Crete, first of all
parts of Greece, laws and a regular polity had been established by
Minos. Again, in the Dialogue printed among the works of Plato, the
author of it seeks to establish the fundamental idea of law: puts aside
the injurious statements of the tragedians who represented Minos as
a tyrant, declares his laws to have been the oldest and the best in
Greece, and the models from which the prime parts of the Laconian
legislation had been borrowed[316].
Among the resemblances known to us appear to be
1. The division between the military and the agricultural part of the
community.
2. The περίοικοι of Crete, holding the same relation to the Cretans, as
the Helots to the Spartans, and like them cultivating the land.
3. The institution of συσσίτια in both countries.
4. The organism of the government: the five ephors corresponding with
the ten κοσμοὶ of Crete, and the βουλὴ being alike in both.
There also still remain etymological indications that Minos was the
person who raised some tribe or class to preeminence in Crete, and
depressed some other tribes or classes below the level of the free
community. In Hesychius we read,
μνοῖα, οἰκετεία.
μνῆτοι, δοῦλοι.
μνῶα, δουλεία.
And Athenæus quotes from the Cretica of Sosicrates, τὴν μὲν κοινὴν
δουλείαν οἱ Κρῆτες καλοῦσι μνοίαν· τὴν δὲ ἰδίαν ἀφαμιώτας· τοὺς δὲ
περιοίκους, ὑπηκόους[317]. He also says, that, according to Ephorus,
the general name for slave in Crete was κλαρώτης, and that it was
derived from the custom of apportioning the slaves by lot. This
remarkably fixes the character of Cretan slavery as owing its rise
to some institutions public in the highest sense, for merely private
slavery could not, it would appear, have had an origin such as to
account for the name. It thus indirectly supports the idea implied in
μνοία and μνῆτοι, that it was derived from Minos. Athenæus[318] again,
quoting the _Creticæ glossæ_ of Hermon, gives us the words μνώτας,
τοὺς εὐγενεῖς (otherwise read ἐγγενεῖς) οἰκέτας, and thus pointing to
the reduction to servitude of some of the previously free population of
the country.
There can be little doubt that it was the Pelasgic part of the
population which thus succumbed before the more active elements of
Cretan society, and which continued in the manual occupation of
husbandry, while war, policy, and maritime pursuits became the lot of
their more fortunate competitors. For is it difficult to divine which
were those more active elements, since Homer points out for us among
the inhabitants of Crete at least two tribes, the Achæans and the
Dorians, of Hellic origin. Bishop Thirlwall points also to a Phœnician
element in Crete, and to Homer as indicating the Phœnician origin of
Minos. This is suggested not only by his birth, and by his maritime
preeminence, but by Homer’s placing Dædalus in Crete[319]. For that
name directly establishes a connection with the arts that made Sidon
and Phœnicia so famous. The later tradition, indeed, places Dædalus
personally in relations with Minos, as having been pursued by him after
he had fled to Sicily[320].
Elsewhere I have shown reason for supposing that a second of the
five Cretan nations, namely, the Κύδωνες, was Pelasgian: and there
is a curious tradition, which supports this hypothesis. According to
Ephorus[321], there were solemn festivals of the slave population,
during which freemen were not permitted to enter within the walls,
while the slaves were supreme, and had the right of flogging the free;
and these festivals were held in Cydonia, the city of these Κύδωνες.
Our belief in a Cretan empire of Minos, founded on the evidence of
the Poems, and sustained by the statement of Thucydides, need not
be impaired by the fact that we find little post-Homeric evidence
directly available for its support. In early times the recollection of
dynasties very much depended on the interest which their successors
had in keeping it alive. Now the Minoan empire was already reduced to
fragments at the time of the _Troica_. The supremacy over Greece was
then in the hands of a family that held the throne of the Perseids and
the Danaids, a throne older than that of Minos himself, though in his
time probably less distinguished: a throne whose lustre would have
been diminished by a lively tradition of his power and greatness. And
it was from the Pelopids that the Dorian sovereigns of Sparta claimed
to inherit. Therefore the great Greek sovereignty, from the _Troica_
onwards, had no interest in cherishing the recollection of this ancient
part of history; on the contrary, their interest lay in depressing
it; and under these circumstances we need not wonder that, until the
inquiring age of Greek literature and philosophy, when Athens gained
the predominance, the traces of it should have remained but faint. But
the traces of Cretans have been found extensively dispersed both over
the islands, and on the coasts of the Ægean[322].
_The Lycians._
To complete the statement of this part of the case, it is necessary to
turn to another country, holding, with its inhabitants, a very peculiar
position in the Iliad. The attentive reader of the poem must often
inquire, with curiosity and wonder, why it is that Homer everywhere
follows the Lycian name with favour so marked, that it may almost be
called favouritism. At every turn, which brings that people into view,
we are met by the clearest indications of it: and few of Homer’s
indications, none of his marked indications, are without a cause and an
aim.
Sarpedon, the Lycian commander in chief, performs the greatest
military exploit on the Trojan side that is to be found throughout
the poems[323]. That he does not obscure the eminence of Hector is
only owing to the fact, that his share in the action of the poem is
smaller, not to its being less distinguished. Everywhere he plays his
part with a faultless valour, a valour set off by his modesty, and by
his keen sense of public duty according to the strictest meaning of the
term[324]; Jupiter, his father, sheds tears of blood for his coming
death; and he is in truth the most perfect as well as the bravest man
on the Trojan side. Glaucus, his second in command, is inferior to no
Trojan warrior save Hector, though in the exchange of the arms with
Diomed Homer has, as usual, reserved the superiority to the Grecian
intellect.
The distinctions awarded to the Lycian people are in full proportion
to those of their king Sarpedon. They formed one only among the eleven
divisions of the auxiliary force, but the Lycian[325] name, and theirs
only[326], evidently on account of their eminence, is often used to
signify the entire body. In the great assault on the Greek trench and
rampart, Sarpedon their leader commands all the allies, and chooses as
his lieutenants Glaucus, and Asteropæus a Pæonian, but not the Pæonian
general[327]. They are never mentioned with any epithet except of
honour: and to them is applied the term ἀντίθεοι[328], which is given
to no other tribe or nation in the Iliad, and in the Odyssey only to
the Phæacians[329]; to these last it appertains doubtless on account
of their relationship to the immortals. The Lycian attack in the
Twelfth Book is the one really formidable to the Greeks[330], and in
the rout of the Sixteenth Book we are told, that ‘not even the stalwart
(ἴφθιμοι) Lycians’ held their ground after the death of Sarpedon[331].
They alone are appealed to in the name of that peculiar and sacred
sentiment of military honour called αἰδὼς, which, with this single
exception, seems to be the exclusive property of the Greeks[332].
It is difficult to account for this glowing representation, so
consistently carried through the poem, except upon the supposition,
that Homer regarded the Lycians as having some peculiar affinity or
other relation with the Greeks; and that he on this account raised
them out of what would otherwise more naturally have been a secondary
position.
There are many signs of a specific kind, that this was actually his
view of them.
1. To make Sarpedon the son of Jupiter was at once to establish some
relationship with the Greek races.
2. The legend of Bellerophon, delivered on the field of battle, was
not required, nor is it introduced, merely to fill up the time during
which Hector goes from the camp to the city. It required no filling
up: but Homer turns the interval to account by using it to give us
this interesting chapter of archaic history, doubtless in order to
illustrate, as all his other legends do, the beginnings and early
relations of the Hellenic races. Accordingly we find that Antea, wife
of Prœtus the Argive king, was a Lycian: that a familiar intercourse
subsisted between the two courts, such as probably and strongly implies
that the nations had other ties: and lastly that an Æolid line of
sovereigns, descended through Sisyphus, were the actual governors of
Lycia at the period of the _Troica_.
3. The very same ideas of kingship and its offices, which prevailed
in Greece, are expressed by Sarpedon in his speech to Glaucus[333],
and there is an indication of free institutions which enlarges the
resemblance. The force of this circumstance will be more fully
appreciated, when we shall have examined the Asiatic tinge which is
perceptible in the institutions of Troy itself.
4. Besides the Æolid sovereignty, the etymology of the names of Lycian
warriors connects itself not only with the Greek race, but with the
Hellic element in that race[334].
5. On the other hand Apollo, whom we shall hereafter find to be the
great Pelasgian, though also universal, god, is even, according to
Homer, in close and peculiar connection with Lycia, although he is
not localized there by Homer as he is in the later tradition. First
as being λυκηγενής. Secondly as the great bowman: while Lycia was so
eminent in this art, that Æneas, addressing Pandarus with a compliment
on his skill, says no man before Troy can match him, and perhaps even
in Lycia there may not be a better archer[335]. Thirdly, this Pandarus
the archer, and son of Lycaon, received the gift of his bow from Apollo
himself[336]: and says, that Apollo prompted or instructed him, as
he came from Lycia[337]. It may, however, be reasonably questioned,
whether we are here to understand the Lycia of the South, or the
district of kindred name in Troas. In any case, Apollo in Lycia would
be no more than the counterpart of Minerva in Pelasgian Athens.
6. The prevalence of that Lycian name in other quarters, such as
Arcadia, of a marked Pelasgian character, further supports the
supposition that Lycia had probably a Pelasgian race for the bulk of
its population, holding the same subordinate relation to another race
as we find in corresponding cases. In Arcadia[338] Pausanias reports a
Lycaon son of Pelasgus; a Lycosura, the city he founded; Lyceon, the
hill where it stood; and Lycea, the games he established.
All this evidence combines to show some correspondence between Lycia
and Greece, as to the constituent elements of the population. The
agreement could not have been perfect: for the records of the Lycian
language, I believe, show a prevalence of other elements than the
Greek. But we have thus a reason to suppose, that the community of
architecture and other arts which has been found to subsist between the
two countries, was not merely dependent on later colonisation, but was
owing to an affinity of races and similarity of manners which dates
from the heroic age.
Lastly, the fragments of Homeric evidence respecting the Lycians are
combined by a later tradition, which links them to Crete, the main
subject of our recent inquiry. According to this tradition, there was a
Sarpedon earlier than the Sarpedon of the _Troica_, who, besides being
son of Jupiter, was brother to Minos. He is said to have been expelled,
with his adherents, by that sovereign from Crete; to have repaired to
Lycia, and to have colonised that country, or a part of it. In the
time of Herodotus, as we have seen, it retained laws of Cretan, that
is to say of Greek, origin. And at two later periods of its history,
far remote from Homer and from one another, its inhabitants signalised
themselves by the most desperate valour in defence of Xanthus, its
capital[339].
For the origin of the group of names, having Λύκος or some similar
word for their root, it seems most natural to infer its identity with
the Latin _lucus_, essentially the same with _lupus_, and to presume
that it had a Pelasgic source, but that the word corresponding with
it, probably Λύκος, meaning a wood or grove, had become obsolete in
the later Hellenic tongue. There is every reason for a supposition of
this kind, as these words, etymologically connected, evidently hang
round some common centre, which centre has reference to primitive and
to Pelasgic life, as well as to the somewhat specially Pelasgic deity
Apollo. Nor is it strange that the root of a name associated with the
Pelasgi should have been lost to the Greek tongue, while the name
itself remains: we have another example in Larissa.
But if there was such a word, with such a meaning, the link, which
may perhaps connect it with Pelasgic life, is evident. For the first
agricultural settlers must often be, as such, in a greater or less
degree, dwellers in woods. It may be said that in the United States,
at the present day, the proper name for an agricultural settler is
‘backwoodsman.’ In British colonies of Australia, they, who pass beyond
the limits of existing settlement, in order to extend it, are said to
go into the bush. Thus the idea at the root of the Lycian name is in
all probability twin, or rather elder brother, to that which properly
would indicate the agricultural settler.
It is however plain, that we cannot look to any thing simply Pelasgian
in the Lycian population, as supplying the motive which has induced
Homer to give the Lycians a marked preference over other populations,
themselves of a Pelasgian character. This preference must be due to
the other element, which associates them especially with the Hellenic
race. And we may not irrationally suppose it to be founded on any one
of such causes as these: the special connection in the royal line
between the two countries: a larger infusion of the more lordly blood
into a subordinate Lelegian or Pelasgian body in Lycia, just as in
Greece, than in Troas and Asia Minor generally: or lastly, a more
palpable and near connection between the dominant caste in Lycia and
those Persian highlanders, from among whom may have proceeded[340]
the forefathers of the Hellenic tribes. Everywhere we see this race
branching forth, and, by an intrinsic superiority, acquiring a
predominance over the races in prior occupation. Whether the stock came
to Lycia by land, or from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, it
may be hard even to conjecture: but there is one particular note of
relationship to Persia, which Lycia retains more clearly than Greece,
and that is the high estimation in which, to judge from the connection
with Apollo and from Il. v. 172, the use of the bow was held in that
country. The case was the same in Persia. According to Herodotus, one
of the three essential articles of education in Persia was the use of
the bow[341]; and he is not contradicted by Ctesias, who calls him in
most things a liar and a fabulist[342]. We must not, indeed, rely too
strongly upon a circumstance like this. Cyaxares the Median had the
art taught to his sons by Nomad Scythians[343]. We may however observe
that alike on the Trojan and the Grecian side we never hear of the
bow except in the hands of highborn persons, such as Paris, Pandarus,
Teucer: and, in the games, Meriones[344].
In passing, it may deserve remark, that the Lycians alone, of all
tribes or nations on either side, appear not under two leaders merely,
but two kings, in the strict sense. I do not however believe that this
indicates a political peculiarity. The origin of it may probably be
found in the legend of Bellerophon, to whom, after his high exploits
and great services, the reigning sovereign gave half his kingdom[345].
Now that king is nowhere stated to have had a son: and if we suppose a
failure of issue in his own direct line, and the succession of one of
the two descendants of his daughter to each moiety of the realm, it at
once accounts for the exceptional position of Sarpedon and Glaucus.
The suppositions then towards which we are led are, that Minos was of
Phœnician origin, that he came to Crete and acquired the sovereignty,
that he ruled over a mixed population of Cretans, Pelasgians, and
Hellic tribes, that he organised the country and established an
extended supremacy, especially maritime and insular, beyond its
limits; which however we must not consider as involving the consistent
maintenance of sovereignty according to modern ideas, and which is
in no degree inconsistent with the rule of Danaids or Perseids in
Peloponnesus. Lastly, that in giving form to his social institutions,
he depressed the Pelasgian element of Cretan society, and laid, in
political depression, the foundations of their subsequent servitude.
_Cyprus._
If this be so, it is worth while further to observe, that there are
traces of a somewhat analogous history in Cyprus, another acknowledged
stepping-stone, according to Homer[346], between Greece and the East.
In the Seventeenth Book of the Odyssey[347], Ulysses, in one of his
fictitious narrations, states to the Suitors, that the Egyptians, who
had taken him prisoner and reduced him to slavery, then made a present
of him to their ξεῖνος Dmetor, a descendant of Iasus, who ruled ‘with
might,’ that is, with considerable power over Cyprus (ὃς Κύπρου ἶφι
ἄνασσεν); the same expression as he uses in the Eleventh Book with
respect to Amphion, the Iasid, in Orchomenus. From all we know of the
Iasian name[348], it may be inferred that this was a Pelasgian dynasty,
and if so, then without doubt that it ruled over a Pelasgian people.
Ulysses does not mention the time of this transaction; and it must be
remembered, that he spoke in the character of an aged person, so that
the scene might be laid (so to speak) thirty or forty years back, and
therefore long before the expedition to Troy.
But in the Eleventh Book of the Iliad[349], we find Agamemnon putting
on a breastplate, which was evidently a marvel of workmanship, with
its plates on plates of different metals, and its six dragons flashing
forth the colours of the rainbow. Now we must observe, first, that this
was evidently meant to be understood as a Sidonian or Phœnician work:
secondly, that it was presented to Agamemnon by Cinyres of Cyprus, to
conciliate his favour (--χαριζόμενος βασιλῆï, perhaps we might render
it, to win the favour of _his_ king--) upon the occasion of his hearing
that the king was collecting an armament against Troy. That is to
say, it was to compound with him for not appearing in person to join
the Greek forces. Here then we must infer that there was some vague
allegiance, which was due, or which at least might be claimed, from
Cyprus to Agamemnon, under the πολλῇσιν νήσοισι[350].
Now we know nothing of the Pelopids before the _Troica_ as conquerors:
and especially, it would be difficult to apply the supposition that
they were such in relation to a place so distant. Therefore the
political connection, whatever it may have been, could probably rest
upon an ethnical affinity alone; and, as we know nothing of any Hellic
element in this quarter, that affinity seems to presume the Pelasgian
character of the population. The inference, which may thus be drawn,
coincides with that already suggested by the name of Iasus.