THE SEA-KINGS OF CRETE 
11 
stamped on seal impressions — which 
show that the Cretans and Mycenseans 
were as fond of their bull-fights as a 
modern Spaniard of his. 
the; dungeons oi'' minos 
Where did they get the toreadors, 
male and female, whose lives were to be 
devoted to such a terrible sport— a sport 
practically bound to end fatally, sooner 
or later? We may be fairly sure, at all 
events, that bull-grappling was not taken 
up voluntarily even by the male, and 
still less by the female, toreadors ; and 
one of the discoveries made gave its own 
suggestion of an explanation. 
Not very far from the north entrance 
of the palace, beneath the room where 
had been found the fresco of the Little 
Boy Blue gathering crocuses — an inno- 
cent figure to cover so grim a revela- 
tion (see page 13) — there came to 
light the walls of two deep pits, going 
right down, nearly 25 feet, to the virgin 
soil. The pits were lined with stone- 
work faced with smooth cement, and it 
seems most probable that these were the 
dungeons of the palace, in which we may 
imagine that the miserable captives 
brought back by the great king's fleet 
from its voyages of conquest and 
plunder, and the human tribute paid by 
the conquered states, dragged out their 
existence until the time came for them 
either to be trained for the cruel sport to 
which they were devoted, or actually to 
take their places in the bull-ring. 
If it be so, then the dungeons of 
Minos would keep their captives se- 
curely enough ; escape from the deep 
pits, with their smooth and slippery 
walls, must have been practically im- 
possible, save by connivance on the part 
of the guards or by the intervention of 
some tender-hearted Ariadne. 
If those dark walls could only reveal 
the story of the doomed lives which they 
once imprisoned, we should probably be 
able to realize, even more fully than we 
do, the shadowed side of all the glitter- 
ing splendor of Knossos, and the grim 
element of barbaric cruelty which 
mingled with a refined artistic taste and 
a delight in all forms of beauty. 
In none of these great civilizations of 
the ancient world were splendor and 
cruelty separated by any great interval 
from one another, nor was a very re- 
markable degree of refinement incon- 
sistent with a carelessness of life, and 
even such a thirst for blood, as we con- 
sider more natural in a savage state; but 
it is seldom that the evidences of the two 
things lie so close to one another as 
where at Knossos the innocent figure of 
the crocus-gatherer almost covers the 
very mouth of the horrible pit in which 
the captives of Minos waited for the day 
when their lives were to be staked on the 
hazard of the arena. 
the; drainage; system was marvel- 
OUSIvY modern 
Most surprising of all, however, in 
many respects, was the revelation of the 
amazingly complete system of drainage 
with which the palace was provided. 
The gradient of the hill which underlay 
the domestic quarter of the palace en- 
abled the architect to arrange for a drain- 
age system on a scale of completeness 
which is not only unparalleled in an- 
cient times, but which it would be hard 
to match in Europe until a period as 
late as the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury of our era. A number of stone 
shafts, descending from the upper floors, 
lead to a well-built stone conduit, meas- 
uring one meter by one-half meter, 
whose inner surface is lined with smooth 
cement. These shafts were for the pur- 
pose of leading into this main conduit 
the surface water from the roofs of the 
palace buildings, and thus securing a 
periodical flushing of the drains. In 
connection with this surface-water sys- 
tem there was elaborated a system of 
latrines and other contrivances of a sani- 
tary nature, which are "staggeringly 
modern" in their appointments. 
In the northeastern quarter, under the 
Corridor of the Game-Board, are still 
preserved some of the terra-cotta pipes 
which served as connections to the main 
drain. They are actually faucet-jointed 
pipes of quite modern type, each section 
two and one-half feet in length and six 
inches in diameter at the wide end, and 
narrowing to four inches at the smaller 
end. "Jamming was carefully prevented 
