THE SEA-KINGS OF CRETE 
21 
around the island coast, keeping the 
Minoan peace of the ^gean. 
the; minoans were not waruke 
So long as the war-fleet of Minos was 
in being, Knossos needed no fortifica- 
tions. No expedition of any size could 
force a landing on the island. If the 
crew of a chance pirate galley, desperate 
with hunger or tempted by reports of 
the wealth of the great palace, succeeded 
in eluding the vigilance of the Minoan 
cruisers and made a swift rush up from 
the coast, there was the bastion with its 
armed guard, enough to deal with the 
handful of men who could be detached 
for such a dare-devil enterprise. But in 
the fleet of Knossos was her fate, and 
if once the fleet failed she had no second 
line of defense on which to rely against 
any serious attack. There is every evi- 
dence that the fleet did fail at last (see 
page 22). 
So far as the evidence goes, the Mi- 
noan 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 neces- 
sity of becoming a great military power, 
and the absence of 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 Pha- 
raohs, 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, har- 
vest 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 sangers 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 organ- 
ized and well looked after. There are 
records of numbers of chariots, and of 
the issue of equipments to the chariot- 
eers of the force; and many of the tab- 
lets 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 contain- 
ing hundreds of bronze arrow-heads has 
been discovered. 
We may remember that in ancient 
warfare the Cretan bowmen were as fa- 
mous 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 occa- 
sion arose. Their kinsmen of Mycenae 
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 fortu- 
nate island those long centuries of tran- 
quil growth which were so fruitful in 
the arts of peace. 
A TERRIBIvE CATASTROPHE SUDDENLY 
OVERWHElvMED THE EMPIRE 
Probably the power and grandeur of 
the Minoan Empire was never more im- 
posing than during the hundred years 
before 1400 B. C. The house of Minos 
at Knossos had reached its full develop- 
ment, and stood in all its splendor, an 
imposing mass of buildings crowning 
the hill of Kephala, with its five stories, 
around the great central court, its the- 
atral area, and its outlying dependencies. 
Within its spacious porticoes and cor- 
ridors the walls glowed with the brilliant 
colors of innumerable frescoes and re- 
liefs in colored plaster. The cup-bearer, 
the queen's procession, the miniature 
frescoes of the palace sports, stood out 
in all their freshness. Magnificent urns 
in painted pottery, with reliefs like those 
of the great papyrus vase, decorated the 
halls and courts, and were rivaled by 
huge stone amphorae, exquisitely carved. 
