WERE THERE MINOAN FLEETS ?

[To the' Editor of the SPECTATOR."

SIRS Mr. Massingham began by forgetting Thucydides : he has gone on to forget himself. Let me remind him what it was he wrote :

" Mr. Porter . . . makes the astounding statement that Minoan Crete possessed ` fleets of warships.' I say astounding ' because it will be obvious to any' reader that no evidence for so wild a generalization can possibly exist."

Later he speaks of " an error however gross," and " a false, and, I may say, criminally misleading picture." These are unusually strong expressions. When I point out that Mr.

Porter had the very best evidence for his " wild generaliza- tion "—namely, that of Thucydides—Mr. Massingham replies

with a long disquisition on the general peacefulness of Minoan Crete' far a considerable period, which no one has disputed, and for tvai-thirds of a column thakes not the slightest allusion to Thile3rillaea. When he does, it (.1§ merely to say that he "was notliV archaeologist." It is no doubt true that he was not quite so well up in "Late Minoan I." and Minoan periods

in general as Mr. Massinglunn ; but even as an archaeologist he has some claim to a hearing. Mr. Afassingham no doubt remembers Thucydides' account of the Carian population of the islands of the Aegean, and the evidence for this from the island of Delos

" When Delos was purified by the Athenians during this war and all the graves in the island were opened, more than half proved to be Carians, being recognised by the style of the arms buried with them and the fashion of burial persisting with the Carians to the present day."

This surely is quite in the best manner of up-to-date archae- ology.

But there is no need to labour the point. All I contended and contend for is that .Thucydides is the best possible evidence for " Minoan fleets." 1 am sorry my reference to the London police has puzzled Mr. Massingham. My point, of course, was what is called " the policing of the seas "—a service to civiliza- tion so splendidly performed by the British Navy in modern times, as apparently by the navy of Minos some thousands of years ago.

There is one among the many questionable statements made by Mr. Massingham which (though I do not want to emulate his bludgeon method) I cannot but call " astounding " —when he says that " the warlike peoples of ancient history have been the least productive in the arts and crafts." He forgot Thucydides : has he even forgotten Athens ? The fifth century before Christ, during which Athens produced masterpieces of sculpture, architecture, pottery, lyric and dramatic poetry, and history which have never been equalled,

began with the life-and-death struggle against Persia, of which Athens bore the brunt. The highest point in all these was reached during two generations of almost continuouf0

military and naval activity, ending with the long agony of the Peloponnesian War. What can Mr. Massingham mean ? And is not the Old Testament—to say nothing of the monu- ments—full of evidence of the keen military rivalry of Egypt and the Empires which under various names dominated the basin of the Euphrates and the Tigris ?

Mr. Massingham relies especially on the delightful résumé of excavations in Crete written in 1907 by my friend Ronald Burrows, whose early death was so great a loss to Hellenic

scholarship. It is many years since I read this, and I turned to it again with great interest. The index gave copious references for " swords " and " daggers," and even a reference for ships. On looking this up I found the following, which is, I hope, not too long for you to print :-

" Of all the traditions that gather round Minoan Crete, none is more persistent than that which represents its realness as depending on a Thalassocracy" (italics mine). "It is not merely the general statements by Herodotus and Thucydides that Minos was master of the islands or the legend of the human tribute that Athens sent for the Minotaur. . . . Throughout the Aegean we see traces' of the Minoan Empire in one of the most permanent of all traditions, the survival of a place name. . . . The list of such Minoas . is truly a formidable one. . . . This Minos " (the island off Megara) " . . was assuredly the Cretan base of operations for the control of Central Greece."

This made me rub my eyes, and look back to Mr. Massingham's letter. Yes, he did say :

" Professor Burrows testifies again and again to the peacefulness of the ancient Cretans throughout his famous book."

I must apologize for the length of this letter. The purely historical point might not perhaps justify it. But Mr.

Massingham is seeking to rewrite history in the interest of a pet theory of his own, and is, I suppose, the spokesman of a certain school, which is very aptly described in a letter which came to me the other day from a former colleague of mine at Monmouth : " This primitive pacifism seems a political version of the Fall."—I am, Sir, &c.,

LIONEL JAMES.

Moyses, Five Ashes.