has indicated, to read many of the earliest hieroglyphs in Greek.* A simple system of picture-writing, where the name of the object pictured suggests by its initial the letter to be sounded, a system with close affinities to the Egyptian that preceded the Cretan and the Phoenician that followed it, makes it easy to decipher on the seal-stones, and precisely in the order we could wish, such suitable names as Knossos,'' Hegesi-,' (= 'Leader'), 'Mopsus,' and 'Minos.' Moreover, and most important of all for our present purpose, we can read on one side of the engraved whorl from Phaistos the identical name Velchan,' while the other side shows a goat-headed god, fit prototype for the sylvan deity of the later coins. Indeed, the parallel with the archaic coins of Phaistos is so close that we might claim to have here almost the equivalent of a 'bilingual.' Further research supports these results. A frequent symbol is that of the double-axe, and while it is true that the weapon may have been called a 'labrys' in Lydia, the natural Greek for it would be a word like 'Diplê'=' double' (sc. ‘axinê'='axe'), a word with which we may compare the Latin name 'bipennis' for the double-axe at Rome. Now with the value D derived from such a simple word we can read, and in suitable connexions, names that are singularly appropriate for the leading divinities. Thus for the goddess we have the name DE, double-axe and fence-sign ('HErkos,' the aspirate, as in later Greek, and modern cockney, being separable from the 'letter'). Or again we have the name DI(A), double-axe and fish-sign (Ichthys '), the vowel A being supplied by the reader according to the rule, similar to that prevailing in Egyptian and Semitic, that a vowel is not written in the body of the word unless two or more come together or special emphasis is required. Another name found is D(I)K(E), Justice,' double-axe and branch ('Klados'). This last title is of particular interest: 'Dikê' is well-suited to the palace of Minos the Law-giver; while there is good reason, as Miss Harrison * 1924. Second Series. A few corrections should be made already : e.g. I should now take the bovine head as a 'Bucranium,' with B for the sound-value, and the supposed calf's head as a fawn's head, 'Nebros,' with N for the sound-value. has shown, for supposing it to have been a primitive Vol. 248.-No. 491. meaning of the epithet was 'young.' Putting all these facts and indications together, it does not seem rash to conclude that on the Dictaan Table we have a dedication to the chief god of Crete in his youthful form, the newborn Zeus, the divine child whom Prof. Nilsson recognises as definitely Minoan. = It is, however, not a god who is named most often in the Cretan inscriptions; but, as we should expect, a goddess, Mother- and Earth-goddess. And among her names we can read, not only DE, DIA, and DIKE, as already expounded, but also GE, Earth,' indicated by the knee-sign (Gonu'), RHEA, indicated by the mallet ('RHaister'), and ME or MA 'Mother,' indicated by a summary form of the Mæander. The longest inscription in Evans' list," containing 22 signs exclusive of repetitions, can be read consecutively as a hymn addressed to her, beginning with an entreaty to hearken and containing a repeated prayer for rain. One sentence is of peculiar interest: it is written by the ploughshare-sign (Hynis'), engraved twice over, followed by the goathead ('Aïx'), and ending with the mallet (RHaister'). Vocalising, we read HY(E), HY(E), A RH(EA)' = 'Rain, rain, O Rhea!' And this seems a direct ancestor of the famous Athenian prayer quoted by Marcus Aurelius : 'Hyson, hyson, O phile Zeu!' 'Give rain, give rain, dear Zeus !' The cautious will no doubt insist, and be right to insist, that complete proof cannot be claimed for these alluring speculations until the Linear Scripts have been published and read; but the fact remains that plausible readings in Greek can now be offered for the bulk of the hieroglyphs (the foundation of the Linear), and, at least, a plausible beginning proposed for the latter. And certainly it would be far easier to understand the deep influence that Minoan art and religion exercised on classical Greece, an influence that scholars such as Nilsson, Frazer, and Evans now fully recognise, if we need not think of the great Minos as a 'barbarian.' The Greeks themselves never did so: he was for them the son of Europa and of their own God Zeus. *P. 26; 'Scripta Minoa,' I, p. 154. Not that this early influence is to be conceived in any sphere as unbroken. Far from it: obviously in art a sterner, simpler, more primitive, and more promising style grew up as the accomplished, sophisticated Minoan dwindled and died. In religion the shift is equally obvious. The Mother, for whatever reason, is superseded to a large extent by the Father, or by the virgin daughter of his intellect, Athena. But, as we have already emphasised, the Mother's influence remained profound. And nothing is more important, in studying the great religious minds of classical Greece, than to mark their interest in the older forms of their religion and in the fundamental conception of Nature. We have spoken of Euripides: it is equally true of Eschylus. Only with Eschylus the desire is always for reconciliation, for developing both the old and the current mythology into a fit vehicle for the thought and reverence of man. And in this effort he shows himself both conservative and audacious. The plot of the 'Prometheus Bound' is based on the tradition of a change from the old gods to the new, from the worship of Earth, the great Mother, the Mother sometimes called Themis, 'Law,' 'one shape of many names,' to the newer dynasty of Zeus, and Zeus is drawn as harsh, tyrannical, an upstart against the older and nobler Justice. The appeal of the Earth's son, Prometheus, himself a god, against this arrogant god who tortures him for his goodness back to the powers of nature, the æther, the winds, the rivers, the sea, the earth, and the sun, is known to every reader as one of the sublime things in literature. But we know also that the 'Prometheus Bound' is only the first part of a trilogy, and that Eschylus ended the whole with a reconciliation. The mythology was still felt to be fluid, and a religious poet could use if he chose the idea of 'Zeus' for just one aspect of the cosmos that must form part of a complete God. The same desire to unite different elements from different rituals into a more comprehensive, more satisfying system distinguishes the trilogy of the 'Oresteia.’ Doubtless in the first drama, the 'Agamemnon,' Zeus is conceived as far greater than in the 'Prometheus,' but still he is not the only God: true, he is the one to whom the Chorus cling-and here we feel them speak for the poet -because, whatever his ultimate nature, he is the god who teaches men to learn by suffering, he is the god, we might almost say, of conscious mind. But he and his daughter, Athena of the intellect, are by no means the only divinities of whom Eschylus takes account. The ancient goddesses, the goddesses who dwell in the earth guarding the primitive instincts and claiming vengeance for any transgression of their rights, who pursue Orestes unmercifully because he has broken the natural bond between mother and son at the bidding of an abstract 'justice,' they must be reconciled before Eschylus can be at rest. It is Athena herself who goes about to persuade them and, whatever difficulty there may be in understanding the mind of Eschylus in detail, there can be no question of the significance he attached to the final consummation when, after the slaughter of Agamemnon and Cassandra, the avenging slaughter of Clytemnestra and her paramour and the vengeance on Orestes himself, all the struggle and fury is closed by a pæan of triumph and rejoicing in which the whole world seems to take part. The attempt of Eschylus to lift the legends up to the height of his own imagination did not succeed. The base and cruel fancies that persisted roused, as we saw, the indignation and mockery of Euripides. Yet Euripides' concern with religion was unceasing, and when he gets nearest to formulating his own symbol he too demands the union of Intellect and Nature, Thought and Being: Thou deep Base of the World, and thou high Throne And hard of surmise, Chain of Things that be, Or Reason of our Reason; God, to thee I lift my praise, seeing the silent road That bringeth justice ere the end be trod To all that breathes and dies' ('Troades,' tr. Murray). That, after all, is the deepest demand of the religious consciousness, just as it is the supreme hope of philosophy. And here we come, as Mr Cornford has suggested, on the transition from religion to philosophy. Nothing is more characteristic of Greek speculation, from Anaxagoras and Xenophanes down to the Stoics, than the belief |