The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-12-05


5000 years before Christ, a re-
markable ('Minoan') civilization de-
veloped, which was to serve as a
bridge between Egypt and Greece.
and provide some continuity and
salvage between the decay OF the
old and the rise of the new.
The island lay Strategically on
the sea routes from Egypt to Asia
and from Egypt to Europe; it was
a halfway house for trade, nat
urally fated to produce a CONNER
cial and industrial civilization.
BY 1000 B. C. the Cretans had
become wealthy enough to have not
only kings, but artists. On the ruins
of the Neolithic town of Cnossos
they built a great city, centering
about a luxurious palace, which Sir
Arthur Evans has in our own time
recaptured from the soil.
Vast rooms, wide galleries, spa
cious staircases and massive drain
pipes reveal a material and me-
chanical culture akin to the Egyp-
tan, and superior in many ways to
the physical achievements of the
Greeks.
But in their pottery and their
textiles, in their gem and ivory and
metal and inlaid work, in their vivid
painting and decorative friezeS, in
their splendid vases and marvel
lousy engraved cups, we see the
signs of their esthetic Sensitivity,
that fine taste and careful artistry
which were to pass from the Gre
tans to Hellas and end the bar
bariSm of their conquerors.
No wonder Greek legend attribut-
ed the beginning of statuary to the
Cretan sculptor Daedalus. whose
figures (the story saidD we're so life
like and active that he had to tie
them down to keep them still.
Symbolic, too, of the Cretan spirit
was the noble legend that told how
Daedalus had tried to fly, and how
Icarus had fallen into the Mediter-
ranean when his wings melted in
the sun.
So old is the dream which in our
own audacoius age has at fast come
true.
AS trade increased along the
northern routes the CretanS spread
to the mainland of Greece, and
founded the "Myconaear" civiliza-
ton of Tiryns and Mycenae (ca.
1900 B. CO.
Then step by step they passed
along the islands Of the Aegean,
raising SO many cities upon them
that their culture now bears the
name of that incompatible sea.
And finally they flung their far
thesis outpost down at what we call
the Dardenelles and built the city
of Troy. ..
r OOK at the place on the map;
IL for it is as vital in Greek his
tory a story as Constantinople Cat
the other end of the Sea of Mar
moral is vital in the history of
medieval and modern politics.
Z AS you enter the straits today,
passing the spot where Leander pos
sibly and Byron really saw the
Hellespont, you see the wreckage
of the great fleets that poured out
the lives of 100000 youths in a
vain attempt to take Gallipoli; and
4I.o ~,,I,~Io xryo, wv c,.ooocciOY1 IF cioOnc
and wars from Agamemnon TO
winston Churchill moves before the
mind
Was there ever here an actual
city of Troy? Once every school
boy knew that there was none;
Niebuhr had proved it, even to
George Grote.
And then came the romantic
figure of Heinrich Schliemann,
German-American shipwrecked in
Holland, and gradually enriched
there by trade. Schliemann read
Niebuhr, and rebelled; he could not
believe that Homer's great epic had
been made of legend wholly; there
must be a Troy. So, in 1870, he
went to the bleak shores that Homer
had described-just south OF the
Straits, on Scamander's stream
and spent his fortune digging into
the soil, patiently like a German.
Fate rewarded him lavishly, re-
vealing not one Troy only, but nine
Century after century had built
upon the same site, covering the
homes and streets of dead genera
lions slowly and unconsciously, like
earthworms turning up the soil. His
torians refused to credit Schlie-
mann; these relics he had found
(they assured hirn) were not Greek
or Trojan, but Gothic or Byzantine
The old explorer died still un-
believed, bravely predicting that yet
more ancient remains would be
found in Crete.
But why did the Cretans build
In distant Troy?-and why should
nations fight for 1t? Because it
controlled the great water route
by which the lands of the Mediter-
ranean traded with the East.
Here passed the fleets of the
Cretans, and then of the Phoeni-
clans, threading their way among
AEGEAN isles that offered a hundred
Ravens and hundred markets,
sailing safely into the Black Sea
touching at a dozen ports on north
ern and southern shores, and reach
ing down by river and by caravan
to the teeming cities of the inland
East. Those who held Troy could
hold the world.
= y
THE GREEKS