only imperfectly, their own tale of splendour and disaster.

The interpretation and co-ordination of the immense body of material
gathered by Dr. Evans must for long be the work of scholars. Perhaps
it is not too much to hope that when the Minoan script has at length
yielded up its secrets we shall be able to comprehend clearly those
historical outlines of the rise and magnificence and fall of a
great monarchy and culture, which at present have to be cautiously
and sometimes precariously inferred from the indications afforded
by scraps of potsherd and fragments of stone or metal. And then
the actual story of the House of Minos will appeal to all. To-day,
perhaps, the main impression left on the ordinary student by this
resurrection is one of sadness. Here was a kingdom so great and
so imposing, a civilization so highly advanced and so full of the
joy of living. And it has all passed away and been forgotten, with
its vivid life, and its hopes and fears; and we can only wonder
how life looked to the men and women who peopled the courts of
the vast palace, and what part was played by them in the fragments
of old legend that have come down to us.

The pathos of this aspect of his discoveries has not been missed by
the explorer. Writing of the restoration of the Queen's apartment
of the palace, a restoration rendered necessary by the decomposing
action of wind and rain on the long-buried materials, Dr. Evans
says: 'From the open court to the east, and the narrower area that
flanks the inner section of the hall, the light pours in between
the piers and columns just as it did of old. In cooler tones it
steals into the little bathroom behind. It dimly illumines the
painted spiral frieze above its white gypsum dado, and falls below
on the small terra-cotta bath-tub, standing much as it was left
some three and a half millenniums back. The little bath bears a
painted design of a character that marks the close of the great
"Palace Style." By whom was it last used? By a Queen, perhaps,
and mother, for some "Hope of Minos"--a hope that failed.'[*]

[Footnote *: The _Times_, August 27, 1908.]

The little bath-tub in the Queen's Megaron at Knossos takes its
place with the children's toys of the Twelfth Dynasty town at Kahun
in bringing home to us the actual humanity of the people who used
to be paragraphs in Lempriere's 'Classical Dictionary' or Rollin's
'Ancient History.'

CHAPTER VI

PHAESTOS, HAGIA TRIADA, AND EASTERN