eaker Orientals, much as the later Greek hoplite of the times of
Psamtek I. or Haa-ab-ra domineered over the native Egyptians.

But all the same the Philistine was an anachronism, a survival from
an older world. The day of the Minoan, like that of his early friend
the Egyptian, had passed away. The stars of new races were rising
above the horizon, and new claimants were dividing the heritage of
the ancient world. To the new Greek the realm of knowledge and
art which his Cretan forerunner had not unworthily cultivated; to
the Mesopotamian the realm of armed dominance, to which also the
Cretan had once laid claim; to the Hebrew the realm of spiritual
thought, in which, by reason of our ignorance, we can say next to
nothing of the Cretan's achievement, save only that he too sought
for God, if haply he might feel after Him and find Him.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DESTROYERS

The Empire of the Sea-Kings had not been immune from disaster and
defeat any more than any other great Empire of the ancient world.
The times of conquest and triumph, when Knossos exacted its human
tribute from the vanquished states, Megara or Athens, or from its
own far-spread dependencies, had occasionally been broken by periods
when victory left its banners, and when the indignities it had
inflicted on other states were retaliated on itself. Once at least
in the long history of the palace at Knossos, if not twice, there
had come a disastrous day when the Minoan fleet had either been
defeated or eluded, when some invading force had landed and swept
up the valley, had overcome what resistance could be made by the
guard of the unfortified palace, and had ebbed back again to its
ships, leaving death and fire-blackened walls behind it. The Second
Middle Minoan period closes with the evidence of such a general
catastrophe, in which the palace was sacked and fired, and there
are also traces which suggest that the end of the preceding period
was marked by a similar disaster.

But these catastrophes, whether the agents of them were mere sea-rovers,
making a daring raid upon the eyrie of the great sea-power, or
the warriors of rival mainland states, eager to avenge upon their
enemy what they themselves had suffered at her hands, or, as Dr.
Evans and other explorers incline rather to believe, Cretans from
Phaestos, whose purpose was merely to overthrow the ruling dynasty,
scarcely interrupted the current of Minoan development. If the
enemy came from withou