, gradually
changed the character of the island population.

Such, then, are the most familiar of the legends and traditions
associated with prehistoric Crete. Some of these, touching on the
personality of Minos and his relationship with Zeus, have their
own significance in connection with the little that is known of
the Minoan religion, and will fall to be discussed later from that
point of view. The famous story of Theseus and the Minotaur, though
it, too, may have its connection with the religious conceptions
which gather round the name of Minos, seems at first sight to move
entirely in the realm of pure romance. Yet the conviction of its
reality was very strong with the Athenians, and was indeed expressed
in a ceremony which held its own to a late stage in Athenian history.
The ship in which Theseus was said to pave made his voyage was
preserved with the utmost care till at least the beginning of the
third century B.C., her timbers being constantly 'so pieced and
new-framed with strong plank that it afforded an example to the
philosophers in their disputations concerning the identity of things
that are changed by growth, some contending that it was the same,
and others that it was not.' It was this galley, or the vessel
which tradition affirmed to be the galley of Theseus, which was
sent every year from Athens to Delos with solemn sacrifices and
specially nominated envoys. One of her voyages has become for ever
memorable owing to the fact that the death of Socrates was postponed
for thirty days because of the galley's absence; for so great was
the reverence in which this annual ceremony was held that during
the time of her voyage the city was obliged to abstain from all
acts carrying with them public impurity, so that it was not lawful
to put a condemned man to death until the galley returned. The
mere fact of such a tradition as that of the galley is at least
presumptive evidence that some historic ground lay behind a belief
so persistent, however the story may have been added to and adorned
with supernatural details by later imagination; and it is difficult
to see how Grote, on the very threshold of recounting the Athenians'
conviction about the ship, and their solemn sacrificial use of
her, should pause to reaffirm his unbelief in the existence of any
historic ground for the main feature of the legend--the tribute
of human victims paid by Athens to Crete.

[Illustration III: WALL OF SIXTH CITY, TROY (_p_. 41)]