A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

78 The Cretan and Mycenaean Civilizations
Diodorus v.
78,
Results of
his naval
supremacy.
Thucydides
who they say were the sons of Zeus and Agenor's sister
Europa. She, the story goes, had by a device of the gods
been carried off on a bull's back to Crete. Minos as the
eldest was king of the island, in which he planted no few
cities, the most famous among them being Cnossus in the
part which inclines toward Asia, Phgestus on the southern
coast, and Cydonia in the western regions opposite Peloponnesus.
He enacted for the Cretans many laws, pretending
to receive them from his father Zeus and to hold
converse with him in a certain cave. It is said, too, that
he acquired a great naval power, conquered most of the
islands and was the first Greek to estabhsh an empire
at sea. After winning great repute for bravery and justice,
he ended his life in Sicily in an expedition against
Cocalus.
After Minos had established a navy, communication by
sea became more general. For after he had expelled the
pirates, when he colonized the greater part of the islands,
the dwellers on the sea-coast began to grow richer and to
live in a more settled manner; and some of them, finding
their wealth increase beyond their expectations, surrounded
their towns with walls. The love of gain made the
weaker willing to serve the stronger, and the command of
wealth enabled the more powerful to subjugate the lesser
cities. This was the state of society which was beginning
to prevail at the time of the Trojan War.
III.
Greek Migrations
The primitive
Greeks.
Thucydides
i. 2.
A ncient
World, 73 f.
The country which is now called Hellas was not regularly
settled in ancient times. The people were migratory,
and readily left their homes when they were overpowered
by numbers. There was no commerce, and they could
not safely hold intercourse with one another by land or