Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/109

88 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. near future, to complete our knowledge as to the important part Crete played in the Grecian world throughout the period with which we are dealing. There is yet another people, closely connected with the /Eolians, which in consequence of its proclivity for navigation and life- bringing contact with nations beyond the sea, appears to have reached, about this same epoch, a considerable measure of culture : we allude to the Minyi. Their original home is unknown ; their seats are on the brink of the Pagasaean Gulf, at the foot of forest-clad mountains, like Pelion, where an abundance of timber is found for constructing barques, which they first launch on the tranquil waters of this great salt lake, then learn to steer them along the neighbouring coasts, and ere long row out into the very heart of the Archipelago. '*The Minyi arc the first who impelled a movement of the Pelasgian tribes beyond the sea, and thus opened Greek history in Europe." ^ Their abodes are the home of the popular songs, the themes of which are the distant voyages of the Argo, and the earliest effusions of the Greek fancy which have reached us.^ A sea voyage, owing to the elasticity of the scene whereon it is enacted, lends itself more readily to day-dreams which are apt to visit the mariner as he sits in his boat gently wafted by the breeze, in a mood between sleep and wakefulness, whilst before and around him is the infinite expanse of oceans as yet unsounded, the mystery of the unknown, and strange lands which lie hidden below the horizon line. There are divergences between the different ver- sions interwoven with the legend in question, between the names and countries of the heroes associated with the venture, the ports from which the marvellous ship weighed anchor, and the spot which the fabulous island of Qia, the goal of the expedition, is supposed to occupy in the heavens ; but in all the variants, Jason, King of lolcos, commands her. The Minyi spread beyond their borders both by sea and land ; for they soon found the narrow strip of hilly ground which encircles the bay insufficient for them. Their vanguards penetrated to the southern extremity of Peloponnesus, and occupied the valleys of Taygetus ; the main body of the emigrants, however, remained in the fertile fields of Boeotia. There, a long mountain ridge juts out from ^ CuRTius, Greek History, ^ *Apyw nam fiekovffa.