Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/89

68 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. whose sons Ajax and Teucer are glorified in the Iliad, the Achaeans are united with Lycia and the Troad. But what is of greater moment than these fables put together by the poets, wherein a considerable amount of arbitrariness has already crept in, is the well-attested fact that Cyprus, from time immemorial, had Achaean colonists, the remnants, we may suppose, of those Aquaiousha who, throughout the period of their great activity against Egypt, used the island as one of their head-quarters.^ The still greater nearness of Crete to the Delta could not have failed to be taken advantage of by the invaders as an outpost and starting-point ; hence we may safely regard as Achaean those '* Eteocretes," or '*real Cretans," as they pleased to style themselves, who receded to the plains and inland mountains at the approach of the PhcEnicians, leaving them in full possession of the coasts, along which they sowed broadcast their factories. This conjecture is at one with the tradition which credited the Achaeans with the foundation of several cities in the island, and recognized Minos, the venerable representative of Cretan culture, as a brother of iCacus, the progenitor of the i^acidae, one of the most eminent Achaean families, of which we hear a great deal in the myths of iCgina, Salamis, Thessaly, and Attica. Achaeans, however, are heard of in places other than the far-off islands of the south. In Europe they appear in compact masses, particularly in the valley of Phthiotis, which parts CEta from Othrys. Here is the chosen home of their favourite myths, of the songs of Peleus, wedded by a goddess and the friend and entertainer of the gods, and of Achylles, "the lovable Hero, who is an imperishable monument of the chivalrous heroism, of the idealism and poetic genius of the Achaeans."*- By and by, however, the Phthiotian Achaeans, as they were called, found the rich district washed by the Spercheus ; but however rich it might be, it was much too small for them. Hence, crossing the Thermopylae, they struck across Central Greece, and advanced as far as Argolis and Laconia. The story ^ Herodotus and Pausanias mention Arcadian colonies in Crete. The latter carries back this colonization to the Trojan war, that is to say, to the time when the Achaeans were the dominant element in Greece. In that remote period also, the Achaean hero Teucer, of the .^acidae family, was held to have founded Salamis; near the town a piece of coast bore the name of Achaea (Strabo). ^ CuRTius, Greek History,