Fig.

Fig. 164 a.

Green Jasper Lentoid :
Mycenae.

Minoan Priest-king on an earlier seal-
impression. This feature, indeed, may
have a real significance when taken
in connexion with the evidence al-
ready cited for the Oriental source
of this whole class of sports. Was
there, perhaps, a special caste of
such bull-wrestlers and acrobats be-
longfinof to the old Anatolian stock ?

It has been said of bull fights
that they are ' in the Spanish
blood'. The constant recurrence of
these bull-grappling scenes in paint-
ings and painted reliefs on the walls
and miniatures of porches and por-
ticoes, Palace halls and anterooms,
as well as in the shrines of the
divinity—in miniatures on crystal
plaques, in repousse designs and
small reliefs on ceremonial vases,
as a frequent type of intaglios and
signet-rings—shows how absorbing
was the interest that these sensa-
tional episodes excited in Minoan
bosoms. That there was blended
with this something of the fierce
emotions that appealed to the spec-
tators in the Roman Amphitheatre
or the Spanish Plaza de Toros is
probable enough. But the Cretan
spectacles, even though they included
this element, were on the whole de-
voted to the exhibition of sport and
skill, and the performers — except
perhaps for some act properly of a
sacrificial kind—were not, as in the
other case, out to kill, though often
knocked out themselves.

That the painted reliefs of bull-
grappling scenes such as those that
remained in part at least in position
above the Northern Entrance Pas-

Absorb-
ing

attach-
ment of
Minoans
to bull
sports.

Attitude
of Roman
and

Spanish
spec-
tators
compared
and con-
trasted.

Reaction
of monu-
mental
remains
on Greek
tradition.