h crystal plaques, and bossed with
crystal. Below them came four large medallions, set among crystal
bars backed with silver plate, and then eleven bars of ribbed crystal
and ivory, alternating with one another. Eight shorter bars of
crystal backed with blue enamel fill spaces on either side of the
topmost section in the lower part of the board, which consists of
a two-winged compartment with ten circular openings, the medallions
of which have been broken out, but were probably of crystal backed
with silver. The remaining space of the board was filled with flat
bars of gold-plated ivory alternating with bars of crystal on the
blue enamel setting. The mere summary of its decoration conveys
no idea of the splendour of a piece of work which, as Professor
Burrows says, 'defies description, with its blaze of gold and silver,
ivory and crystal.' The Late Minoan monarch who used it--for so
gorgeous a piece of workmanship can scarcely have been designed
for anyone but a King--must have been as splendid in his amusements
as in all the other appointments of his royalty (Plate XVIII.).

The gaming-board suggested the lighter and more innocent side of
the palace life. A darker and more tragic aspect of it was hinted
at by the fresco which was found in the following season among
debris fallen from a chamber overlooking the so-called Court of
the Olive Spout. This was a picture of those sports of the arena in
which the Minoan and Mycenaean monarchs evidently took such delight,
and in which the main figures were great bulls and toreadors. In
this case the picture is one of three toreadors, two girls and
a boy, with a single bull. The girls are distinguished by their
white skins, their more vari-coloured costumes, their blue and
red diadems, and their curlier hair, but are otherwise dressed
like their male companion. In the centre of the picture the great
bull is seen in full charge. The boy toreador has succeeded in
catching the monster's horns and turning a clean somersault over
his back, while one of the girls holds out her hands to catch his
as he comes to the ground. But the other girl, standing in front
of the bull, is just at the critical moment of the cruel sport.
The great horns are almost passing under her arms, and it looks
almost an even chance whether she will be able to catch them and
vault, as her companion has done, over the bull's back, or whether
she will fail and be gored to death. With such a sport, in which
life