or a woman's use, was only a trifle over 5 inches in
height. But male dignity required more lofty sitting accommodation;
the seat of the throne of Minos is nearly 23 inches high, and the
spectators of the Knossian theatre cannot have been all women.
Neither does the shape of the area appear to be particularly well
adapted to the purpose suggested; and, on the whole, if it were really
designed for a theatre, we must admit that the Minoan architects
were less happily inspired in its erection than in most of their
other works. At the same time, however, the obstinate fact remains
that we can suggest no other conceivable purpose which the place can
have served; and so, until some more likely use can be suggested,
we are scarcely entitled to demur to Dr. Evans's theory.

Admitting, then, for want of any better explanation, that it may
have been a Theatral Area, what were the games or shows which were
here presented to the Minoan Court and its dependents? Certainly
not the bull-fight. For that there is manifestly no space, as the
flat area is not larger than a good-sized room; while the undefended
position of the spectators would as certainly have resulted in
tragedies to them as to the toreadors. But from the great rhyton
found at Hagia Triada, from a steatite relief found at Knossos
in Igor, and from various seal-impressions, we know that boxing
was one of the favourite sports of the Minoans, as it was of the
Homeric and the classical Greeks; and the Theatral Area may have
served well enough for such exhibitions as those in which Epeus
knocked out Euryalus, and Odysseus smashed the jaw of Irus. Or
perhaps it may have been the scene of less brutal entertainments
in the shape of dances, such as those which delighted the eyes of
Odysseus at the Palace of Alcinous. To this day the Cretans are
fond of dancing, and in ancient times the dance had often a religious
significance, and was part of the ceremonial of worship. So that it
is not impossible that we have here a spot whose associations with
the House of Minos are both religious and literary--'the Choros
(or dancing-ground) which Daedalus wrought in broad Knossos for
fair-haired Ariadne' (Iliad XVIII., 590).

If the Theatral Area be really the scene of the palace sports,
it has for us a romantic as well as an historical interest; for
Plutarch tells us that it was at the games that Ariadne first met
Theseus, and fell in love with him on witnessing his grace and
prowess in t