t, he came only to destroy and plunder, not
to occupy, and, having done his work, departed; if from within
the Empire, his triumph made no breach in the continuity of the
Minoan tradition. The palace rose again from its ashes, greater
and more glorious than before, and men of the same stock carried
on the work that had been checked for a while by the rough hand of
war. The men of the Third Middle Minoan period reared the beginnings
of the second palace on the site where the first had stood, and in
the relics of their arts and crafts the same spirit which informed
the earlier period still prevails, with no greater modifications
than such as come naturally to the art of any nation by the mere
lapse of time.

From the beginning of Middle Minoan III. to the end of Late Minoan
II.--a period, that is to say, of either some 500 or almost 2,000
years, according to the scheme of Egyptian chronology which we
may adopt--the civilization of Crete apparently followed a course
of even and peaceful development. At Knossos, Phaestos, and Hagia
Triada the great palaces slowly grew to their final glory. The
art that had produced the beautiful polychrome Kamares ware passed
away, and was succeeded by the naturalism which has left us the Blue
Boy who gathers the white crocuses, and the faience reliefs of the
Temple Repositories, a naturalism which, with various modifications
in style and material, persists to the end of Late Minoan I. In the
midst of this period (Late Minoan I.) come what are perhaps the
highest developments of Minoan art in the shape of the steatite vases
of Hagia Triada, Boxer, Harvester, and Chieftain. On the mainland
the kindred culture of Mycenae was rising to its culmination, and
the art represented in the Circle-Graves was almost in the fulness
of its bloom. Naturalism declines in its turn, and is succeeded by
the Later Palace style, more grandiose, more mannered, and less
free than that which had preceded it. It was in the Later Palace
period (Late Minoan II.) that the miniature frescoes were painted,
to preserve for us the strangely modern style of the Minoan Court,
with its flounced and furbelowed dames. Naturalism, though failing,
was still capable of great things, and its last efforts in the palace
at Knossos gave us the magnificent reliefs of painted stucco, such
as the bull's head and the King with the peacock plumes. Over the
seas, the Egyptians of the Eighteenth Dynasty were setting down on
their tomb wal