WORK.) Seal-engraving.—A lesser kind of sculpture, seal-engraving, was practised extensively from the very earliest times and de veloped to perfection in the M.M. period. The early subjects are pictographs and decorative devices, maeanders, coils and scrolls, often showing Egyptian affinities, and were mostly cut in ivory and steatite. But the process was soon applied to crystal, jasper and other hard stones, and the gem-engravers were, per haps, the first Minoan artists to exploit naturalistic subjects. By M.M. II. they were producing animal figures with facility and truth, and gems of the finest style (M.M. III.—L.M. I.) are engraved with subtle and powerful studies of birds in flight, wild animals in action and repose, and human subjects. There was, however, a tendency on the one side to reproduce conventional linear designs, which must have had some amuletic meaning, and on the other to invent fantastic monsters. The latter are best seen in a series of clay sealings from Zakro. The human subjects were most frequently engraved on oval bezels of gold signet-rings, and often in religious contexts. There are some elaborate scenes of worship, from which much of the knowledge of Minoan ritual is derived.
The earliest script, known only from the sealstones, is pictographic. But before the end of M.M. I. a linear form had been developed (Linear Script, Class A). The use of hieroglyphs seems not to have survived the catastrophe of M.M. II. at Knossos. Another linear script (Class B) is Late Minoan. About one-third of the linear signs can be connected with the pictographs, and only half the characters of Class B are found in Class A. The linear scripts were written with ink on pottery (and doubtless on perishable materials), engraved on stone and metal, and incised in clay. The greatest number of existing documents are flat clay slips or tablets, of which some two thousand have been found at Knossos. They are mostly inventories, bearing ideograms of the property to which they refer (arms and armour, chariots, men and women, and edible stores), together with a simple decimal nota tion. The script has not been interpreted, nor has the language been identified ; but it is generally supposed that the former is preserved to some extent in the Hellenic syllabary of Cyprus, and that the latter was a non-Aryan tongue, which has survived in many names, and in some unintelligible inscriptions in the Greek alphabet found at Praisos. The most remarkable literary document that has come from a Minoan site is the Phaistos disc. This is made of clay, and bears on both sides a long series of pictographic characters impressed with separate stamps. The signs show no relationship with Minoan hieroglyphs, and it is thought (largely on account of a plumed head that occurs among them) that they belong to the south-west coast of Asia Minor. The characters are printed along a spiral line dividing the face of the disc into five coils. A similar arrangement of a Minoan inscription ap pears on the circular bezel of a gold signet-ring found in a tomb at Knossos (Mavro Spelio) .
Costumes, religion, and burial customs must join their scanty clues to that of language in the quest for the racial origins of the prehistoric Cretans. The gen eral inference from all considerations is that Minoan affinities were African and Asiatic rather than European, or more definitely Libyan and Anatolian. Human remains are badly preserved in Crete, but about a hundred skulls have been measured, and the great majority of these are dolichocephalic. The male stature is computed by measurements of other bones to have been about 5 ft. 4 in., at least 2 in. below the present average in the island. The size of sword-hilts also indicates a small-boned race. Minoan dress was originally a sort of kilt, persisting with men as a tight loin-cloth, with which they often wore a more or less voluminous sash, perhaps as part of the same garment. Women wore a long wide skirt, sometimes extravagantly flounced, and an open bodice. The aprons worn by the faience snake-goddess and her votaries may have had a ritual significance, and may have been a survival of a single garment originally worn by both sexes. High boots, a tight belt (perhaps a permanent metal cincture) and a penis-sheath completed the simple costume of the men. The only representa tion of an overcoat occurs on the Harvester vase, where it is worn by the bearded leader and looks like a ceremonial cope. The hair was ordinarily worn long, beard and moustaches shaved.
The chief Minoan deity is represented in the image of a woman and in the aniconic form of a pillar. The goddess has as many aspects as nature itself. She is associated in art with trees and rocks, with moon and stars, with birds and snakes, with real and monstrous animals and water-demons, with sea-shells, bulls' heads and sacred horns, with shields and battle-axes, and with holy vessels and vestments. There seems to be no function left for any other deity. Yet the mother-goddess had a consort, who was probably her son and is represented as a youth descending from the sky. There is doubtless a record of their history in the Hellenic cult of Rhea and the infant Zeus in Crete, and the death and burial of Zeus on Iuktas. Connection is evident with the numerous female deities and their youthful and semi-mortal con sorts and sacred animals, and with the wide-spread baetylic cults of Syria and Asia Minor. The cult of pillars had a special sig nificance on the domestic side, and the kings seem to have com bined priestly functions with their secular powers, and to have been the living representatives of the gods. The bull-sports of the palace were a religious service. On the chthonic side a painted stone sarcophagus from Hagia Triada gives valuable information. A dead man standing at the doorway of his tomb receives offer ings of a ship and cattle from male votaries wearing skirts of hide. A woman similarly clad pours a libation into a large vessel set between two pillar-trees on which are double-axes and birds. Another man plays a harp.
Shrines have been found in towns and palaces and are pictured in the frescoes. Built sanctuaries have also been excavated at Petsofas near Palaikastro and on Mount Iuktas. But the ordinary place of public worship was a natural cleft or hollow in the ground. Such are the Kamares cave on Mount Ida, another, perhaps the Dictaean cave, at Psychro, and a small one at Arkalokhori, near Lyttos. These sanctuaries contained offerings of curiously different kinds: at Petsof as were terra Gotta statuettes of men and animals and votive limbs ; at Kamares, painted pottery ; at Psychro, bronze animals and implements, particularly miniature double-axes stuck in stalagmitic pillars ; at Arkalokhori, chiefly dagger-blades.
Great variety is also found in modes of burial, beyond the constant fact that there was no cremation in the Minoan age. E.M. are single interments in cist-graves (Mochlos and Pseira) and in clay oval coffins of the Mesopotamian type (Pachyammos, Pyrgos and Sphoungaras), and communal burials in caves (Pyrgos), rock-shelters and rectangular enclosures (Moch los), and in built beehive tombs (tholoi, in the Mesara plain). The latter are an important series. They have megalithic doorways and in some instances rectangular antechambers, and were in use during the whole E.M. period. The beehive vaults and square ante chambers occur in certain tombs of North Africa, where an origin for the form is indicated in the tents of Libyan nomads. On the other side these early Cretan tholoi are the ancestors of the stately Mycenaean tombs, which first appeared in Mainland Greece with the Cretan intrusion at the end of M.M. III. M.M. coffins were usually large household jars, some of which bear splendid decoration (Pseira, Sphoungaras, Pachyammos). Hewn chamber tombs with entrance passages were in use by the middle of this epoch (M.M. II. : Knossos, Mavro Spelio). Jar-burials also belong to L.M. I., but in the mature L.M. age, and particularly in L.M. III., the oval bath-tub came back to favour, together with rectan gular clay chests with gabled lids (larnakes), copied from Egyp tian wooden models and often painted with Egyptian floral motives. These receptacles were buried singly in shaft-graves or deposited in chamber-tombs. In the latter case they often served for generations of successive burials. No beehive tombs of the finest period have yet been found in Crete, though they are known in the earliest and latest times. The so-called Royal tomb of Isopata, near Knossos, belongs to the same date and style of build ing as the great Mainland treasuries (L.M.I.), and had a similarly vaulted roof, but its ground-plan is rectangular. Rich funeral fur niture was deposited with the dead, weapons and domestic imple ments, jewellery and personal trinkets, stone and metal vases and painted pottery. But the chamber-tombs which were in constant use, seldom contain intact interments. For the same reason these tombs are often filled with cremation-burials of the Hellenic de stroyers of Minoan civilization.
The transition from the Bronze to the Iron age, and from Minoan to Hellenic culture, is best illus trated in tombs at Vrokastro. Both funeral rites occur, inhu mation in chamber-tombs and cremation-burials in the same tombs and in bone-enclosures. The style of the pottery in the chamber-tombs is sub-Mycenaean or Proto-Geometric ; that in the bone-enclosures is solely Geometric. Different types of bronze brooches (fibulae) are associated with the pottery; iron weapons were found with both kinds of burials, and in a chamber-tomb there was a bronze tripod of a type that has been found with Transitional material in Cyprus and in Greece. Six Egyptian faience seals were found with the tripod, but are not precisely dated. But it is clear that the Vrokastro finds cover the period between 1200 and 800 B.C., and display the stages by which Hel lenic art displaced Minoan, without however offering an historical explanation of the process.
Hellenic structural remains are scanty. Town-walls are visible at Aptera, Itanos and elsewhere. The massive fortifications of Goulas are probably the oldest, and attest the insecure political conditions of the new era. But the few finds of lesser archaeological material that have been made, frag ments of sculpture, pottery and inscriptions, are singularly im portant. They show conclusively that Crete was prominent, if not foremost, in the renascence that produced the art of archaic Greece, a fact of which there is historical record in the traditions of the master-craftsman, Daidalos, and the works of his pupils, Dipoinos and Skyllis. The prominence of Crete in the new move ment was partly due to the revival of Minoan elements, but more to the position of the island in regard to Egypt and the Syrian coast, from which had come the inspiration of Minoan culture, and from which the elements of Hellenic art were drawn when contact was again established.
Though the orthodox Geometric style of vase-painting was as much at home in Crete as on the Greek mainland, Minoan decorative survivals soon showed through it, and with them came strong Oriental influences, immediately derived perhaps from Cyprus. Geometric pottery illustrating these developments has been found abundantly in tombs at Knossos, and a remarkable series of archaic orientalizing vases comes from the site of Arkadia (Afrati) in Lasithi. Some of the foreign products by which the Cretan artists were guided are represented in a deposit of hammered and engraved bronze shields and bowls, found in a sacred cave near Anoia on Mount Ida (the Idaean cave) in 1884. Their actual origin has not been established,
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Egypto-Assyrian art that was broadcast through southern Mediter ranean lands about 800 B.C. by Phoenician traders. With them were found some statuettes and other cast bronzes of local fabric. The Cretan types thus indicated are easily identified elsewhere, as in a bronze statuette found at Delphi, a nude youth wearing a tight belt and wig-like hair, and a stone figure of a woman in the Louvre. The date of these pieces is about 600 B.C. To the same period belongs a unique series of temple-sculptures from Prinias, a frieze of horsemen armed with spears and shields, and a free standing stone beam from a door-head, carved with relief of animals and surmounted at each end by a seated goddess. A some what similar but later frieze, in terracotta, with figures of armed men and chariots, comes from the temple of Dictaean Zeus at Palaikastro. Other finds on this site were Phoenician bronze shields like those in the Idaean cave, and a fragmentary inscription con taining an archaic hymn to Zeus.
Several inscriptions in the Eteocretan language were found in a sanctuary at Praisos. They have not been read. At Gortyna is the famous legal code, inscribed on the inner side of a curved wall which stood, at the time of its discovery, in a mill-stream. The first copy of the text was made by Halbherr in 1884, but it was not till
that the Italian Mission got authority to divert the stream and clear the building to which the wall belongs. It is an archaic Greek structure of circular plan, which was converted into an Odeum in Roman times. It stood in the agora of the city.
Gortyna is the only Roman site that has been excavated. It was one of the three great cities of Crete in the Imperial age, and its remains show that it conformed to the metropolitan pattern in art and architecture. Among its public buildings are an amphitheatre and a theatre, two Nymphaea, an aqueduct and baths, a Basilica or Praetorium, temples of Apollo (the Pythion), Isis and Serapis, and other deities. A great deal of Graeco-Roman statuary belonging to their decoration has survived.
Greek art of the classical period is rare in Crete. The island had then lost its place in international commerce, and its culture was not affected by external influences. The character of the local art is illustrated in the coinage, which contains, besides some bold Greek types, a number of strange pictorial subjects and many lapses into a state of barbarism. It is an archaeological echo of the Cretan heresies that shocked Hellenic theologians.
(E. J. F.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-A. J. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos (3Bibliography.-A. J. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos (3 vols., I. 1921, II., 1928), a detailed survey of the material; H. Boyd Hawes and others, Gournia, Vasiliki, etc. (1912) ; S. Xanthoudides, The Vaulted Tombs of Mesara (1924). Reports of other investigations are mostly in periodicals. Reproductions of photographs with explana tory text: H. Bossert, Altkreta (1923) ; G. Maraghiannis Antiquites Cretoises (3 series, 1907-15) . Handbooks: C. and H. Hawes, Crete the Forerunner of Greece (1909, bibl.) ; H. R. Hall, Aegean Archaeology (1915, bibl.) , and The Civilization of Greece in the Bronze Age (1928) .
In classical times nothing remained of the Minoan Civiliza tion except a tradition that the first "thalassocracy" or sea-power was that of a Cretan king Minos. The island played no part in Greek history commensurate with its size. It took practically no share in the Persian or Peloponnesian wars.
It was dotted with independent cities which dissipated their energies in internecine wars. For the rest of Greece it was chiefly of importance as a recruiting ground for mercenary soldiers, especially archers; promises of assistance from states, such as caused the fruitless Athenian expedition in 429 against the Pelo ponnesian war, were generally found to be fallacious. The reputa tion of the Cretans was low : "all Cretans are liars" (Kpiirmc &El ikE crrat) was the beginning of a popular poem which is the origin of Porson's "Hermann's a German." Their chief cities were Gortyna, Cydonia and Knossus. Impor tant towns of the second rank, generally to be found in alliance with one or other of the three chief towns were : Phaestus, Rhau cus, Lyttus, Polyrrhenia, Aptera, Eleutherna, Axus, Lappa, Elyrus, Praesus, Itanus and Hierapytna, which was the sole port facing built by the Saracens, and called by them "Khandax," became the towards Africa. The population was exceedingly mixed. The seat of government and capital of the island, to which it gave its Odyssey (xix., 175) in a passage whose date is of course under- name. The Venetian administration secured the island external tain, enumerates the inhabitants as Achaeans, Cydonians, Dor- tranquillity, and did much to provide material prosperity and en
Pelasgians and Eteocretans. The last named are the most courage commerce and industry; under it Crete was probably interesting. There is much reason to believe that these were the more prosperous than at any other time. But the system was original, non-Hellenic inhabitants of the island. They were arbitrary and oppressive, and gave rise to many insurrections. chiefly to be found in the eastern end of the island. There are Daru mentions 14 between the years 1207-1365, the most im several of their inscriptions surviving, all—at present—incom- portant being that of 1361-64, when the Venetian colonists rose prehensible. In historical times the domination of Crete had fal- against the republic. Disappointed in the hope of a Genoese len wholly into the hands of one of these races, the Dorians, occupation, the Cretans turned to the Turks. The Turks made no whose numbers had been increased by later immigrations. The serious attempt to conquer the island until 1645 ; but in that year names of the three tribes, Hylleis, Dymanes and Pamphyli, which they landed an army of 5o,000 men and soon reduced Canea. always accompanied Dorian migrations, are to be traced in many Retimo fell the following year, and in 1648 the Turks laid siege Cretan cities. to Candia. After a siege of more than 20 years the city sur Cretan Constitutions.—The chief interest of Crete, for us rendered in Sept. 1669, and its fall was followed by the submis as for the ancients, lies in its system of laws; and the great sion of the island. Venice was allowed to retain possession of Gortyna inscription discovered in 1884 (see GREEK LAW) is our Grabusa, Suda and Spinalonga on the north, but in 1691 Grabusa, most extensive monument of Greek Law. The constitutions of and in 1715 the other two strongholds fell to the Turks, and the the Cretan towns, which appear to have all approximated to one island was finally lost to Venice.
model, are a simpler and possibly earlier form of the Spartan con- Period of Turkish Rule.—Under the Ottoman rule many of stitution. the Cretans embraced Mohammedanism, and thus secured the The population consisted of two classes, citizens and serfs. chief share in the administration of the island. But this did not The citizens were all warriors, and the serfs were of two kinds, benefit the population, and in 1837 Crete was considered the state-owned (1-tvo raL) and private owned (a aµaWTat), The worst governed province of the Turkish empire. In 177o an serfs seem to have been better treated than the Spartan helots— abortive attempt at revolt, the hero of which was "Master" John, we hear of no revolts—but they were rigorously excluded from the a Sphakiot chief, was repressed with great cruelty. In 1813 the privileges of the citizens, arms-bearing and exercise in the gym- ruthless severity of the governor general, Haji Osman, who ob nasia. The kings, who survived in Sparta, had disappeared: their tained the co-operation of the Christians, broke the power of the place was taken by ten kosmoi who were chosen from certain janissaries; but after Osman had fallen a victim to the suspicions specified aristocratic clans. They had all executive functions; of the sultan, Crete again came under their control. When in advised by a council of elders (•yepovo ia) the citizen assembly 1821 the revolution broke out in continental Greece, the Cretans, had the right to say yes or no to the proposals laid before it, but headed by the Sphakiots, revolted, and occupied all the open it had no right to propose reductions or to debate. country, while the Turks and Muslims took refuge in the forti The training of the Cretan boy as a warrior began at about 17 fied cities. The island was reduced to submission in 1824 by when he was admitted into the "herds" supported by the State. He Mohammed Ali, pasha of Egypt, whose help the sultan had asked. had already learnt to read and write, and to sing certain selected The allied powers (France, Great Britain and Russia) decided patriotic songs ; he now spent his days in military exercises. He that Crete should not be included amongst the islands annexed was bound to marry but could not live with his wife until he be- to the kingdom of Greece; but obtained from the sultan Mahmud came a full man. He took his dinners in common, at public din- II., its cession to Egypt, which was confirmed by a firman of Dec. ing halls like the Spartan phiditia. 20, 1832. This change of masters brought some relief to the This constitution appears to have shared the fate of the Spar- Cretans; the enlightened government of Mustafa Pasha, an Al tan (see SPARTA) . At the end of the classical period Crete, con- banian like Mohammed Ali (183 2-5 2) , who encouraged agricul tinually at civil war, has become chiefly a recruiting ground for ture, improved the roads, introduced an Albanian police, and put armies. Its wealth and civic organization has declined, and it no down brigandage, has been called the "golden age" of Crete.
doubt shared in the economic depression of all Greece in the Hel- In 184o Crete was taken from Mohammed Ali and replaced lenistic age. under the dominion of the Turks, but Mustafa retained his gover See Cambridge Ancient History, vol. iii. (1925) ; J. B. Bury, History norship until appointed grand vizier in 1852. In Feb. 1856 an in of Greece ch. ii. (1913) ;
Realencyc. s. vv. Kosmoi, surrection broke out, owing to the violation of the provisions of an Kreta; Aristotle's Politics Bk. ii. (x)
decree whereby liberty of conscience and equal rights and privileges with Muslims had been conferred upon Christians.
Though torn by civil dissensions, the island maintained its in- The promised concessions were confirmed in July 1858, but again dependence of the various Macedonian monarchs by whom it was repudiated. A petition to the sultan in 1864 elicited only an in surrounded; but having incurred the enmity of Rome, first by an junction to obedience. A general insurrection which broke out in alliance with the great Mithridates, and afterwards by taking 1866 was put down with great severity, but the "Organic active part with their neighbours, the pirates of Cilicia, the Statute" granted by the sultan in 1868 brought some reforms and Cretans were at length attacked by the Roman arms, and, after a a kind of constitutional government.
resistance protracted for more than three years, were finally
Experiments.—Under this instrument which dued by Q. Metellus, who earned by this success the surname of was afterwards proposed under Article XXIII., in the Berlin Creticus (67 B.c.). The island was now reduced to a Roman Treaty (q.v.), as a basis for reforms in other parts of the Otto province, and subsequently united for administrative purposes man empire, various privileges already acquired by the Chris with the district of Cyrenaica; until it was incorporated by Con- tian population were confirmed; a representative general council stantine in the prefecture of Illyria. Crete formed part of the was brought into existence, composed of deputies from every Byzantine empire until it fell into the hands of the Saracens district; mixed tribunals were introduced, together with a highly (823). It then became a formidable nest of pirates and a great elaborate administrative system, under which all the more im slave mart; it defied all the efforts of the Byzantine sovereigns portant functionaries, Christian and Muslim, were provided with to recover it till 960, when it was reconquered by Nicephoros an assessor of the opposite creed. The new constitution, how Phocas. After the capture of Constantinople by the Latins in I ever, proved costly and unworkable, and failed to satisfy either 1204, Crete was allotted to Boniface, marquis of Montferrat. but I section of the population. In 1878 the Greek government, finding sold by him to the Venetians, to whom it continued subject for Hellenic aspirations ignored by the Treaty of San Stefano, gave more than four centuries. the signal for agitation in the island. An insurrection followed, Under the Venetian government Candia, a fortress originally accompanied by the usual barbarities on both sides. Eventually the Cretan chiefs invoked the mediation of Great Britain, which Turkey, exhausted by her struggle with Russia, accepted, and the "Pact of Halepa" was drawn up in 1878 under the auspices of Mr. Sandwith, the British consul, and Adossides Pasha, both of whom enjoyed the confidence of the Cretan population. The privileges conferred by the Organic Statute were confirmed; the judicial and administrative systems maintained; the judges were declared independent of the executive, and an assembly composed of 49 Christians and 31 Muslim deputies took the place of the former general council. The ensuing party government was a mere scramble for office and its rewards. In 1889 a crisis occurred, when the "Conservative" leaders, finding themselves in a mi nority, took up arms and withdrew to the mountains. The latent fanaticism of both creeds was aroused, and the island again be came a scene of devastation. The Porte seized the occasion to proclaim martial law and abrogate many important provisions of the Halepa Pact. The Christians boycotted the elections under the new system, and for the next five years Crete was governed by a succession of Mohammedan valis; the deficit in the budget increased, the gendarmerie, which received no pay, became in subordinate, and crime multiplied. In 1894 the Porte, at the in stance of the powers, nominated a Christian, Karatheodory Pasha, to the governorship, and the Christians agreed to take part in the assembly which soon afterwards was convoked ; no steps, however, were taken to remedy the financial situation. The refusal of the Porte to refund considerable sums illegally diverted from the Cretan treasury, or even to sanction a loan to meet immediate requirements, caused great exasperation, which was increased by the recall of Karatheodory (March 1895). Before that event an Epitrope, or "committee of reform," had appeared in the mountains. The Epitrope was at first nothing more than a handful of discontented politicians, but its membership swelled rapidly, and in April 1896 it invested the garrison town of Vamos. Civil war began. Serious disturbances broke out at Canea on May 24 and were only quelled by the arrival of foreign war ships. Despite the intervention of the foreign consuls, the sultan proceeded to crush the rising by force. The resulting devasta tion, and the excitement it aroused in Greece, quickened the energies of the powers. Austria proposed an international block ade of the island, but Great Britain rejected this. At the repre sentations of the powers, the sultan restored the Pact of Halepa, the troops were withdrawn from the interior, financial aid was promised, a Christian governor general was appointed, the as sembly was summoned, and an imperial commissioner was despatched to negotiate an arrangement. The Christian leaders proposed a moderate scheme of reforms, based on the Halepa Pact, which, with a few exceptions, was approved by the powers and eventually sanctioned by the sultan.
On Sept. 4, 1896, the assembly formal ly accepted the new constitution and declared its gratitude to the powers. The Muslim leaders acquiesced in the arrangement, which the powers undertook to guarantee. It soon became evi dent, however, that the Porte was endeavouring to obstruct the execution of the reforms. The indignation of the Christians in creased, a state of insecurity prevailed, and the Muslim peasants refused to return to their homes. Hitherto the Greek government had loyally co-operated with the powers in their Cretan policy, but towards the close of the year a secret society known as the Ethnke Hetairia began to arrogate to itself the direction of Greek foreign policy. Its aim was war with Turkey with a view to the acquisition of Macedonia, and it found ready allies in the Cretan Christians. Emissaries of the society appeared in Crete, large consignments of arms were landed, and at the beginning of 1897 the island was practically in a state of insurrection. On Jan. 21 the Greek fleet was mobilized. A series of conflicts took place at Canea on Feb. 4; the Turkish troops fired on the Christians, a conflagration broke out in the town, and thousands of Christians took refuge on the foreign warships. The Greek government now despatched an ironclad and a cruiser to Canea, which were fol lowed a few days later by a torpedo flotilla commanded by Prince George. The prince soon retired to Melos, but on the night of Feb. 4 a Greek force landed at Kolvcohari. near Canea, and its commander, Col. Vassos, proclaimed the occupation of the island in the name of King George. This move caused immense excite ment among the Christian population, who indulged in terrible massacres of the Muslim peasantry. The powers, however, occu pied Canea, and afterwards Candia and other towns, blockaded the coast, and bombarded the insurgents' position. They then presented collective notes to the Turkish and Greek governments announcing their decision that (I) Crete could in no case in pres ent circumstances be annexed to Greece; (2) in view of the de lays caused by Turkey in the application of the reforms Crete should be endowed with an effective autonomous administration under the suzerainty of the sultan. Greece was summoned to re move its army and fleet, while the Turkish troops were to be concentrated in the fortresses and eventually to be withdrawn. Cretan autonomy was proclaimed March 20, the Greek force left on May 9, and the Cretan leaders, who had hitherto demanded annexation to Greece, acquiesced in the decision of the powers, and the insurgent assembly, under its president, Dr. Sphakiana kis, co-operated with the international commanders to maintain order. The pacification of the island, however, was delayed by the presence of the Turkish troops and the inability of the powers to agree in the choice of a governor general. After Germany and Austria had withdrawn from the European Concert (April 1898) the remaining powers divided the island into four departments, which they severally undertook to administer. The last Turkish soldiers quitted the island on Nov. 14, 1898.
On Nov. 26 the powers nominated Prince George of Greece as high commissioner for three years. He landed on Dec. 21. Order prevailed, but the Muslims, reduced to great distress by the prolonged insurrection, emigrated in large numbers. On April 27, 1899, a new autonomous constitution was voted by a constituent assembly, and in the following June Cretan officials took over the local administration. Prince George's appointment was prolonged in 1901 and his extensive powers in creased. The arbitrary methods of the government awoke strong opposition, led by M. Venizelos, who had played an important part in the insurrection, but had been dismissed from his post of councillor in 1901. In March 1905 M. Venizelos, with the moral support of Dr. Sphakianakis, led a revolt at Theriso in the White Mountains, and proclaimed the union of the island with Greece, and this example was speedily followed by the assembly at Canea. The powers, however, reiterated their decision to maintain the status quo, and increased their military and naval forces; the Greek flag was hauled down at Canea and Candia, and some desultory engagements with the insurgents took place, the inter national troops co-operating with the native gendarmerie. In the autumn M. Venizelos and his followers, having obtained an amnesty, laid down their arms. On July 25, 1906, the powers announced a series of reforms, including the reorganization of the gendarmerie and militia under Greek officers, as a preliminary to the eventual withdrawal of the international troops, and the ex tension to Crete of the system of financial control established in Greece. On Sept. 14 they invited King George, in the event of the high commissionership becoming vacant, to propose a candi date for that post, to be nominated by the powers for a period of five years, and on Sept. 25 Prince George left the island. His successor, M. Alexander Zaimis, a former and later prime min ister of Greece, arrived in Crete on Oct. 1.
On Feb. 22, 1907 M. Zaimis, as high commissioner, took the oath to the new constitution elaborated by the national assembly. His position was one of singular difficulty. Apart from the rivalry of the factions within the assembly, there was the question of the Muslim minority, reduced to 40,000 but still a force to be reck oned with. M. Zaimis showed great skill and studied impartial ity, and his administration was a marked success. Order was re stored, and M. Zaimis having called the attention of the powers to the fact that the conditions they had laid down as preliminary to evacuation—(r) the organization of a native gendarmerie, (2) the maintenance of the tranquillity of the island, (3) the complete security of the Muslim population—had now been fulfilled, the powers informed him on May II, 1908, of their intention to begin the evacuation at once and complete it within a year. The first withdrawal of the troops (July 27), hailed joyfully by the Cretan Christians, led to rioting by the Muslims, who believed themselves abandoned to their fate.
Meanwhile M. Zaimis had made a further advance towards the annexation of the island to Greece by a visit to Athens, where he arranged for a loan with the Greek National Bank and engaged Greek officers for the new gendarmerie. The issue was precipitat ed by news of the revolution in Turkey. On Oct. 12 the Cretan Assembly once more voted the union with Greece, and in the absence of M. Zaimis, elected a committee of five to govern the island in the name of the king of Greece.
On July 26, 1906, the powers withdrew their remaining troops. The Cretans hoisted a Greek flag; the Turkish Government adopted a minatory tone to Greece, and the powers cut down the offending flagstaff ; war was postponed, but the humiliation was not forgotten. On Oct. 14, 1912, the eve of the first Balkan War, M. Venizelos, then Greek premier, admitted the Cretan deputies to the Greek Chamber; S. Dragoumes was sent to Crete as general administrator. Art. 4 of the Treaty of London (I 913) ceded Crete to Greece. Since that time its history has been merged in that of Greece (q.v.).
Travels in Crete (Cambridge and London, Bibliography.-Pashley, Travels in Crete (Cambridge and London, 1837) ; Spratt, Travels and Researches in Crete (1867) ; Raulin, De scription physique de rile de Crete (3 vols. and Atlas, 1869) ; W. J. Stillman, The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-68 (1874) ; Edwardes, Let ters from Crete (1887) ; Stavrakis, 2raru,r6KO TOU im:YJOUQµou riiS Karns (189o) ; J. H. Freese, A Short Popular History of Crete (1897) ; Bick ford-Smith, Cretan Sketches (1897) ; Laroche, La Crete ancienne et moderne (1898) ; Victor Berard, Les A ff aires de Crete (1898) ; G. Gerola, Monumenti Veneti dell' isola di Crete (Venice, 1905-17) . See also Mrs. Walker, Eastern Life and Scenery (1886) , and Old Tracks and New Landmarks (1897) ; H. F. Tozer, The Islands of the Aegean (189o) ; W. Miller, Essays on the Latin Orient (1921) ; J. Ballot, His toire de l'Insurrection Cret wise (1868) ; B. Psilakis, `IoTopta Tic Kps rns (Canea, 190I-10) ; R. Wagner, Der kretische Aufstand, 1866-67 (1908) ; E. Gerland, Histoire de its Noblesse Cretoise au Moyen Age (1907) ; W. Miller, Finlay's "History of the Insurrection in Crete," Annual of the British School at Athens. xxvii. 0927).
(J. D. B.; W. M.)
