THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

WHO WERE THE MAKERS ? 209
harmony with Homer. Better are they who allege
that the
people now known as Milyans are called Solymi by the poet^"
The traditional evidence is thus strongly in favour of the
migration into Lycia of a body of settlers from Crete, which we
know was one of the chief seats of the Mycenean culture, and
the similarity in the art of Lycia to that of Mycenae thus finds
an historical solution.
We have already had occasion to refer to the tradition that
connects the fortress of Tiryns and the Lion Gate at Mycenae
with the artificei"s of Lycia, the seven Cyclopean brethren,
who are also said to have erected the Cyclopean buildings at
Nauplia.
Later on we shall see that the statement of Herodotus that
the Lyciaii customs are partly Cretan can be substantiated.
His other statement, that their customs were in part
Carian, is
probably true, for no doubt the aborigines were
Carian, a fact which, according to Strabo-, led some writers to
call the Lycians Carians.
We saw ab(jve that one of the conditions to be fulfilled by
any people which is to be successful in its claim to the authorship
of the Mycenean civilization is that it used a ])ictographic
script in Peloponnesus, Attica, and Cn.'te, closely connected
with the Cypriote syllabary, and the characters found on the
so-called Hittite seals and monuuKnits of Asia Minor, and some
of the symlwls in the Lycian alphabet.
Homer in one famous and oft-etus is a Pelasgian and is
. -
^ 473. //. VI. IfJH 70.
K. U
210 WHO WERE THE MAKERS ?
some kind of writing in Peloponnesus before the Achean
conquest. That the arj^ara Xvypd were most probably some
form of pictograph, as supposed by Dr Leaf and Mr A. J. Evans,
is
highly probable ^
1
It has been held that
(1) (rrj/j-ara Xvypd do not refer to any kind of writing, but are identical with
ffrjfjLa of 1. 176, and mean letter of introduction, the plural being used for the
singular under the exigency of the metre. I maintain that the plural (nj/zara
can only be used = a document, because the document is conceived as made up
of a number of individual symbols, just as the Lat. Utterac = an epistle, because
it is composed of many individual litterae (letters of the alphabet). I shall take
the case of ypd/xpLa (in reference to writing, not painting). ypdiJ./ji.a={l) a scratch
or letter of the alphabet ; (2) the plural = Y/jd/x/uara a document, as being made
up of ypdfj.p.aTa (letters of the alphabet, just as Lat. litterae = epistle) ;
(3) ypd/jL/xa
used as a collective noun = a document. Now, when we meet with to. ypap-nara,
clearly meaning a single document, in Herodotus or other prose writers, we do
not consider it the plural of to 7pd^/xa = document, the plural being used for
singular under the exigency of metre, but as the plural of to 7/>d/u;ua
= letter of
the alphabet.
in Homer means kind of mark = a document
(Trip.a (1) any ; (2) tr^/iara (plural)
; (3) ar)iJ.a (1. 176) used as a collective noun = a document. Of what
is
ar}fj.aTa (1. 168) the plural? Unquestionably of = (rr}fxa Si single mark. If