That the sport of the bull-ring, and particularly this exciting
and dangerous game of bull-grappling, or [Greek: taurokathapsia],
was an established and habitual form of Minoan sport is proved by
the multitude of representations of it which have survived. The
charging bull of Tiryns, the first to be discovered, was a mystery
so long as it stood alone; but it is only one of a succession of
such pictures--painted upon walls, engraved upon gems, and stamped
on seal impressions--which show that the Cretans and Mycenaeans
were as fond of their bull-fights as a modern Spaniard of his.
Where did they get the toreadors, male and female, whose lives
were to be devoted to such a terrible sport--a sport practically
bound to end fatally sooner or later? We may be fairly sure, at
all events, that bull-grappling was not taken up voluntarily even
by the male, and still less by the female, toreadors; and one of
the discoveries made in the excavations of 1901, and followed up
later, gave its own suggestion of an explanation. Not very far from
the North Entrance of the palace, beneath the room where, the year
before, had been found the fresco of the Little Boy Blue gathering
crocuses--an innocent figure to cover so grim a revelation--there
came to light the walls of two deep pits, going right down, nearly
25 feet, to the virgin soil.
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