ACROBATIC

214

FEATS

artist seems to be of a kind pronounced impossible by modern champions of
the sport. The fresco design shown in Fig. 144 does not, as we shall see,
stand alone, and the successive acts that it seems to imply find at least
partial confirmation in a clay seal-impression (Fig. 149, below), and in the

FIG.

145.

SECTION OF DESIGN

SHOWING FEMALE AcROBAT
BULL'S HoRN.

RAISING HERSELF

BY THE

bronze group (Fig. 155), where the acrobatic feat is illustrated by the diagrammatic figure (Fig. 156).
But if the feat as thus logically developed would seem to transcend
human skill, it is equally true that such scenes as are illustrated by a series
of scenes on gems in which the bull wrestler seems to lift the whole mighty

FEMALE

PERFORMERS

215

beast,1 are no less on a superhuman scale. At the same time they can be
matched in this by the intaglio type given above, 2 where the hero, armed as
he is with a dirk, grips the lion's neck with his left hand.

FIG.

146.

FRAGMENT

OF FRESCO PANEL SHOWING FEMALE
HORN.

TAUREADOR

SEIZING

Bull's

All old African hunters know that such personal contact with a lion
means nothing less than death.
The apparent action of throwing an arm over a bull's horn rather than
actually gripping it is illustrated by another spirited fragment of this group
of frescoes of which a restored drawing by Monsieur Gillieron is reproduced in
Fig. 146. The right hand of the female acrobat does not here seize the horn,
though thrown over it, but is tightly clenched, as the result of extreme
physical tension. An interesting analogy to this is supplied by the fragment
of a high relief, where the hand is seen over the tip of a bull's horn similarly
clenched.
It is clear that this painted relief fragment, found in the Deposit of High
Reliefs described below, 3 represents part of an acrobatic figure, in this case, as
1
2

Compare, for-instance, Figs. 162-164, p. 231 below.
3
p. 125, Figs. 78, 79.
See below, p. 497 seqq.

216

..

Use of
Ceslus
round

wrist.

STUCCO

RELIEF

COMPARED

the red colouring shows, a man, with his arm thrown over the bull's horn and
his hand not grasping it but clenched in a similar way (see Sketch, Fig. 147).
In the delicately executed
design, reproduced in the Coloured
Plate XXl,about
one-third scale 1
---the fine lines of
which recall the
designs on white
Athenian lekythoi
-another female
figure is seen in
the act of leaping,
with flyingtresses,
one arm held
downwards and
the other raised.
A noteworthy feature in this represen_tation is the
strap, wound not
FIG. 147. RESTORED SKETCH OF FRAGMENT FROM DEPOSIT OF
only round the
HIGH RELIEFS.
wrist but round
parts of the hand. This form of cestus obviously had _nothing to do with
striking a blow, and must have been rather devised to give strength to the
muscles and tendons. It recurs on the hand of the youth shown in Fig. 148
who is depicted flying through. the air, as if in the act of alighting behind
a galloping steer, whose hind legs appear below. 2 Acrobatic feats of the
same kind as the above are still said to he performed in some Portuguese
corridas.
1

The original pieces shown in the Coloured
Plate XXI and Fig. 148 were given me by the
Cretan Government and are now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The drawing of
Fig. 148 was traced under my superintendence
from a photographic reproduction and the
details minutely checked with reference to the
original. The sketch is by Mr. E. J. Lambert.

2

There can be little doubt as to the con•
nexion of the three fragments shown in
Fig. 148. They were found together, and all
have the same blue ground. The white object
on the neck and breast represents two necklaces in a heavier style. Some of the strands
of hair, of which only faint indications have
been preserved, are reinforced in the drawing.

ALIGHTING
skill.

FIGURE:

USE OF CESTUS

217

These highly sensational episodes are primarily exhibitions of acrobatic
In this respect, as already noted, they differ from the parallel perfor-

FIG.

148.

MALE

TAUREADOR

IN THE ACT OF ALIGHTING.

mances of the Minoan cow-boys, the aim of which was rather the catching of
wild or half-wild animals. That girls actually took part in this more practical