TRADE

The towns, so numerous in Crete, were markets by origin, and became important as such through the development of industry and navigation. Royal residences like Knossos and Phaistos, country towns like Praisos and Palaikastro, agglomerations of small craftsmen like Gournia, centres for sailors and shipowners like Pseira and Mochlos-these were the places where important business was transacted. Zakro, a port splendidly situated between the JEgean Sea and Africa, had large import and export houses; the five hundred sealings found in one of them had doubtless once been affixed to bales of merchandise or bills of lading. In all these towns shops and workshops jostled one another, particularly round the big square. Communications were ensured by a well-organized roads department. According to the lie of the land, the streets were tortuous or they intersected at right angles. They were carefully built and kept in good repair, being paved with cobbles or flags of gypsum and provided with footpaths and gutters along the sides. When they had a slope to cover they were not built on an inclined plane, but in horizontal sections connected by steps. In Crete they were narrow, their width varying from 1'40 to 2'50 metres and reaching 4 metres as an excepti.on. At Mycenre the Acropolis had alleys

From town to town ran the indispensable roads. It is to be noted that those of Crete and those which converged towards the lower town of M ycence conform to the same type and are both 3.60 metres wide.1 At Knossos, near the North Entry of the palace, is the parting of two roads, one to the arsenal and one to the port. They have foundations of unhewn stone, between 20 and 25 centimetres in thickness, and are covered with a thick layer of concrete. The concrete is left bare for a width of 1·10 metres on each side, forming the two footpaths. It is reinforced in the middle by a double row of flags; this is the roadway, which had therefore the regulation width of 1.40 metres. 2 Some claim to recognize portions of roads at many other points in Crete, and a stone bridge near Eleuthema is ascribed to the prehistoric period.3 Mycence" of the broad ways" stood at the cross-roads of Argolis; on one side were the roads to Argos, Tiryns, and the sanctuary which would one day be the Heraion, and on the other three roads ran to Corinth and its gulf. These roads, which climb gradients without diverging and are cut in the rock, are reinforced by retaining-walls of unhewn blocks of stone; they cross torrents by bridges consisting of a " Gothic arch" with a great slab for a lintel. Like the streets of the towns, these roads climb the gradients by steps which are often very steep. But such as they are they show a very serious effort to facilitate overland travel. The Greeks inherited them later, and used them without improving them.