Free The Golden Step by Christopher Somerville Page B

however tempting, belong to Crete, and are to be left in the field for the pleasure and instruction of some future wanderer.
    In George’s company during that first sojourn in Kritsa, and despite the fact that his English vocabulary had consisted of two phrases – ‘Problem!’ and ‘No problem!’ – I had my antennae finely tuned, my eyes and ears well and truly opened. One day we climbed to the Dorian city of Lato, high in the saddle of twin hilltops a little north of Kritsa. By the time we had trudged the slopes of thyme, oregano, sage and rosemary, my hands smelt like those of a herbalist. ‘Minoic!’ grinned George, on his knees before a bush of wild olives growing in the shade of a wall. Cousin to the olives found uncorrupted after three millennia in the well at Kato Zakros, this primitive crop tastes tough and bitter, the thin little fruits hard to spot among leaves like slips of privet. Higher up we struck a cobbled kalderimi, which led to the gates of Lato. Walking between the massive stone blocks of the entrance and on up the stepped main street, glancing from side to side into the depths of grey stone rooms that sheltered olive presses, corn-grinding querns and cisterns unused since before the birth of Christ, I wished, as so often, I could speak better Greek. Later on in my travels around Crete I would learn the outlines of the island’s wild and extraordinary history. But for now George Aphordakos, halting in the shrine of Artemis between the peaks and turning to me eagerly with a book in his hand and a whole mouthful of explanations, could only smile and shake his head in wry frustration before murmuring his catch-all mantra: ‘Problem!’

    When the palaces of the Minoans came crashing down in flames, it did not signal the immediate and final end of that sunny, life-loving civilisation. Whatever happened around 1450 BC – earthquake, tidal wave or insurrection – the Minoan way of life limped on. But the island of Crete, so green and fertile, so conveniently situated at the crossroads of trade routes between Europe, Asia and Africa, was always going to be a valuable prize for incomers who could summon the aggression and drive to take over. It was mainland Greeks from Mycenae who reoccupied the ruined palace at Knossos and dragged life and commerce in Crete back onto its feet. The Myceneans were a more warlike people than the Minoans; their dead were buried with swords and spears, and the designs on their pottery featured war chariots ridden by helmeted warriors – a far cry from joyful Minoan dancers and harvesters. The newcomers seem to have established a foothold in the island – perhaps as a servant class, perhaps as equals – for quite some time before the cataclysm. Now their influence spread throughout Crete as more palaces and towns were reoccupied. For a couple of centuries dominant Mycenean and decaying Minoan cultures uneasily coexisted. Then came the Dorians, efficient and well-organised fighters of Balkan origin who made a victorious drive south through mainland Greece and arrived in Crete from 1100 BC onwards. The Myceneans found themselves displaced, and the remnants of the Minoan people – sometimes called the Eteo-Cretans or ‘real Cretans’ – retreated with the rump of their language and their culture to the hills, where they may have hung on in decline for another thousand years.
    With its shrines and temples, grand staircases, central courtyard and massive stone guard towers, the Dorian hilltop settlement of Lato was evidently more than a back country market town. In fact it was an autonomous city state, one of dozens that now established themselves in easily defended places within range of a sea port – Lato pros Kamara (present-day Agios Nikolaos) in the case of Lato. Gortyn was a great power in the south of the island, Kydonia (present-day Chania) and Polyrhynnia in the west, Praisos and Ierapytna