The distinctive achievements of Cretan civilization in the colonization period, based within a framework of early urbanization and of alphabetic literacy, owed much to the legacies of a famous past. Though it is not possible to present these influences in detail, our ancient sources illustrate their prevalence and their stimulus towards a remarkable renaissance, which once more allowed the island to make abiding contributions to Greek and European cultural history.

Opinion differed in antiquity as to whether Homer taught others the art of framing lies in the right way. However, the considerable evidence now available to us from archaeological exploration and epigraphic sources, confirms the correctness of Homeric descriptions of Crete as an island of many cities. Similarly, the discovery of pre-alphabetic Bronze Age scripts has brought a fresh significance to the familiar passage of the Odyssey (XIX. 172–9) describing Crete as thickly populated, with ninety cities including Cnossus, with a mixture of languages, and naming Achaeans, Eteocretans, Cydonians, Pelasgians and also Dorians with their three tribes. The possibility that this description may really apply to prehistoric times is supported by an ancient tradition of a Dorian incursion into Crete which preceded the so-called ‘Dorian invasion’ of the mainland. If there is a genuine substance in this tradition it could be that some Dorians had indeed followed Achaean settlers into Crete in the later Bronze Age. For it seems to be the case that Dorians normally possessed themselves of mainland areas and islands already settled by Greek speakers. They were not, as compared with earlier arrivals, in the habit of taking over places which had been occupied by older indigenous peoples.