Page 285 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

232 The Argosies [1440-1370 B.C.]

by the priests and priestesses, and then cheering and applause as
the toreadors, picked teams of athletes, paraded round the ring.
Finally came the roar of anticipation as the bulls were let in,
great piebald beasts with wide-sweeping horns. Thereafter team
by team the athletes entered the arena, youths and girls alike
stripped to a minimal loincloth. To the gasps and applause of
the crowd team vied with team in the brilliance and daring of
its acrobatics, baiting the bulls to thunderous charges and then
at the last moment grasping the horns and somersaulting to safety
clean over the back of the charging animal. It was dangerous
sport, and in the course of the day more than one acrobat, mis­
judging his—or her—timing, would be tossed, ripped and bleed­
ing, high against the barrier of the arena.
There were famous names among the professional toreadors,
for the greatest of the artists were popular heroes whose polished
performances were anticipated long before the festival and dis­
cussed in detail for months afterwards. But there were also ama­
teur performers, and many of the young nobles sprang into the
ring in the pauses between the teams, to make a pass or two at
one of the bulls and to retire to polite applause after a single
somersault. And both among the amateurs and the profes­
sionals there were many foreigners. In particular the Achaeans
from the Greek mainland, where the sport had been introduced
a couple of generations ago, had shown themselves adept at the
art, and of recent years picked teams from the mainland had
competed with honor at Knossos against the best of the native
acrobats.
But if the crowd gave acclaim to the best of the teams, they
did not at the same time forget to give due honor to the bulls.
Their points were eagerly discussed and their spirit and agility
cheered equally with the spirit and agility of the toreadors. After
all, the bulls were the chief performers, and the main point of
the day’s sport was the selection of the premier bull, the Bull of
Minos, the Minotaur, which would prove its worthiness to be
sacrificed on the morrow. And even die youngsters at their first
bull festival knew why the finest bull in all Crete must be sacri­
ficed yearly to Poseidon, god of the sea. One of the earliest
stories they had heard—in all its scandalous detail was how