The suppositions then towards which we are led are, that Minos was of Phœnician origin, that he came to Crete and acquired the sovereignty, that he ruled over a mixed population of Cretans, Pelasgians, and Hellic tribes, that he organised the country and established an extended supremacy, especially maritime and insular, beyond its limits; which however we must not consider as involving the consistent maintenance of sovereignty according to modern ideas, and which is in no degree inconsistent with the rule of Danaids or Perseids in Peloponnesus. Lastly, that in giving form to his social institutions, he depressed the Pelasgian element of Cretan society, and laid, in political depression, the foundations of their subsequent servitude. _Cyprus._ If this be so, it is worth while further to observe, that there are traces of a somewhat analogous history in Cyprus, another acknowledged stepping-stone, according to Homer[346], between Greece and the East. In the Seventeenth Book of the Odyssey[347], Ulysses, in one of his fictitious narrations, states to the Suitors, that the Egyptians, who had taken him prisoner and reduced him to slavery, then made a present of him to their ξεῖνος Dmetor, a descendant of Iasus, who ruled ‘with might,’ that is, with considerable power over Cyprus (ὃς Κύπρου ἶφι ἄνασσεν); the same expression as he uses in the Eleventh Book with respect to Amphion, the Iasid, in Orchomenus. From all we know of the Iasian name[348], it may be inferred that this was a Pelasgian dynasty, and if so, then without doubt that it ruled over a Pelasgian people. Ulysses does not mention the time of this transaction; and it must be remembered, that he spoke in the character of an aged person, so that the scene might be laid (so to speak) thirty or forty years back, and therefore long before the expedition to Troy. But in the Eleventh Book of the Iliad[349], we find Agamemnon putting on a breastplate, which was evidently a marvel of workmanship, with its plates on plates of different metals, and its six dragons flashing forth the colours of the rainbow. Now we must observe, first, that this was evidently meant to be understood as a Sidonian or Phœnician work: secondly, that it was presented to Agamemnon by Cinyres of Cyprus, to conciliate his favour (--χαριζόμενος βασιλῆï, perhaps we might render it, to win the favour of _his_ king--) upon the occasion of his hearing that the king was collecting an armament against Troy. That is to say, it was to compound with him for not appearing in person to join the Greek forces. Here then we must infer that there was some vague allegiance, which was due, or which at least might be claimed, from Cyprus to Agamemnon, under the πολλῇσιν νήσοισι[350].