Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/54

 different one. In the earliest epoch of which we have any record we find them established in a peninsula, which is on one hand upon the very borders of Asia, and upon another seems to hold out a hand to Africa by the innumerable islands which surround its shores. Between the shores of this peninsula and those of Asia, these islands are sprinkled so thickly over the narrow seas that nature seems to have intended them for stepping-stones which should tempt the least venturesome to cross from one continent to the other.

The Greek race thus found itself, by the accident of its geographical situation, in contact with the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Median empires, the masters of the Eastern Mediterranean; while the insular or peninsular character of most of the region which it inhabited, together with the numerous colonies attached to the surrounding coasts like vessels at anchor, had the effect of greatly multiplying the points of contact. The Greek frontier was thus one of abnormal extent, and was, moreover, always open, always ready to receive foreign ideas and influences. Her eyes were ever turned outwards; the Greek nationality was not one of those which remain for ages inaccessible to foreign merchandize and modes of thought.

Such being the situation of Greece, it could not but happen, that, as soon as the Greek race drew itself clear from primitive barbarism, the fertile germs of art, —examples, models, processes, —should penetrate into the country from the neighbouring East by all the channels of communication which we have mentioned. Seeing how far civilization had advanced, would it not have been absurd for the Greeks to have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the experience of their predecessors; to have begun again at the beginning? Was it not better to take up the work at the point where it had been left, and to make use, for future developments, of those which had already been established? Man progresses as fast as he can; as soon as he learns any new method of satisfying his wants and ameliorating his life, he makes use of it; he makes use of it at first in its original form, but with years and experience he improves it and brings it nearer to perfection.

Thus then, the more we study the past, the more surely do we recognize the truth contained in those myths and traditions which betray the influence exercised upon Greece by the people of Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor. To confine ourselves to the