Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/134

 ii.| HISTORY OK ART IN PIM.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. E. A

to the Syrian ornamentist and how hard he found it to abandon their use. Thanks to the collateral evidence furnished bv the numerous buildings which mari- time Syria erected during the period of the Seleucida: and the Roman emperors, we ought to be able, with sufficient ease and certainty, to formulate the governing theory of her archi- tectural forms and decorative principles, but the present miserable condition of the re- mains both of ancient Phoenicia and of Phoenicia after classic art began to affect her, is the cause of very great embarrass- ment. The works of Syrian artists had no protecting gar- ment like the sands of Egypt or the crude brick crumbled of the Assyrian palaces. Neither had the ruins on the Phoenician coast the good fortune to stand in a district almost devoid of population, like the Haouran and the north-west of Syria. The desert is the most faithful of all curators, but in the narrow lands of maritime Syria, which have never ceased to be well peopled, to be washed by the rains of winter and by mountain torrents, only those works of man could subsist which were either hidden in the bowels of the earth or, when raised above its surface, were protected by