Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/355

 CHAPTER V. CIVIL ARC 11 I T E C T U R E. i. Fortified Walls. TUE Phoenicians had little imagination. No doubt the terrors of death were present to their minds ; they attacked the problem of human destiny and solved it in their own way ; their religion a religion entirely made up of rites and ceremonies counted for something in their lives, and they sought to propitiate their gods by such sacrifices as the immolation of their first-born children. The pious Phoenician held it a matter of honour that his account with Heaven should leave a balance in his favour, but he did not torment himself with mystic dreams. Neither at Tyre nor Carthage did they lose much time in speculating upon the origin or the end of things ; their imaginations were busied less over questions of the future than over those of the present ; the energy of the Phoenician genius was directed rather to utilitarian ends than to the search for what was grandiose or beautiful. That being the humour of the people as a whole, the energy of their constructors must have been devoted mainly to works having for their object the provision of spacious ports, of ample quays and strong defensive works for the cities in which their industries were carried on, and, finally, to the provision of convenient dwellings. Engineers, as we should call them, had more to do in Phoenicia than architects, and yet neither in Syria nor in Phoenician Africa do we find anything but feeble traces of engineering works, either civil or military. The various sources to which we can turn for information as to the tombs of the Phoenicians and their temples do not help us when we come to inquire into their methods of securing their