Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/392

 v ;7 o HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS I)KN:NI>K.CII.S. arches both in Egypt and Assyria, and we know their minds were continually open to the reception of new ideas and impressions from those neighbouring countries in which they passed so much ol their time. Moreover, we have at least two examples of a Phoenician vault : in the tomb of Esmounazar we found in place some of the voussoirs of an arch which can only be attributed to the same period as the sarcophagus which lay beneath it (Fig. 112), and in a neighbouring tomb-chamber Gaillardot en- countered the same arrangement. 1 That we are able to point only to these two examples in the country between Arvad and Tyre is perhaps a matter of chance ; a new exploration may give to-morrow what we seek in vain to-day ; but on the whole there is reason to believe that in Syria itself the Phoenicians only made a very restricted use of the arch, at least in their monu- mental work. We must remember that their architecture was based on forms derived from rock cutting, and that it was accustomed to huge units, so that its traditions were to some extent opposed to the arch It is to the necessity for covering voids with small stones that the employment of the arch may as a rule be traced. Moreover, when a vault has to be built of stone an amount of careful calculation and elaborate dressing has to be gone through, which was foreign to the ideas of the workmen of Arvad and Gebal. Supposing, however, that the Phoenicians were not quite ignorant of the special advantages of the arch, they may well have been driven to make more frequent use of it in their western colonies. In the first place, a change of surroundings and of materials brings with it a corresponding change in methods, even when the latter are deeply engrained in the habits of a people And the arch played a very important part in the architecture of those Etruscans and Latins with whom first the Syrians, and after them the Carthaginians, had so much to do. Kept together by the necessity for resisting the enterprises of the Phocaeans, the Etruscans and Carthaginians lived, as a rule, in great amicability one with the other, and it was not until after many centuries of friendly commercial relations that Rome and Carthage engaged in the long and sanguinary duel which we know as the Punic wars. During those centuries many African merchants must have visited the shores of the Tiber ; they must have seen the vaulted drains 1 RKNAN, Mission, pp. 437 and 442.