Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/236

 212 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. nearly so soon as by other people of Greek race. They were employed in the great battle fought before Salamis towards the beginning of the fifth century, at the time of the revolt of Ionia. 1 The meaning of the reliefs on the sides of the sarcophagus must also be sought in the funerary symbolism of Phoenicia. At first sight it might seem that the procession on the two long panels figured some historical event, the setting out or the triumphal return of the warrior over whose head the parasol is being held up in the first chariot. This explanation is the first to suggest itself, but there are good reasons why we should go a little farther. If the sculptor had meant to represent a real occurrence, would he have broken up his procession by figures whose meaning is certainly mystical and religious ? And do we not find these same foot and horse soldiers, these war and pleasure chariots, in hundreds of tombs, both in Cyprus and Phoenicia, where there is nothing to hint that they were placed as souvenirs of any conquest or military adventure ? The sculptor of this sarcophagus must, in fact, have been the servant of the same idea as that which caused tombs to be filled with the little groups and figures, in stone and terra-cotta, to which we have just alluded ; the idea, namely, of the great journey, the journey from which there was no return, which was to be accomplished by the dead among similar attendants and with the same pomp as his journeys upon earth. In that case nothing could be more natural than the intervention of those gods who seem to be there on purpose to guide the dead man in his supreme migration, and to protect him against the unknown dangers of the voyage. On one side we find the mother goddess, whose teeming breasts hold out a promise of life and resurrection ; on the other, a god who was, in Egypt at least, a symbol of joy and laughter. For that reason he was associated in tombs, pictures, and especially upon the pillows placed with the dead, with the idea of a resurrection ; the same notion caused him to be represent ed as the guardian of one of the gates of the infernal region. 2 A small object in glazed earthenware found, no doubt, in some tomb, has already shown us Bes in very intimate relations with the same goddess ; it has been guessed with some probability that they are here (Fig. 3) figured as mother 1 HERODOTUS, V. 1 1 3. 2 MARIETTE-BEY, La Galerie de F Egypte Aneienne au Trocadero, 1878, p. 116.