Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/275

 GEMS. 251 engraved in Cypriot characters, in the genitive. The execution as a whole is of singular freedom ; it seems to be the work of some Grecian artist of the fine time ; we insert it here because it repeats an Oriental motive often used in Cyprus. At Golgos, upon a stone footstool, we find a lion devouring a bull ; l upon a scarab from Salamis the victim is a boar ; 2 one of the commonest types on coins of Kition and other Cypriot towns is a lion bringing down a stag (Fig. 21). In the example below a griffin has taken the lion's FIG. 186. Intaglio upon Chalcedony. 3 place, a substitution quite according to precedent ; there are many instances of it in Assyrian sculpture. 4 In several intaglios from Sardinia and Syria, we find a winged boar (Fig. i87); 5 the example we figure comes from Phoenicia proper. It is not without surprise that we see wings attached to such a heavy, clumsy animal as the boar ; the notion is to be explained, however, by the part that animal played in one of the best-known myths of Phoenicia, the story of the life and death of Adonis. FIG. 187. Scarabaeoid. 6 This myth of the loves of a goddess and a young huntsman of Syria has only come down to us in the passionate and poetical form in which it was clothed by the imagination of the Greeks, and it is probable that the gems on which it is illustrated date only from the 1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 159. 2 A. DI CESNOLA, Salaminia, p. 159. 3 Twice the actual size. The original is in the Danicourt Collection. 4 Art in Chaldcza and Assyria, Vol. II. Figs. 90 and 257. 5 Gazette archeologique, 1878, p. 50-53. 6 De Luynes Collection ; French National Library.