Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/342

 3 H HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. them ; the little we can learn as to their costume rather suggests Egypt. The horse is without the rich harness of Assyria ; the quivers are not arranged as in the latter country, where they are hung crosswise on the side of the chariot. 1 The kind of banner or streamer which floats behind the car on this vase is also strange to Assyria. 2 Even the wheel-spokes are different ; they are more solid and heavy in the Cypriot example, the wheelwright who made them had less skill than his Mesopotamian rival. The Cypriot decorator may have seen reductions, on ivories or metal cups, of those carved pictures in which Pharaoh or some Assyrian king is shown in pursuit, sometimes of a human enemy, sometimes of " big game," and they may have given the first idea for his composition, but for all the details of its execution he appears to have gone no farther than his native cities. We may well believe that his chariot differs in no essential respect from that in which Onesilaos, King of Salamis, was attacking Artybios, the Persian satrap, when the treason of Stesenor, King of Curium, deprived him of the victory which was almost within his grasp. 3 Upon another vase we find an almost equally careful reproduction of a Cypriot ship (Figs. 253 and 254). It would be pleasant to recognize here one of those vessels which attacked the fleet of Darius with such success during the revolt of Ionia ; but we must renounce any such idea. This galley has nothing in the shape of a spur ; with its rounded stem and stern, it can hardly be other thaji a trading vessel. On the whole the picture is more summary than that of the chariot ; the painter has suppressed the crew and greatly simplified the rigging ; but the large-bladed oars or sweeps may be distinguished, so may the mast and the single sail it supports. The stem differs in shape from the stern. The whole representation may, from its conciseness, seem obscure here and there, but to those who make a special study of naval construction it can hardly fail to be of much value. On the neck of a large vase, the body of which is broken away, a painter has represented two men coming home" from hunting. They are each dressed in a long robe. On a pole stretched across their 1 LA YARD, The Monuments of Nineveh, folio, 1849, plates x. xiii. xiv. xviii. &c. 2 The back of an Assyrian chariot has saw-teeth, meant no doubt to prevent an enemy from attempting to scale the chariot by grasping its edge. Such a precaution is natural enough, but it would be difficult to explain this streamer, which would seem to offer hand-hold to a pursuer. s HERODOTUS, v. 112, 113.