Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/388

 350 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. which is filled with motives borrowed from Egypt, scarabs and adoring hawk-headed personages mounted upon pedestals of Egyptian profile. Another figure, with outspread wings, stands in worship before the child Horus, who is seated upon an open lotus-flower. 1 To this group succeeds one which we might almost believe to have been copied from a Ninevite relief; two male figures stand facing each other, but separated by the sacred tree ; the raised hand of each holds a lotus flower, but in the other appears the Osiride symbol, the crux ansata. This same symbol is held by the next figure, and by young Horus before I sis and Nephtys. Finally, the group through which the fracture runs appears to have been a repetition of the scarab group. But the most interesting zone is the outer one, in which some have wished to see a representation of the siege of Amathus, in 500, by the Greeks of the island under Onesilaus. 2 This hypo- thesis is by no means impossible, but the reasons adduced so far in support of it have no kind of force. The town fortifica- tions are figured in an entirely conventional manner, as in an Assyrian relief ; there is the same want of true proportion between men and buildings ; the defenders of the place are taller than the towers they guard. The assailants on the right have been thought to' be Greek warriors, and in some particulars their costume seems to bear out that idea ; but then one of the besieged wears the very helmet and bears the very shield on the strength of which the besiegers are supposed to be Greeks. The men attacking on the left have all the look of Africans ; they are half naked, and their small shields with salient bosses can hardly be of anything but wickerwork. The men cutting trees are dressed like Egyp- tians, while the archers would not surprise us if we found them on an Assyrian bas-relief ; finally the galloping horsemen wear the ovoid cap of so many Cypriot statues. A biga, of which only the front remains, is in its natural place, for we know how important a part such chariots played in the Cypriot battles. On the whole we think it probable that the artist who engraved this bowl did not mean to represent any particular historical scene, but to give a general picture of war, and to show all the forces engaged either in attacking a city or in other operations ; Greek hoplites, Assyrian archers, Cypriot cavalry, light armed 1 This same motive occurs on the bowl from Salerno. 2 CECCALDI, Monuments an'iques de Cypre, pp. 146, 147.