Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/410

 372 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES. stones and by climbing inaccessible rocks, that none of them were taken or even approached. Whether at Sidon or Tyre, in Cyprus or at Carthage, the Phoenician workman no doubt made use of analogous processes and employed the same ideas and images ; but in the long run differences of time and place must have caused many changes. On its southern and eastern frontiers Phoenicia proper was in con- tact with Egypt and Assyria, so it is likely that the influence of Oriental art was felt longer within her borders than elsewhere ; on the other hand, Cyprus was full of Greeks, and Carthage imported architects and medallists from Sicily at a very early date. Such influences had plenty of time in which to develop and even to change their direction, for the manufacture of these vessels lasted for at least five or six centuries. They are found in the ruins of that palace of Nimroud, which dates from the ninth century, or from about the same time as those Homeric poems in which the works of the Phoenician artists are praised. In later years, when Greek artists had learnt their trade, the Phoenicians had to draw in their horns, at least in that eastern basin of the Mediterranean which had formed the early field of their activity ; but in the west they kept up the contest for one or two centuries more, to the profit chiefly of Carthage. From the eighth to the sixth century the great African city had in Latium and Etruria a certain market for her bronzes and ivories, for her jewelry, her smith's work, and her glass. In the course of the fifth century Hellenic art made rapid encroachments, and in- the fourth its superiority had become so thoroughly acknowledged and established that competition was no longer possible. The engraved platters that have come down to us may, then, be distributed over the years intervening between 1000 and 400 B.C. ; we incline to think that the finest period was in the seventh and sixth centuries, when conditions, at all events, were most favourable. It must be remembered that those which have made their way into our museums are but a small part even of the platters that have been actually encountered in the excavations, for in numberless cases these things were found in such a condition of oxidation that they could not be moved without falling into dust, and besides, not a few were sold as old metal and destroyed by ignorant peasants before systematic exploration began. We may fairly say that the few scores of bowls now in existence and bearing images which