Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 2.djvu/85

 PHCENICIAN SCULPTURE IN THE WEST. part in the mysteries of Adonis, and those ears of wheat which waved so richly over the plains of Carthage. 1 The palm-tree is reproduced less faithfully than on the Punic coins (Vol. I. Fig. 253) ; the trunk is too thick and the foliage too stiff and scanty (Fig. 60). The whole is rather a shaft and capital than a tree. FIG. 57. Votive stele from Carthage. French National Library. The workmanship of all these steles is very rough and careless. Imitation of Greece did not make up for a want of artistic talent and spirit in the humble artist who supplied such outlets for popular piety. Both stone and clay seem to have been worked with better taste at an earlier period, when inspiration was mostly FIG. 58. Summit of stele from Carthage. French National Library. from the east. We may give as examples the steles discovered in 1867 on the site of Adrumetum;' 2 none of them are inscribed, but PH. BERGER, Les Ex-voto, &>c. pp. 21-22 2 For the facts of this discovery see M. PH. BERGER, Steles trouvees a Hadrnmete (Gazette Archfalogique, 1884, p. 51, and plate vii.). Four of these steles were