Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/183

 SCULPTURE. 167 The Phrygian sculptor then, even in works apparently of re- motest date, now and again tried his hand at reproducing the human form. Of this we have proof in the image which stands near a sanctuary of the Midas plateau (Fig. 101). This image is decidedly in advance of the two horsemen we have just described, yet it betrays so unskilful a hand as to have no style, it being mere child work. As to the figures sculptured along the road- side which leads to the plateau, 2 there are data about them which raise the question as to whether they do not belong to a very late period the first or second century of our era, when the monuments, in far better condition than they are now, were visited as a curiosity. At that time the inhabitants of this region were fully conscious of the glorified interest attaching to these Phrygian myths. The poetry and art of Greece had done much towards their development ; nevertheless, here in their primitive home they preserved much of their primary character, nor was their hold upon the native populations much less than of old. That the latter were justly proud of the traditions relating to their past is shown by the coins of this period, which bear on one side the name and effigy of Midas (see tail-piece, end of chapter). It is quite possible, then, that some local worthy, in the day of Augustus or the Antonines, had these pictures carved on the rocky wall as a reminiscence of the chief episodes which the old legends current in the district had to tell. Does not M. Ramsay identify one figure with Marsyas, hung up to be flayed ? 1 If the modelling of the image is mediocre in the extreme, the arrangement of the theme belongs to Greek statuary. Now, as proved by the whole array of Syro-Cappadocian sculptures, the archaic art of the peninsula had nothing to say to undressed models, and never figured them but amply draped. Finally, we are told that " the two pictures heading the procession are exceedingly thin in pro- portion to their height." And slender proportions are neither in the habits of Asiatic sculpture, nor, in a general way, in those of archaic art, which prefers thick-set dumpy forms. M. Ramsay not outstrip the domain of archaic art, and is referable to a disposition which exemplars furnished by Babylon and Nineveh brought into repute throughout Anterior Asia. 1 RAMSAY, Studies, Figs, i, 2. 9 Jbid., p. 6.