Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/242

 226 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. art, either in the theme, workmanship, or accessories ; in order to find some analogy thereto we must address ourselves to the archaic work of Greece, and especially ancient vase-painting. The figures have no longer the highly conventional posture which the bas- reliefs of Pterium, and those of other localities allied to the same school, have familiarized us with ; the arms are detached from the body. Accessories show quite as notable a change. Thus the shield is circular, the breast-plate composed of metal pieces, and the helmet has little resemblance to the Hittite cap, but is a real covering and protection for the head ; as to the huge crest crown- ing it, its explanation and appellative are to be sought in Homer. We have observed nothing like it either in Assyria or in the long series of rock-cut sculptures of Asia Minor, those repre- senting the primal civilization of her inhabitants. The panoply of the two warriors who run their spears in the Gorgon's head, on the facade of a Phrygian vault,- is that of the Greek hoplite, those Carian and loni-an mercenaries whose " scaly " armour terrified the populations of Syria and Egypt, when, towards the middle of the seventh- century B-.C., they appeared on their borders and took part in their cjuafrels. The bas-relief of the Broken Tombdoes not even go so far back. It plainly shows that the sculptor who modelled it had been, in some way or other, under the influence of Hellenic art. Now, to find, in Greece, figures OR marble or the body of vases drawn, as these, with so remarkable a sureness of hand, we must fain descend to the latter half of the sixth century B.C. ^Ve should, therefore, incline to date the execution of both vault and sculpture some- where about that time a date that will, perhaps, be questioned by drawing attention to the make of the lion. The latter is much more archaic than the two heroic lance-bearers, 1 and originates, as the other colossal figures encountered in this canton, from a type created by the sculptors of Mesopotamia ; this type, when trans- planted in Syria and Cappadocia, assumed a very peculiar and heavy aspect, due to sheer massiveness. If the attitude is different, the general appearance of the figure is pretty near the same as in Pterium, and the rendering of certain details is identical. Is this to be taken as a proof that the inner and external decora- 1 With regard to the apparent anomaly, due to imperfect technique, between the workmanship of the lion and the human figures, vide p. 172 and note 8.