Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/246

 230 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. The main cause why the monuments under notice were saved from destruction is to be accounted for in the fact that there never was here a great urban population. The contempt and discredit that fell upon the old beliefs when the antique world fell to pieces caused sites, formerly the objects of frequent pilgrimages, to be neglected and forgotten by all save tillers and woodmen. Thus it came to pass that until the beginning of the present century, when these monuments were discovered by travellers, there had been nothing to disturb the dust gathered around what may be called the museum of Phrygian art. Had these works perished, like others of the same kind and style that doubtless once peopled the necropolis and cities of Phrygia, there would have been one more lacuna, hard to fill in the history of civilization and of the plastic arts. We should have been unable to form a correct estimate of the influence exercised upon the Greeks by certain nations of Asia Minor, both as middlemen and creators of not a few architectonic and ornamental forms. Nor is this the only title the relics of Phrygian art offer to the lively interest of the observer ; what adds to their importance is the fact that here, perhaps, are to be found the oldest traces of the influence 'Greece (from having at first received on all sides) began to exercise over nations who had been her first instructors. This she did with characteristic vigour and power. The first symptoms of this singular phenomenon, this returning wave, are manifested on the monuments of Phrygia. The Greeks, in the opening years of the seventh century B.C., gave their alphabet to an independent community settled far enough from the shores of the ^gean. This was ere long fol- lowed by Grecian architecture and Grecian sculpture. At this school, Phrygian artists learnt the secret of imparting just pro- portions and freedom of movement to the human form ; they accustomed themselves to enclose within mouldings of greater variety and refinement symbols dear to their ancestors, when internally and externally a gradual change spread over their Thus, on the soil of this vast mountainous peninsula, where the sons of Hellas owned but a narrow strip fringing the sea, new- forms, new ideas stole in on every hand, which traffic and example helped further to disseminate long before any Greek captain had scaled, with his army, the terraced hills in advance of the inland