Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/251

 THE LYDIANS, THEIR COUNTRY, HISTORY, AND RELIGION. 235 the only one when her people were united enough, powerful and rich enough, to have a culture and an art of their own. The monuments in question are unfortunately very few, and in the number there is not a single inscription, or a text, or even half a dozen letters, which would give us the clue to the Lydian language, or, at any rate, its alphabet. 1 Consequently we have not, as in Phrygia, the resource of turning to the language in order to extract therefrom some little light upon the origin and the ethnical affinities of the people. All we can do is to take down the testimony of the ancients, without the possibility of checking it. Herodotus represents the Mysians as a branch of the Lydian stock, from which it had separated at some time or other 2 an assertion confirmed by Xanthus, since he gives formal expression to the effect that the spoken dialect of the Mysians held a middle course between that of the Lydians and the Phrygians. 3 Linguistic research has established in full the opinion of the two historians. Thus of the few Lydian words which lexicographers have rescued from oblivion in their glossary, most are susceptible of being explained by roots common to Sanscrit and cognate Indo-European languages. 4 Some of these words are found both in the Lydian and Carian, others in the Lydian and Phrygian idioms. Still further proofs may be adduced, on the authority of Hero- dotus, in support of the near kinship between Mysians, Lydians, and Carians, since he affirms that they looked upon themselves as of one family, and that, in virtue of this consanguinity, the temple 1 Unknown characters have been discovered, which, had they been submitted to a competent authority, might have turned out to be Lydian inscriptions ; for M. G. Hirschfeld thus wrote in 1870, " Whilst the works for the construction of the railway were proceeding, huge blocks of stone were dug up at Sardes, on which appeared unknown characters, resembling, it is said, cuneiform characters. Further infor- mation is to follow" (Bulletin de ? Institut de correspondance archeologique, 1873, p. 225). The promise thus made was never fulfilled. One is also tempted to see a Lydian text in the monument uncovered by Fontrier at Ak Hissar, ancient Thyatira (S. REINACH, "Chron. d' Orient, " Revue arche., 3* sdrie, 1886, torn. vii. p. 165). An impression of it was shown to Professor Sayce, but he confined himself to the state- ment " that, whatever the characters might be, they were not Hittite." During Professor Sayce's excursion in Lydia, he was informed of the existence of a rock-cut inscription in cuneiform characters (?) to be seen in a secluded corner of Mount Tmolus (Journal Hell. Studies, 1880, p. 88). 8 Herodotus, vii. 74 ; ouroi (the Mysians) 8e eio-t AvSwv O.-KOIKOI. 8 Xanthus, Fr. 8. Another native writer, Menecrates, furnishes a like intelligence (Strabo, VII. ii. 3). 4 PAUL DE LAGARDE, Gesammdte Abhandlungen, pp. 270-276.