Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/254

 238 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. designs and lust after plunder of the " league of the seafaring nations," which had caused Pharaoh to tremble on his throne. 1 These distant expeditions and advanced posts to the southward were, after all, but incidents of little moment in the life of these populations ; the two sets of influences brought about by conquest and commerce were far more reaching in their consequences. It will not have been forgotten that the Syro-Cappadocians at one time extended their dominion as far as the Lower Hermus, and here, in the vicinity of Smyrna arid Magnesia, are found signs of their peculiar writing and types created by their art. Consequently the origin of the Heraclidse should be sought, not in the valley of the Euphrates, but among the primitive owners of the peninsula, as likely to furnish the explanation to the names of Belus, Bel, and Ninus, which latter headed the list of that dynasty. If we know nothing of that remote age, more than one indica- tion permits us to guess the effect of the continuous relations the Lydians entertained with that Syrian nation who, holding both sides of the Taurus, ended by gaining a firm foothold on the middle Halys, in the very heart of Cappadocia. It is possible that the Phrygian and Lydian Atys may have originated with Atar, Ates, who appears as a local deity in Northern Syria. 2 The divine name Ate is compounded with several names of the sovereigns of Lydia Sandyattes, Alyattes ; and its place as a suffix is in accordance with the formation of theophore names in the idioms of the western Semites. 3 A conspicuous figure in the Lydian legends is that of lardanos, the father of Omphalos, a name which vividly recalls the principal stream of Palestine, Jordan, the river. 4 Instances such as these deserved to be noticed, inasmuch as they suggest conclusions confirmed in full by all we know of Lydian religions. Purely 1 M. Maspero, however, thinks that Chabas erred when he recognized the Maeonians in the list of the " sea -people ; " in his opinion the group of hieroglyphs, the object of the discussion, yield " Iliouna," not Maouna, On the other hand, he is inclined to see, in the oft-cited name of Shardana, the ethnic encountered among the Greeks (who had no she) in the name of Sardes city. 2 Upon the god Ate and the texts in which he figures as one of the elements of a made-up name, see ED. MEYER, Ueber einige semitische Goetter. iii. (Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft, xxxi. pp. 731, 732). Similar names would be formed like Hebrew proper names ending in el Joel, Abimael ; or an abridged form of Jahveh Adonijah, Elijah. 4 The correspondence is due to ED. MEYER, Geschichte des Alterthums, torn. i. 257-