Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/274

 258 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. CHAPTER II. ART IN LYDIA. ARCHITECTURE. WHEN we described the necropolis and the tumuli in the neigh- bourhood of Smyrna, it was with a certain degree of hesitancy that we connected the above monuments with the quasi-fabulous monarchy of the Tantalidse. 1 We feel no such embarrassment when we try to fix the origin and approximate date of the cognate tombs of the necropolis near Sardes, called Bin Tepe (the Thousand Mounds). The kings of Sardes had their sepulchres on the farther side of the Hermus, to the northward of the town and close to it (Fig. 157). The monuments were still pointed out to travellers in the day of Herodotus and Strabo. The descriptions of the site, form, and dimensions of these tombs by ancient writers, are sufficiently near reality to have enabled modern explorers to identify them. In a remarkable passage that will bear repetition, Herodotus has the following : 2 "In Lydia is seen a work much superior to those we admire else- where (I would, nevertheless, except the monuments of the Egyp- tians and the Babylonians) ; it is the tomb of Alyattes, the father of Crcesus. The wall around it consists of large stones, and the rest is of earth heaped up. It was erected at the expense of mer- chants who retail on the market-place, of craftsmen and courtesans. Five termini, put on the top of the monument, were extant in my time, and inscriptions indicated the share which each of the three classes had had in the building. Measurements show that the portion of the courtesans was far the largest, because every one of the girls in the country of the Lydians practises prostitution ; 1 See pp. 48-53. 2 Herodotus, i. 93.