Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/289

 ARCHITECTURE. 273 of the mattress, the " rays " of which are partly green and partly red. The drawing of these stars is inaccurate and bad, and indications of hurry, we might say precipitation, are patent every- where. But all the same, the design and ornament of this piece of furniture bespeak the frank and firm treatment of a late period. On the other hand, no tombs with Greek inscriptions have been discovered in this plain. The Hellenicized Sardes of the Achae- menidse, of the Seleucidse, and of the kings of Pergamus, had her cemeteries closer at hand. In Bin Tepe we have the ancient Lydian necropolis, that in which the heads of the great families had wished to repose beside their kings ; but there are no data to warrant the supposition that, as time went on, people continued to be buried there. Con- sequently we may regard these tombs as anterior to the defeat of Croesus ; the more recent would date from the first half of the sixth century B.C. This hypothesis is not belied by the style of the mouldings, or the aspect of the many fragments picked up during the excavations in this field of the dead. The tumuli situate near Lake Colose were not the sole instances to be found in this district. A fragmentary text of Hipponax, unfortunately very much corrupted, describes a number of similar monuments, which the traveller met with on the road to Smyrna leading across the Lydian territory. 1 If we suppose the above highway to be that which ran from Ephesus to Smyrna (Hipponax was a native of the former city), we might recognize as one of the tumuli specified by the poet that to which a great expert in matters relating to this region has drawn the attention of the learned world. 2 It stands about two miles northward of Ephesus, in the 1 Hipponax, Frag. 15 (BERGK, Pcette lyrid Graci, torn. iii). 2 G. WEBER, Tumulus et hieron de c/evi, sur Fancienne route (TEphese a Sardes, T FK;. 179. Funereal bed, with painted ornaments. Choisy, Plate XIJI. A.