Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/313

 INDUSTRIAL ARTS. 297 Doghanlou Deresi (Fig. 2ii), 1 as compared with the fragments that came out of the tumuli at Bin Tepe (Figs. 178, 179). Fine clothes were part of the "soft vanities" which the wise Greek philosopher, Xenophanes of Colophon, rebuked his countrymen as having learnt of the Lydians. 2 From their neighbours of Sardes, says the poet, "the lonians had borrowed those robes of purple in which they were wont to appear in the agora, those gold orna- ments that glittered in their profusely scented hair. 3 Data such as these suggest the idea of an existence at once luxurious and bril- liant, well calculated to dazzle and charm the Greeks of the coast. It was at Sardes more particularly that they beheld and admired those many-coloured robes, whose elegant and varied designs the vase - painters of a later period were to introduce in their pictures of Oriental and mythical personages, Priam and Paris, Atys and Midas, the Amazons and r i_ i T> -M FIG. 211. Funereal Phrygian couch. Drawn Omphales. Textiles were by o. GuinLme. among the early industrial products that found favour and flourished in Lydia, and, despite the many vicissitudes and political changes that have swept over the country, they have ever continued to be made with taste and success. Sardes was justly proud of her short-nap carpets, for which high prices were paid. 4 At the present day the so-called Smyrna carpets are manufactured at Gherdiz (ancient Gordis) and Ushak, on the Upper Hermus ; that is to say, within the limits of ancient Lydia. Fine beautiful work done by Lydian women was not confined to weaving and embroidery. There were other handicrafts they carried on with equal skill and patient labour. Of these one is incidentally mentioned in the Iliad, where Homer sees the white skin of one of his heroes suddenly stained with blood, and turning 1 The bed in question is found in the tomb described, pp. 121, 122, Figs. 72-74. See Heuzey. 2 Xenophanes, Fr. 3 : 'ASpoo-iWs Se/AafloVres dvax^cXeas Trapa AuSajy (BERGK, Fragm. Lyr, Grcec., torn. ii.). 3 Ilpo^ecrai/ So/o-Kij/xeVoi ras Ko/xas XP V(T< ? *ocr/Aa>, says Athenaeus (xii. p. 526, A). His reading (doubtless after Phylarchus, whose witness he invokes) of Xenophanes's line is thus rendered in our text : au^oAe'ci x at ' r ?7 <rtv ayaAXo/ievot evTrpeTre'co-crtv. 4 They were designated as t/aAoraTris or i/a'AdSaTris (Athenreus, vi. p. 255, E).