Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/316

 300 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. stupendous difficulties overcome, as a certain class of pieces that wring our admiration at the way the engraver managed to intro- duce in so limited a space an image which, however reduced, is endowed with a breadth only to be found in the noblest statue. We marvel how, with so feeble a relief, he was able to put every feature in its plan, and faithfully render the modelling of the face, the roundness of the living form. If of a truth we are right and we think we are in believing that to the practical and ingenious mind of the Lydians we are indebted for an invention that was forthwith taken up by the Greeks, in whose hands types created by statuary were multiplied and sown broadcast, this is sufficient reason why history should be interested in the Lydian people, and should feel in duty bound carefully to seek and describe the scanty remains of their civilization. Nor is this the only thing which entitles Lydia to be considered as worthy of solicitous regard. The phenomena we have observed in Phrygia are likewise manifested here, but with much greater intensity. We allude to the ascendency which, towards the end of the seventh century B.C., the genius of Hellas began to exercise over that Asia of which she had at first and for centuries been the client and disciple, when, with a sudden reversing of the parts, she not only carried her interference on the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, but some way inland as well, and penetrated with each succeeding age further into the interior of a continent her hosts were to conquer under the leadership of Alexander. If the action of Hellenic civilization was felt with even greater energy within the boundaries of Lydia than in those of Phrygia, it was because Sardes is closer to the sea than Pessinus and Ancyra, because contact between Lydians and lonians was direct and uninterrupted, and mutual intercourse more rapid and intimate. Whilst monarchical Lydia, by sheer superiority of arms, reduced the lonians to a state of vassalage, these turned the tables upon their masters and morally subdued the kingdom. When Crcesus fell, he was on the point of declaring himself a Greek prince ; he was already in the enjoyment of the rights belonging to a Delphian citizen, 1 and had he lived, he would, doubtless, have obtained the privilege of sending his horses to run the races at the great public games of Greece, and Pindar would have celebrated the victories of one of his successors, as he did those of Gelon, Hiero, and 1 Herodotus, i. 54.