Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/319

 HISTORY OF THE CARIANS. 303 yore by the Carians. It was a coast whose every winding formed a safe anchorage, whilst behind each jutting cape or slit in the mountain, were narrow creeks in which the mariner could find shelter, and when all was snug the crew could drop on .the fine sanded beach. Caria was conquered by the Mermnadse, and became a mere dependency of Lydia ; before the fortune of war, however, had brought about the reunion of the twin nations, the kinship existing between them had been fully recognized. Thus, when the Carians were asked as to their origin, they told Herodotus that their ancestors, as those of the Lydians and Mysians, were brothers of the respective names of Car, Lydos, and Mysos. It was owing to this primitive affinity, they said, that the Lydians were permitted to pay homage to their national deity on the same footing as themselves. 1 The god in question, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus, was worshipped under the name of Labrayndos, Labraundeus, Labradenos, near Mylasa, where he had a temple. The qualificative was not a local proper name, but derived from Xa/8pi5, the Lydian word for "axe," which he carried in his hand (see tail-piece, end of chapter). 2 Proper Carian appellatives, whether of individuals or places, have naught that is Semitic about them ; 3 nor are the few common nouns preserved in the glossaries of lexicographers to be explained 1 Herodotus, i. 171; Strabo, XIV. ii. 23. 2 AuSot Xd/3pvv rov TreAe/cw 6vo/xaou(ri (PLUTARCH, Gr. Questions, 45). Many other words are put forward as common to Lydian and Carian, or at least sufficiently near one to another as to yield, when submitted to analysis, identical roots (see glosses bearing upon yov<s, thief; Mao-apis, or Mapcrapis, a surname of Dionysios among the Carians, which appears to be a dialectical variant of the Lydian Bacro-apeus ; Kai/r//3tov, " dog-city," a Carian centre, with the initial *av is likewise found with the same signification, in the Lydian name KavBavX^. The double-edged axe often appears engraved, as a kind of coat of arms, above the Greek inscription of Caria (Bull, de corr. hell., xi. p. 310). 3 See the list drawn up by Haussullier (Bull, de corr. hell., 1880, iv. pp. 315- 320) and Sayce (" The Karian Language and Inscriptions," Trans. Bibl. and Arches. Soc., vol. ix. part i., 1887). The only local Carian name that looks Semitic is that applied to Mount Cadmos, rising to the eastward of the Maeander valley. In the first syllable may be easily recognized kadem, east. We can well understand how the Phoenicians, as they ran along the coast of the ygean, on the tract of their counting-houses and mines, should so have designated a conspicuous landmark bounding their horizon in the east. The fact that the appellation has survived them may have been due to the natives having caught it up of the Phoenicians, with whom they were in perpetual intercourse.