Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/395

 TOWNS AND THEIR DEFENCES. 379 sphinx as crowning member, in which we recognize a quadrangular stela, akin to the large Xanthus exemplar surmounted by a sphinx between two lions. 1 The latter bears a bilingual inscription in honour of a descendant of a local magnate, by name Harpagus. What must have contributed to imbue Lycian centres with a pre-eminently singular physiognomy, were those wooden buildings we think to recognize in the sculptured views (Figs. 252, 253). The towns were built upon heights difficult of access. But where the escarps of the rock did not forbid an attempt at an escalade, built walls were resorted to, of which the oldest portions display polygonal masonry. The vast majority of these places, however, must have undergone so many sieges, requiring the defences to be so often repaired, as to make it doubtful whether FIG. 271. Plan of fortress, Pidnai. BENNDORF, fteisen, torn. i. Fig. 75. any portion of the primitive work can be traced below the recon- structions. Xanthus affords an instance of this ; so that to find a unit homogeneous in all its parts, we must fain turn to the ruins of simple fortresses, that have never been touched since the day when they were abandoned. Such would be the enceinte found in a remarkably good condition close to the mouth of the Xanthus river, bearing to the west. It was a fortified castle called Pidnai, 1 Prachow has published by far the best reproduction of the monument under notice, in Antiqtilssima monumenta Xanthiaca, Plate II. Fig. i (fol., St. Petersburg, 1871, two pages of written text and six plates of lithographs).