Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/103

 82 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. fortified posts, their boats would reappear with each returning spring, just as to-day Neapolitan fishermen may be looked for almost to a day on the Algerian coast. As soon as they were sighted on the horizon, the mountaineers from every nook and corner would make for the shore, carrying last years produce, which they hoped to exchange for vases, arms, and implements of every sort. This yearly market-fair went on for days on many a spot along the whole line of coast. Considerations however other than these must be taken into account, in order to grasp how these populations passed from barbarism to polite existence. Although details escape us, we know in a general way, by the effect they exercised on these nations, that violent conflicts and struggles went on for generations, between the natives and warlike bands which repeatedly landed on various points of the Hellenic coasts. In the centuries that went on before the Homeric epoch. Oriental culture too had its Cortezes and Pizarros, men of determined and resolute minds, who, conscious of their superior appliances and armament, took forcible possession of lands which they found to their convenience. Heedless of the small numbers they had with them, their first thought was to build on some height, with huge, unsquared blocks, a stronghold whence they ruled the country far and wide, striking terror into the natives, mingled with somewhat of admiration, but wherein the element of fear was sufficiently strong to make them accept almost with- out demur, mayhap even bringing some sort of simple, joyous alacrity in the obedience which they vowed to these strangers, who appeared, to their inexperienced eyes, gorgeously arrayed, and who furthermore impressed their imaginations with the pomp and circumstance they displayed in their religious festivals. That Egypt may have sent to Hellas exiled chiefs who, when opportunity served, easily turned into conquerors, is not in itself improbable ; but these as a rule hailed from Asia Minor, or that part of it which we have called Eastern Hellas. Such would be Amphion and Zethus, in their twofold character of initiators of the arts in Phrygia and the successors of Cadmus at Thebes ; so too the Prsetidse and Perseidae, the founders of the Argian dynasties, whose relations with Lycia are implied in all the stories told of them. Such above all would be the Tantalidae, who come much nearer to the historical cycle. The Phrygian