Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/22

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!I PRIMITIVE GREECE MYCENIAN ART. CHAPTER L GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GREEK CIVILIZATION. As to Method and Plan pursued in this History, We successfully traversed the countries, Egypt and Chaldaea, in which a very ancient civilization had its being and flourished, and after many windings reached the foot of the hills of Ears, * where we beheld the Achaemenian kings at work cutting in the live rock the monumental fa9ades of their tombs ; in the train surrounding those Eastern despots, we ascended the ramps leading to lofty platforms on which were raised the pillars and palaces of Susa and Persepolis. Taking breath and looking around us at the end of so long a journey, we are made con- scious of having swept past Greece, as though ignorant of her hard beginnings, then of her swifter progress, of the whole sequence in fact of those efforts by which Hellenic genius, towards the end of the sixth century B.C., came to possess a technique which enabled it to exercise a marked influence on architecture in general, and in a special manner on Persian architecture. This influence was pointed out by us in our volume on Persia, when we strove to gauge its effects. That was however before opportunity had been given us of placing before the reader the monuments of Ionian art, which better than all besides would have justified the opinions therein set forth. We asked to be VOL. L r* B