Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/55

 34 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. great body, intense life was found towards the heart, whence the blood flowed to the extremities, then returned to the centre to purify itself and take up such nourishing elements as made up the life and individuality of the race, imparting thereto its superior energy. It had all the mobility of that migratory wave which had sown Greek colonists in every nook and corner of the Mediterranean, but ever brought them back to the elder country, the road to which they had no wish to forget. This was not all. That sea enabled the Hellenes to continue their existence as a compact nation, despite obstacles and distances which parted them from one another ; through that sea also had formerly come from the East the germs of civilization, the rites and images of deities whose public worship was destined to gather men together and make them more sociable, together with writing, metals, tools, and the processes attending the chief practical arts. The sea, and the sea alone, had put the Greek tribes in touch with the great empires of Africa and Asia, and guarded them whilst still young and weak against foreign encroachments. Relations engendered by way of the sea are suggestive rather than oppressive. The sea favours long and frequent visits, but does not lend itself kindly to invading enterprises. No great danger was to be dreaded from the Delta, in that Egypt never became a maritime power ; whilst the dominion of Chaldaea and Assyria was not carried, at least permanently, as far as the Mediterranean. With regard to the Phoenicians, the object of their European expeditions was one of lucre rather than of conquest ; if they rise to more ambitious designs, it will be later and in another quarter, the West. The Persian empire alone will launch naval squadrons for the subjection of Hellas ; but when the threatening storm shall burst upon her, she will have reached full manhood ; she will be able to oppose Xerxes with a navy commanded by Themistocles. It is further to the south that rises the northern front of the fortified enclosure behind whose shelter the Greek tribes en- camped themselves, and by the help of which they so long checked the enemy's advance ; it is formed by the mountains fencing in Thessaly, whose ramifications cover the whole surface of Epirus and Western Greece. The principal gate pierced in this wall is the vale of Tempe, which is flanked by two enormous bastions, Olympus and Ossa. From Olympus, whose base dips into