Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/329

 276 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. ward, where he kept his ground for centuries on the wooded ranges of Pindus, Olympus, and Pangieus. When, after the Macedonian conquest, Hellenic civilization penetrated this region far and wide, the animal had no choice except to retire. But if FlU. 397.— GoH during the Medic wars he still infested the Thracian champaigns, why should he not, seven or eight centuries earlier, have had his home in the thickets of Taygetus, Menelaus, and Cyllen^E, where the climate is warmer than in Thrace ? The difference Fio. 398. — Ivory plaque. Length, o of temperature between Peloponnesus and the upper valleys of the Scamander, Caysler, and Mteander is very slight indeed. This brings us back to our first proposition, namely, that the lion type was not borrowed by the Mycenian artist from Oriental wares, for then he would have imitated it on trust,