Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/272

 2 4 6 A History of Art in Sardinia and Judala. aspect, contrary to those met with in Egyptian temples, which are always back to back. 1 It was a favourite device with the Eastern artist, who applied it indifferently on marble, stone, metal, and tissues. The Greeks adopted it from the earliest times, and through them it passed to the West. But in their hands, as with every- thing they touched, it acquired an elegance of outline, vigour, and finish such as had been unknown to the land of its birth. With palms and kerdbs were associated vege- tables, flowers, and leafage, the latter wreathed or festooned about cornice and ceiling. 2 After the exile, forms derived from the vegetable kingdom were alone tolerated by Jewish puritanism. Did we require information on the subject, the countless coins dating from Fig. 154. — Bronze Coin struck under Yad- dous, tempore Alexander the Great. De SaULCY, Numismatique Juive, Plate I. fig. 6. Fig. 155.— Bronze Coin of Jonathan, 142 before our era. De Saulcy, Numis. juive, Plate II. fig. 12. Fig. 156. — Bronze Coin of the Maccabees. De Saulcy, Numis. Juive, Plate III. fig. 10. the Maccabees downwards, as well as the tombs around Jerusalem, would be sufficient proof of this important fact. We should be guilty of anachronism were we to introduce into the temple of Ezekiel, without modification, such subjects as are Fig. 157. — Bronze Coin of Herod Archelaits. De Saulcy, Numis. Juive, Plate VII. fig- 5- Fig. 158. — Bronze Coin of a Roman Procurator, tempore Augustus. De Saulcy, Numis. Juive, Plate VIII. fig. 2. viewed in Figs. 154-158, or the still more elaborate scrolls, cones, clustering acorns and grapes of Fig. 159 (now in the Louvre), which shows a considerable advance on its predecessors, instinct too with grace, elegance, and finish, not to be found in the earlier examples, but all belonging to the Greek and Roman period. 1 Hist, of Art, torn. ii. pp. 747, 748. 2 1 Kin°s vi. 29.