Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/106

 90 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^a. many weeks at a time it cannot be crossed with safety. The Halys cuts the peninsula into two unequal parts, and was adopted in olden times as the line of demarcation between the Median and Lydian empires. It influenced the ethnology of the country, for it practically kept the races settled on its banks apart. In Cappadocia lived tribes that spoke a Semitic language, and are designated as ** Syrian" by Herodotus, who ascribes a Thracian origin to the Phrygians and the Paphlagonians, more or less intimately connected with the Greeks on the coast.^ A similar division is observable in the respective art of the two races ; with rare exceptions all the monuments encountered east of the Halys bear an Eastern stamp upon them, easily accounted for by military expeditions and momentary conquests. The other rivers which flow through the Olympian range, though of less importance, are interesting from the fact that they are specified in ancient writers. Additional interest attaches to the Thermodon, on whose banks the Greek poets placed the Amazons. Next comes the Iris (leshil-Irmak), which traverses the picturesque town of Amasia (Fig. 292). The Sangarius (Sakara), whose sinuous course through the hills which lie east to west is necessarily slow ; but as soon as it emerges into the broad alluvial plain, it hastens to carry its flood to the Black Sea. Caravans from Constantinople cross this broad level on their way to Angora and Csesarea. Though shorter, the basin of the Ryndacus is of the same nature. At the present day, the routes that connect Asia with Europe have their starting-point and terminus at Constantinople. But formerly Sardes, Smyrna, Ephesus, and Miletus, had equal claims to be considered as intermediaries between the heart of the main- land and the Ionian coast, through the valleys of the Cayster, Hermus, and Maeander. The river valleys on this side are less tortuous than towards the Euxine ; nor do white foamy torrents fall over a succession of precipitous rocks, as in Caria and Lycia. The plateau where the rivers take their sources is barely 800 metres above the sea. They, too, have to fight their way through the rocky belt on the table-land ere they reach narrow channels, which gradually broaden out into valleys of incomparable fertility. This particularly applies to the Maeander and the Lycus, its largest affluent, which rise in the very heart of the ^ Herodotus, loc. cit.