Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/114

 98 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud^a. Thus, following the main streams of the peninsula — the Halys, the Sangarius, the Hermus, and the Maeander — may be traced the history of the three nations that succeeded each other in this sphere. The Greeks took the same route, but reversed it in their conquests of the East under Thymbrohus, Dercyllidas, Clearcus, Agesilas, and Alexander. But such expeditions savoured of re- connaissances, of brilliant marches, rather than permanent settle- ments, and therefore left scarcely any traces. It was reserved for the kings of Pergamus, Bithynia, and Pontus to spread every- where, penetrate every corner, and bring about the complete transformation of the country. Secluded tracts in the upper valleys of the Taurus, Pisidia, and the inhospitable fastnesses of Isauria, were in the hands of free- booters, who remained strangers to the movement and the in- fluences that had been at work on the table land. They built their castles on rocky heights, whence they sallied forth to lay waste the neighbourhood or despoil caravans ; and until the Romans put a stop to their depredations they were the terror of the rural populations of Pamphylia and Cilicia. This applies with equal force to the wooded hilly range towards the Euxine and the higher slopes of the Olympian Mountains. No inscription, no sculpture or monument, has been discovered to enable us to judge of the civilization of the early inhabitants of this part of Asia Minor. That the country was occupied by mere savages we know on the testimony of Xenophon, who, after the death of Cyrus in the battle at Cunaxa, was obliged to march his army back across the lofty ranges of Kurdistan and Armenia; when leaving in his rear the narrow strip on the coast held by colonists from Miletus, his way led through the region occupied by the tribes in question. These, adds the historian, were the most barbarous the army had encountered ; they had no cities, and lived in open hamlets built of unsquared timber and rough planks.^ This state of affairs lasted down to the Greek and Roman occupation, when native princes — Nicomedes, Prusias, Pharnaces, Mithridates — imbued with Hellenism tried to introduce a taste for culture among their rude subjects. The Solymi or Lycians occupied the southern slopes of the Taurus. Here, amid the grandeur of mountain chains which stretch close up to the sea, they were alike cut off from the movements and the disturbances of the ^ Xenophon, Anabasis, V. iv. 30-34. Cf. V. ii. 5, 25-27.