Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/115

 Boundaries, Climate, and Natural Divisions. 99 mainland or their immediate neighbours, whom they surpassed in all relations of civil life ; whilst they were at least their equals in courage, patriotism, and knowledge of the sea. . The origin of the Lycians is exceedingly obscure ; yet it is generally allowed that, after the Hittites, they were the first to make use of writing. The antiquity of their alphabet is shown from the fact that, besides some Phoenician letters, it contains characters which closely resemble certain cursive Hittite signs, leading to the inference that it was older than the Phrygian. Monumental writing is the forerunner of the art of drawing; it leads naturally to sculpture and architecture. As might be expected, therefore, monuments encountered here, of which more anon, are in greater abundance and centuries older than those of the interior. The reason for this is not far to seek ; the southern coast (Cilicia, Caria, etc.) was among the first visited by the Phoenicians ; it was early in the hands of tribes originally akin to the Greeks, and their intercourse with the coasts of the Archipelago was much more frequent than with the nations of Asia. Their vessels crossed the inland sea and reached Egypt as early as Psammeticus ; yet nothing remains to attest their primitive history, save occasional inscribed characters in the face of stout walls crowning hill- tops. As a people of pirates, they swooped down to desolate the coasts ; and their daring expeditions were remembered in Greek legends, which conceived them as a rude, barbarous race. Such glimmerings were older than history itself; vaguely conscious too that the impetus to a higher phase of life had not come through the "wet paths " but over inland routes, with Babylon, Nineveh, and many cities of the peninsula as starting-points, but whose names were often changed in antiquity, making their identity in sundry instances almost impossible. This wave, which never ceased, penetrated distant Sardes in the south, and Ephesus and Miletus ; and the connection between the various points was fruitful and intimate. To give but an instance of the inventive genius on the one side, and of the transforming aptitude on the other, the honour of having first struck coined money is generally ascribed to the Lydians ; but in the hands of the Greeks, who borrowed the craft from them, coins became beautiful as well as useful. At the outset, by the employment of three metals instead of one, they created divisionary specie, and facilitated commercial operations in a marvellous way. Moreover, the endless variety of types and