Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/18

2 the north-west of Syria, where from the Euphrates to the foot of the Amanus, the land is almost everywhere open to cultivation, and in some places, around Damascus, for instance, it may be ranked among the most fertile in the world. These plains were, doubtless, occupied in very early days by pastoral tribes that found here abundant grass to graze their flocks, the smallest amount of manual labour ensuring comparative ease, almost wealth, for the overflowing of the rivers and winter rains have deposited everywhere a layer of rich soil. The Amanus, notwithstanding its steep rocky sides, and even the snowy-peaked Taurus, have at all times been crossed by numerous passes. Beyond the defiles of the Amanus are not forbidding parallel ranges, as in Kurdistan, which must be successively scaled, but the broad plain of Cilicia; and as soon as the narrow gorges of the Taurus are got over, plateaux covered with vegetation are seen everywhere, presenting an agreeable contrast with the naked aspect of the mountains around, dotted here and there with habitations which testify to the improved conditions of nature. Valleys, as so many roads prepared by nature, intersect these gently undulating plateaux towards the west, yielding easy ascent for the circulating of man and ideas. Owing to this happy combination of circumstances, a civilizing stream must ever have flowed from northern Syria to the mouth of the Hermus and the Mæander, a stream which, although remote from its head source, had sufficient vitality to cross the Ægean without being confounded with its azure waters, causing its shores to blossom forth wherever they were kissed by its flood. Comparative philology, archæology, and numismatics, have enabled modern historians to remove the landmarks of civilization thousands of years further back than was formerly done by the sole light of classic writers. In the early art of Greece, especially Ionia, where native genius first showed itself, were certain elements which it was vaguely felt could not be derived from a Phœnician source, and which indicated that other influences had been at work in bringing about this development. The question, who was the people that had been instrumental in effecting this progress, was not easily answered; for it was evident that this borrowed art was much older than the Eastern empire, which by the conquest of Persia, had extended its limits to the Euxine, the Propontis, and the Ægean. On the other hand, it was well known that the