Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/287

 General Characteristics of Hittite Civilization. 269 their own against the best-disciplined troops then known. They may also have considered that the advantages which would accrue to them, in accepting Hittite supremacy, would far outweigh the disadvantages attached thereto. As their allies, nothing would be easier than to carry their predatory expeditions into the very heart of the delta, whose wealth rumour had brought to them swelled into fabulous proportions. Then, too, through Hittite agency they would be able to procure objects of a useful or ornamental character, the need of which becomes indispensable to the merest savage, as soon as he has learnt their use. On the other hand, the country, from its size and newness, was too valuable a prize to be easily relinquished by the invaders.^ And what better means could be devised than to settle in the land where their interests could be watched over without intermission ? Multitudinous villages, be it on rising ground or hill-tops, were doubtless erected during this early period in Lycaonia and Cappa- docia, which they generally strengthened with cyclopaean walls. The district in which the Hittites seem to have thrown out the deepest roots was certainly Pteria, evidenced in the number and character of the monuments they have left behind them ; for nowhere did their constructive and artistic skill soar higher than at Boghaz- Keui and lasili-Kaia. The natural conditions of the country enabled the Pterians or Western Hittites almost from the outset to assume an independent attitude. Broad masses of snow-capped mountains interposed between them and their Syrian kinsmen ; hence, during several months of the year, help was not to be looked for, nor interference apprehended from that quarter. Nevertheless, friendly relations of the most intimate kind were kept up between the two groups in the long period of their struggle with Egypt. When the hands of the latter, however, were engaged in quelling inward turmoils, which obliged her to renounce distant conquests, each tribe, relieved of the fear of sudden attacks, fell away from the mutual bond which had kept them together, in pursuance of a policy as selfish as it was short-sighted. Although this is mere inference, it seems to be confirmed from the fact that we only find the name of the Hittites of the Naharana in the inscriptions of Nineveh recording the victories of the Assyrians, the remaining tribes having apparently kept aloof ftom the general strife. The
 * The same hypothesis is set forth in a very able paper by E. Meyer, entitled,
 * JCappadokien," published in Ersch and Griiber's Encyclopaedia.