Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/143

FORMS. I 2 the famous temple at Paphos as it was in the time of the Roman supremacy (Fig. 58). Moreover, in speaking of the Syrian and Phoenician temples, classic authors often mention the tall pillars which rose in couples before the sanctuary. In the temple of Melkart at Gades they were of bronze, eight cubits high, and bore a long inscription. 1 In the shrine of the same deity at Tyre the admiration of Herodotus was stirred by the sight of two shafts, one of pure gold, he says, the other of emerald, that is, of lapis- lazuli or coloured glass. 2 These shafts or steles probably stood in similar places to those occupied, at Jerusalem, by Jachin and Boaz, the two famous bronze columns which rose at the threshold of FIG. 58. Coin of Cyprus. Enlarged. a building also erected by a Phoenician architect. 4 Finally we must recognize forms of the same nature in the two " very large phalluses" erected on the threshold of the temple at Hierapolis, in Upper Syria, where the goddess Atergatis was worshipped. 5 These pillars were perhaps in the beginning emblematic in 1 STRABO, iii. v. 5. 2 HERODOTUS, ii. 44. The historian uses the word o-nyAat, which could hardly be applied to pillars as high as those upon the coin of Paphos. 3 From DONALDSON'S Architectura Nnmismatica. 4 We shall have occasion to return to these columns when we come to speak of Solomon's temple. 5 PsiiUDO-LuciAN, The Syrian Goddess, 16; STRABO, xvi. i. 27.