Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/317

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LYDIAN CIVILIZATION. 301 Arcesilas. In time the Mermnadae would have acquired on the east of the ^gean Sea a situation analogous to that which the Philips and the Alexanders won for themselves on the north of this same sea. All that would have been required of a Mermnad prince, to be accepted on equal terms into the body of the Hellenic nation, would have been to trump up a pedigree connecting him with the mythic lover of Omphales, or some equally famous hero. Had history taken that turn, the world would have been given the spectacle of an Asiatic Macedon, in which the great natural gifts of the Hellenic race, her energy and intelligence, her love of liberty, which had been fostered by municipal franchise of long standing, all would have been placed at the service of a great military power. Greek culture would have spread to the Halys, and perhaps beyond the Taurus range, two hundred years earlier than it actually did.