Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/54

HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. lamanlar-Dagh lacks boldness of outline, afforded by precipitous cliffs and steep ravines ; but from its long fretted line of crest, innumerable spurs run out towards the south, west, and east in curious fan-like fashion, seeming to invite the pedestrian to ascend their gentle declivity (Fig. 8). The summits may be stony and bare ; but the slopes have enough vegetable soil, notably in the ravines, where the moisture drained from the mountains 5 to FIG. 7. Map of Sipylus. CURTIUS, Beitrage, Plate IV. lasts for many a month, to enable the farmer to grow corn, vines, olive, and other fruit-bearing trees. The western side, therefore, was marked out by nature to shelter from the earliest days a compact group, brought thither by proximity of a clement, unruffled sea, and a soil naturally productive. Consequently, here and here alone can we expect to find traces of a long settlement, with all that the term implies. The oldest structures must of necessity occur on the summit ; but, as the conditions of life improved, they would gradually spread down the slopes on to the flat level around Bournabat, where the primitive tribe finally settled.