Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/542

Gknkral Charactkristics of thk Mvckniax Pkrioi). 485 and lends itself to receive the dead. If, as held by antiquity, the Phrygians are of Thracian origin, they would naturally have taken with them, in their transit to Asia Minor, their ancient mode of sepulture ; and the style would have been retained by a Phrygian dynasty when it crossed over and settled in European Hellas. Here the building expanded in the hands of more skilful masons, and from Mycenae spread all over the peninsula. It is a specious conjecture, in that it accounts for the introduction of a mode of sepulture into Peloponnesus not likely to have been suggested by the nature of the ground. Another hypothesis ascribes the construction of the Argolic citadels, and the invention of the style we have called Mycenian, to the Carians.^ The ancients, it is argued, related that the Carians were a war-like and sea-faring people ; that in concert with the Leleges they had once occupied the most part of the islands, and many a spot on the coast of the Hellenic peninsula. According to Herodotus, no nationality could measure their strength with the Carians in the days of Minos. Does not this manifold information authorize us to consider them as the inventors of a style whose most distinct and quaintest forms are derived from the maritime fauna ? Remembering their peculiar mode of life, all we have to urge against the theory is that the Minyi and Pelasgi, the lonians and Achaeans, spread likewise along the brinks of bays and sounds, and sailed their barques quite as often and as far as the Carians ; that when the latter were driven back towards the east by the former, and massed themselves in the region to which they gave their name, they neither elaborated an architecture or sculpture of their own. Nevertheless, this people, during its brief passage on the European side, is credited with the creation of an incomplete and unequal art no doubt, yet instinct with power and sincerity ; even though when domiciled in a land where everything combined to favour and stimulate intellectual activity, it was struck with irremedi- able sterility ! Would not the phenomenon be passing strange and unaccountable ? ^ The hypothesis in question has been advanced by U. Kohler, Uelfer der Zeit und den Ursprung der Grabanlagen in Mykencp, The theory is accepted by Diimmler and Studniczka, but they refuse to see Achaeans in the lords of Mycenae {Athenische Mittheilungen : Zur Herkunft der Mykenischer Kulttir).