The Midas of the Midas Tomb can scarcely be the monarch who fell in the darkest hour of his country’s history. Are we to suppose that the king Midas of the tomb was a predecessor of Strabo’s monarch, or a successor? Or are we to suppose with M. Perrot that he was no historic monarch, but a deity, and that the supposed tomb is really rather a shrine? That the monument was really a tomb Mr. Ramsay argues with great force. But its date is more problematic, and we cannot venture in this matter to express an opinion.
According to Mr. Ramsay the tombs guarded by lions are more ancient than those with geometric façades, and go back to quite a remote antiquity. But the opposite opinion, that the geometrical tombs are the older, has found advocates. Between them, the two classes of monuments seem to occupy the period between the eighth century, or earlier, and the age of Croesus and Cyrus.
That there was some not distant relation between the sepulchral art of Phrygia and that of Mycenae cannot be denied. It would however be a mistake hence to leap to the conclusion that the art of Mycenae was of Phrygian origin. It appears that the remains which come to us from Mycenae are earlier by several centuries than those which we find in Phrygia. It might even be suggested that the stream of art flowed rather in the opposite direction, from Mycenae to Phrygia. A more reasonable view, however, is that the art of Phrygia and that of Mycenae were not mother and daughter, but rather cousins, derived alike from some stem of Asiatic art which has yet to be traced out.
More interesting, because more full of human meaning, are the sculptural adornments of the early tombs of the district of Lycia in southern Asia Minor. Early Greek tradition shows a close relation subsisting between Lycia and Peloponnesus. There is a well-known Homeric story which tells how Bellerophon, the descendant of Aeolus, was sent to Lycia by Proetus, who desired that he should there be slain at the hands of the Lycian king, his father-in-law; and how nevertheless Bellerophon prospered in Lycia in all that he undertook, slaying the Chimaera, and overcoming the hosts of Solymi and Amazons. Glaucus, the grandson of Bellerophon, and Diomedes of Argos meet under the walls of Ilium as cousins. And tradition connected the name of the Lycian Cyclopes with the mighty walls of Tiryns and of Mycenae. The genealogies of the legends are no doubt quite untrustworthy, yet they are often confirmed as indications of race by other evidence. And there is, as we shall see, so near an analogy between the monuments of Lycia and those of Peloponnesus that we are obliged to assume between the two countries also some connexion.
When we consider the series of Lycian tombs, which may be studied better in the British Museum than in any other museum of Europe, we find a most interesting blending of Oriental and Greek elements[68]. Their architecture is local; the main feature of it being that it renders directly, in stone and in rock, forms which are clearly in origin wooden. Everywhere we see the square beam as it were petrified. In the roof of the ordinary Greek temple we see that the forms were thought out while the building material was still wood, and only modified when stone took the place of beams. In the Lycian tombs this feature is still more notable, because the Lycian architects lacked the nimbleness of the Greek intellect, and were more conservative of settled forms. The sculptures which adorn these curious constructions have also local elements, but in this field the art of Ionia comes in as a controlling force in the sixth century, rendering the native customs and beliefs in forms to which the student of Greek art is accustomed. It may be that our familiarity with the forms and style of the sculpture in some degree misleads us. When we know the words of a language we sometimes too hastily think that we are masters of its thought. The religion and the customs of Lycia may resemble those of Greece less closely than the monuments would lead us to think. But in ancient times art influenced custom as well as custom art. In the present state of our knowledge we cannot regard the early monuments of Lycia as outside the pale of Greek art.
There are indeed, as M. Perrot has well shown, among Lycian archaic monuments a few which seem to precede the Ionic influence. Such is the square chest of the British Museum[69], on one side of which is a lion strangling an ox, on another side a lioness with her cubs, on the third a man slaying a lion, and on the fourth a group of horsemen and warriors on foot. The lion-slayer in particular takes our thoughts not to Greece but to Egypt and Assyria. Many of the tombs which do show Ionic influence are not suggestive in the present connexion. Their sculptural adornment is such as we might expect to find as soon on a temple as on a tomb; satyrs, animals, sphinxes and the like. We will here consider only a few monuments, the sculpture of which seems to be really sepulchral in character.
Incomparably the most interesting of the archaic grave-monuments of the Xanthus valley is the beautiful tomb called the Harpy Monument, the reliefs of which now adorn the British Museum, having been brought thither by Sir Charles Fellows. When complete the tomb was in the form of a square tower of masonry about twenty feet high, which was surmounted by a small chamber, wherein doubtless in ancient times lay the bodies of those to whose honour the whole was erected, together with the riches heaped around their biers. This chamber reminds us of the tomb of Cyrus, as described by Arrian[70]. ‘Below,’ writes Arrian, ‘it was built of squared masonry in the form of a four-sided tower, on which was a chamber roofed with stone, having a narrow door to it, through which a man of no great stature could with pain and difficulty pass. In the chamber stood a golden coffin wherein was buried the body of Cyrus, and beside the coffin a couch with feet of beaten gold, whereon was laid a coverlet of Babylonian carpets, and below purple rugs. On these was placed a candys and other garments of Babylonian workmanship: also Median trousers and robes of hyacinth dye, some of purple, some of other colours; and torques and swords, and gold earrings set with stones.’
Similar, though no doubt less splendid, may have been the contents of the Harpy Tomb; and it is noteworthy that in it also there is a small opening at the side, intended not for the entrance of men, but either for admission of dues of food and drink, or more probably to give free ingress and egress to the ghosts of the dead. The Persians and the Lycians must have been of kindred stocks; and we may well suppose that their burial customs would be similar.
The reliefs which decorate the outer faces of the Harpy Tomb are among the most charming memorials of antiquity. In spite of a certain crudity and poverty in design, which is discovered on a close inspection, the style in its elegant and graceful conventionality is very attractive. And the difficulty which exists in the identification of the figures of the reliefs, and the determination of their meaning, adds an intellectual fascination to that which is aesthetic. (See [Fig. 27].)
On the side which faces the west we find the door already mentioned, over which is a figure of a cow suckling her calf. At the two ends sit, face to face, two dignified female figures. They are clad alike in the Ionian dress with long sleeves, but in attributes they differ. The figure to the left holds a vessel of offerings; a sphinx supports the arm of her chair; she is severe in type and solitary. The figure to the right holds in her two hands flower and fruit; the bar of her chair ends in a ram’s head. Three votaries approach her, whereof the first is busy with her drapery, the second carries flower and fruit, the third bears an egg. It is clear that the lady on the right is more approachable; her flower and fruit, and the ram’s head, all symbolize the genial abundance of life in nature. The libation-vessel of the lady to the left, and her sphinx, seem to belong to the grave rather than to life.