In the early Hellenic Age, on the other hand, we have to note considerable Mesopotamian influence on Greek culture, and, at the same time, certain evidence of counter influence, both sub-Ægean and Græco-Lydian, on Mesopotamia, which is as yet not fully understood. But whether both or either of these respective influences were transmitted through the Hittite civilisation is still very doubtful. The Egyptian influence on archaic Anatolia, especially on Rhodes, and even on the Greek mainland, seems clearly to have come by way of the sea; and considering the part which the Phœnicians had been playing for some time previously as transmitters of things eastern, there is a probable alternative westward route for Mesopotamian influence also. In Cyprus, at any rate, this influence, which at a certain period has left strong traces, certainly came for the most part through the western Semites. The claim of the Hittites, however, is not to be denied altogether. Their script seems undoubtedly to have been the parent of the Lycian and other local Anatolian systems. Phrygian art and writing attest Græco-Lydian influence inland; Ionian culture was certainly not unaffected by the Lydian in which many students recognise a western offshoot of the Hittite; and there are a few features in Ionian cult and in cult representations which seem to be owed rather to the religious system of the central plateau than to that native to the Ægean area. In this state of suspense we must leave the question, adding only these final remarks, that Greek tradition itself ascribed some of the arts and luxuries of its civilisation—for example, the coining of money—to Lydian invention, and also affiliated to Lydia a whole western culture, that of Etruria; while it is an undoubted fact that a Mesopotamian standard of weight-currency travelled to the Ægean, and thence affected all western commerce, but by what channel we do not certainly know. There is an unknown quantity in all this problem—viz., Lydia. We have reason to suspect the latter of a considerable influence on early Hellenic civilisation, both as creator and transmitter, but must await further evidence.
The part played by the Phœnicians in transmitting influences of civilisation from East to West is far more certain, and is now much better understood than it was a few years ago. Much vague exaggeration of it has been swept away by recent demonstration that there is practically nothing of probable Phœnician origin in the remains of the Ægean culture. The script of the latter is wholly independent; the typical Phœnician vehicles of glyptic art, the cylinder and the scarab, were never naturalised in the early Ægean; the whole path of the latter’s artistic development was distinct; and the Ægean religious representations, once regarded as Semitic, are now seen to be native. On the other hand, decadent and derived Ægean forms and motives appear among the earliest Phœnician known to us. Influence, if it passed at all, between the Ægean and the Syrian coast lands, in the prehistoric age, moved from west to east.
Origin of Our Written Language
In short, we now know that the Phœnicians did not begin to spread over the western sea and influence Europe till the break up of the Ægean civilisation. The Homeric lays and Hellenic myths reflect the inception of a Semitic expansion, which must be placed after 1100 B.C. Even in Homer there is more mention of Greek ships than of Sidonian, and the Tyrian power is yet to come. The latter pushed westward later, and the founding of Carthage, usually dated in the eighth century, marks its first great achievement along those distant sea-routes, which certainly the Semites had been coming to know during a couple of centuries of huckstering trade, even if the dependence of the early Hellenes on Phœnician knowledge of these waters has been overrated. But, in any case, during the interval between the fall of Ægean power and the rise of the Hellenic maritime cities these Semites counted for much. Even in the light of Cretan discovery, we need not question their responsibility for the Greek alphabet, and thus, indirectly, for the ultimate medium of written communication used throughout European civilisation; nor need it be doubted that Hellenic writers, who trace early instruction in trade and barter to visits of Semitic ships to their coasts, show real, though limited, knowledge of fact. Phœnician factories were certainly established on Greek shores, and left Semitic forms among later Greek place-names; and it is quite possible that political power was exercised at one time by Semitic colonists in parts of Hellas. Sufficient Phœnician art products have been found on archaic Hellenic sites, to prove that, in the period between 1000 and 500 B.C., the Ægean coasts were often visited by these Semites. Such objects are especially numerous in Rhodes, a convenient stage on the westward sea route, and they radiate over not only Ionia and the Hellenic lands, but also into the further Mediterranean, to Sicily and its neighbouring islands, to Italy and South Gaul, and to Sardinia and Spain. Carthage probably had much to say in their western distribution.
ÆNEAS AND DIDO: THE QUEEN OF CARTHAGE LISTENING TO THE STORY OF THE SIEGE OF TROY
From the Painting by P. Guerin, in the Louvre.
LARGER IMAGE