HITTITE RELIGION AND ART.
Lucian, or some other Greek writer who has usurped his name, has left us
a minute account of the great temple of Mabog as it existed in the
second century of the Christian era. Mabog, as we have seen, was the
successor of Carchemish; and there is little reason to doubt that the
pagan temple of Mabog, with all the rites and ceremonies that were
carried on in it, differed but little from the pagan temple of the older
Carchemish.
It stood, we are told, in the very centre of the 'Holy City.' It
consisted of an outer court and an inner sanctuary, which again
contained a Holy of Holies, entered only by the high-priest and those of
his companions who were 'nearest the gods.' The temple was erected on an
artificial mound or platform, more than twelve feet in height, and its
walls and ceiling within were brilliant with gold. Its doors were also
gilded, but the Holy of Holies or innermost shrine was not provided with
doors, being separated from the rest of the building, it would seem,
like the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple, by a curtain or veil. On
either side of the entrance was a cone-like column of great height, a
symbol of the goddess of fertility, and in the outer court a large altar
of brass. To the left of the latter was an image of 'Semiramis,' and not
far off a great 'sea' or 'lake,' containing sacred fish. Oxen, horses,
eagles, bears, and lions were kept in the court, as being sacred to the
deities worshipped within.
On entering the temple the visitor saw on his left the throne of the
Sun-god, but no image, since the Sun and Moon alone of the gods had no
images dedicated to them. Beyond, however, were the statues of various
divinities, among others the wonder-working image of a god who was
believed to deliver oracles and prophecies. At times, it was said, the
image moved of its own accord, and if not lifted up at once by the
priests, began to perspire. When the priests took it in their hands, it
led them from one part of the temple to the other, until the
high-priest, standing before it, asked it questions, which it answered
by driving its bearers forward. The central objects of worship, however,
were the golden images of two deities, whom Lucian identifies with the
Greek Hera and Zeus, another figure standing between them, on the head
of which rested a golden dove. The goddess, who blazed with precious
stones, bore in her hand a sceptre and on her head that turreted or
mural crown which distinguishes the goddesses of Boghaz Keui. Like them,
moreover, she was supported on lions, while her consort was carried by
bulls. In him we may recognise the god who at Boghaz Keui is advancing
to meet the supreme Hittite goddess.
In the Egyptian text of the treaty between Ramses and the king of
Kadesh, the supreme Hittite god is called Sutekh, the goddess being
Antarata, or perhaps Astarata. In later days, however, the goddess of
Carchemish was known as Athar-'Ati, which the Greeks transformed into
Atargatis and Derketo. Derketo was fabled to be the mother of Semiramis,
in whom Greek legend saw an Assyrian queen; but Semiramis was really
the goddess Istar, called Ashtoreth in Canaan, and Atthar or Athar by
the Arameans, among whom Carchemish was built. Derketo was, therefore,
but another form of Semiramis, or rather but another name under which
the great Asiatic goddess was known. The dove was sacred to her, and
this explains why an image of the dove was placed above the head of the
third image in the divine triad of Mabog.
The temple was served by a multitude of priests. More than 300 took part
in the sacrifices on the day when Lucian saw it. The priests were
dressed in white, and wore the skull-cap which we find depicted on the
Hittite monuments. The high-priest alone carried on his head the lofty
tiara, which the sculptures indicate was a prerogative of gods and
kings. Prominent among the priests were the Galli or eunuchs, who on the
days of festival cut their arms and scourged themselves in honour of
their deities. Such actions remind us of those priests of Baal who 'cut
themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood
gushed out upon them.'
Twice a year a solemn procession took place to a small chasm in the rock
under the temple, where, it was alleged, the waters of the deluge had
been swallowed up, and water from the sea was poured into it. It is to
this pit that Melito, a Christian writer of Syria, alludes when he says
that the goddess Simi, the daughter of the supreme god Hadad, put an end
to the attacks of a demon by filling with sea water the pit in which he
lived. But in Lucian's time the demon was regarded as the deluge, and
the account of the deluge given to the Greek writer agrees so closely
with that which we read in Genesis as to make it clear that it had been
borrowed by the priests of Hierapolis from the Hebrew Scriptures. It is
probable, however, that the tradition itself was of much older standing,
and had originally been imported from Babylonia. At all events the hero
of the deluge was called Sisythes, a modification of the name of the
Chaldæan Noah, while Major Conder found a place in the close
neighbourhood of Kadesh which is known as 'the Ark of the Prophet Noah,'
and close at hand a spring termed the Tannur or 'Oven,' out of which,
according to Mohammedan belief, the waters of the flood gushed forth.
But there were many other festivals at Mabog besides that which
commemorated the subsidence of the deluge. Pilgrims flocked to it from
all parts--Arabia, Palestine, Kappadokia, Babylonia, even India. They
were required to drink water only, and to sleep on the ground. Numerous
and rich were the offerings which they brought to the shrine, and once
arrived there were called upon to offer sacrifices. Goats and sheep were
the most common victims, though oxen were also offered. The only animal
whose flesh was forbidden to be either sacrificed or eaten was the
swine; as among the Jews, it was regarded as unclean. After being
dedicated in the court of the temple the animal was usually led to the
house of the offerer, and there put to death; sometimes, however, it was
killed by being thrown from the entrance to the temple. Even children
were sacrificed by their parents in this way, after first being tied up
in skins and told that they were 'not children but oxen.'
Different stories were current as to the foundation of the temple. There
were some who affirmed that Sisythes had built it after the deluge over
the spot where the waters of the flood had been swallowed up by the
earth. It is possible that this was the legend originally believed in
Mabog before the traditions of Carchemish had been transferred to it. It
seems to be closely connected with the local peculiarities of the site.
The other legends had doubtless had their origin in the older
Hierapolis. According to one of them, the temple had been founded by
Semiramis in honour of her mother Derketo, half woman and half fish, to
whom the fish in the neighbouring lake were sacred. Another account made
Attys its founder, and the goddess to whom it was dedicated the divinity
called Rhea by the Greeks.
Derketo and Rhea, however, are but different names of the same deity,
who was known as Kybelê or Kybêbê in Phrygia, and honoured with the
title of 'the Great Mother.' Her images were covered with breasts, to
symbolise that she was but mother-earth, from whom mankind derived their
means of life. Her attributes were borrowed from those of the Babylonian
Istar, the Ashtoreth of Canaan; even the form assigned to her was that
of the Babylonian Istar, as we learn from a bas-relief discovered at
Carchemish, where she is represented as naked, a lofty tiara alone
excepted, with the hands upon the breasts and a wing rising behind each
shoulder. She was, in fact, a striking illustration of the influence
exerted upon the Hittites, and through them upon the people of Asia
Minor, by Babylonian religion and worship. Even in Lydia a stone has
been found on which her image is carved in a rude style of art, but
similar in form to the representations of her in the bas-relief of
Carchemish and the cylinders of ancient Chaldæa.
This stone, like the seated figure on Mount Sipylos, is a witness that
her cult was carried westward by the Hittite armies. Later tradition
preserved a reminiscence of the fact. The Lydian hero Kayster was said
to have gone to Syria, and there had Derketô for his bride, while on the
other hand it was a Lydian, Mopsos, who was believed to have drowned the
goddess Derketô in the sacred lake of Ashkelon. We have here, it may be,
recollections of the days when Lydian soldiers marched against Egypt
under the leadership of Hittite princes, and learnt to know the name and
the character of Athar-'Ati, the goddess of Carchemish.
The Babylonian Istar was accompanied by her son and bridegroom Tammuz,
the youthful Sun-god, the story of whose untimely death made a deep
impression on the popular mind. Even in Jerusalem Ezekiel saw the women
weeping for the death of Tammuz within the precincts of the temple
itself; and for days together each year in the Phoenician cities the
festival of his death and resurrection were observed with fanatic zeal.
In Syria he was called Hadad, and identified with the god Rimmon, so
that Zechariah (xii. 11) speaks of the mourning for Hadad-Rimmon in the
valley of Megiddo. At Hierapolis and Aleppo also he was known as Hadad
or Dadi, while throughout Asia Minor he was adored under the name of
Attys, 'the shepherd of the bright stars.' The myth which told of his
death underwent a slight change of form among the Hittites, and through
them among the tribes of Asia Minor. He is doubtless the young god who
on the rocks of Boghaz Keui appears behind the mother-goddess, riding
like her on the back of a panther or lion.
The people of Mabog did not forget that their temple was but the
successor of an older one, and that Carchemish had once been the 'Holy
City' of Northern Syria. The legends, therefore, which referred to the
foundation of the sanctuary were said to relate to one which had
formerly existed, but had long since fallen into decay. The origin of
the temple visited by Lucian was ascribed to a certain 'Stratonikê, the
wife of the Assyrian king.' But Stratonikê is merely a Greek
transformation of some Semitic epithet of 'Ashtoreth,' and marks the
time when the Phoenician Ashtoreth took the place of the earlier
Athar-'Ati. A strange legend was told of the youthful Kombabos, who was
sent from Babylon to take part in the building of the shrine. Kombabos
was but Tammuz under another name, just as Stratonikê was Istar, and the
legend is chiefly interesting as testifying to the religious influence
once exercised by the Babylonians upon the Hittite people.
Semiramis may turn out to have been the Hittite name of the goddess
called Athar-'Ati by the Aramean inhabitants of Hierapolis. In this case
the difficulty of accounting for the existence of the two names would
have been solved in the old myths by making her the daughter of Derketo.
But while Derketo was a fish-goddess, Semiramis was associated with the
dove, like the Ashtoreth or Aphroditê who was worshipped in Cyprus. The
symbol of the dove had been carried to the distant West at an early
period. Among the objects found by Dr. Schliemann in the prehistoric
tombs of Mykenæ were figures in gold-leaf, two of which represented a
naked goddess with the hands upon the breasts and doves above her, while
the third has the form of a temple, on the two pinnacles of which are
seated two doves. Considering how intimately the prehistoric art of
Mykenæ seems to have been connected with that of Asia Minor, it is
hardly too much to suppose that the symbol of the dove had made its way
across the Ægean through the help of the Hittites, and that in the
pinnacled temple of Mykenæ, with its two doves, we may see a picture of
a Hittite temple in Lydia or Kappadokia.
The legends reported by Lucian about the foundation of the temple of
Mabog all agreed that it was dedicated to a goddess. The 'Holy City' was
under the protection, not of a male but of a female divinity, which
explains why it was that it was served by eunuch priests. If Attys or
Hadad was worshipped there, it was in right of his mother; the images of
the other gods stood in the temple on sufferance only. The male deity
whom the Greek author identified with Zeus must have been regarded as
admitted by treaty or marriage to share in the honours paid to her. It
must have been the same also at Boghaz Keui. Here, too, the most
prominent figure in the divine procession is that of the Mother-goddess,
who is followed by her son Attys, while the god, whose name may be read
Tar or Tarku, 'the king,' and who is the Zeus of Lucian, advances to
meet her.
In Cilicia and Lydia this latter god seems to have been known as Sandan.
He is called on coins the 'Baal of Tarsos,' and he carries in his hand a
bunch of grapes and a stalk of corn. We may see his figure engraved on
the rock of Ibreez. Here he wears on his head the pointed Hittite cap,
ornamented with horn-like ribbons, besides the short tunic and boots
with upturned ends. On his wrists are bracelets, and earrings hang from
his ears.
Sandan was identified with the Sun, and hence it happened that when a
Semitic language came to prevail in Cilicia he was transformed into a
supreme Baal. The same transformation had taken place centuries before
in the Hittite cities of Syria. Beside the Syrian goddess Kes, who is
represented as standing upon a lion, like the great goddess of
Carchemish, the Egyptian monuments tell us of Sutekh, who stands in the
same relation to his Hittite worshippers as the Semitic Baal stood to
the populations of Canaan. Sutekh was the supreme Hittite god, but at
the same time he was localised in every city or state in which the
Hittites lived. Thus there was a Sutekh of Carchemish and a Sutekh of
Kadesh, just as there was a Baal of Tyre and a Baal of Tarsos. The forms
under which he was worshipped were manifold, but everywhere it was the
same Sutekh, the same national god.
It would seem that the power of Sutekh began to wane after the age of
Ramses, and that the goddess began to usurp the place once held by the
god. It is possible that this was due to Babylonian and Assyrian
influence. At any rate, whereas it is Sutekh who appears at the head of
the Hittite states in the treaty with Ramses, in later days the chief
cult of the 'Holy Cities' was paid to the Mother-goddess. His place was
taken by the goddess at Carchemish as well as at Mabog, at Boghaz Keui
as well as at Komana.
In the Kappadokian Komana the goddess went under the name of Ma. She was
served by 6000 priests and priestesses, the whole city being dedicated
to her service. The place of the king was occupied by the Abakles or
high-priest. We have seen that the sculptures of Boghaz Keui give us
reason to believe that the same was also the case in Pteria; we know
that it was so in other 'Holy Cities' of Asia Minor. At Pessinus in
Phrygia, where lions and panthers stood beside the goddess, the whole
city was given up to her worship, under the command of the chief Gallos
or priest; and on the shores of the Black Sea the Amazonian priestesses
of Kybelê, who danced in armour in her honour, were imagined by the
Greeks to constitute the sole population of an entire country. At
Ephesos, in spite of the Greek colony which had found its way there, the
worship of the Mother-goddess continued to absorb the life of the
inhabitants, so that it still could be described in the time of St. Paul
as a city which was 'a worshipper of the great goddess.' Here, as at
Pessinus, she was worshipped under the form of a meteoric stone 'which
had fallen from heaven.'
We may regard these 'Holy Cities,' placed under the protection of a
goddess and wholly devoted to her worship, as peculiarly characteristic
of the Hittite race. Their two southern capitals, Kadesh and Carchemish,
were cities of this kind, and their stronghold at Boghaz Keui was
presumably also a consecrated place. Their progress through Asia Minor
was characterised by the rise of priestly cities and the growth of a
class of armed priestesses. Komana in Kappadokia, and Ephesos on the
shores of the Ægean, are typical examples of such holy towns. The entire
population ministered to the divinity to whom the city was dedicated,
the sanctuary of the deity stood in its centre, and the chief authority
was wielded by a high-priest. If a king existed by the side of the
priest, he came in course of time to fill a merely subordinate position.
These 'Holy Cities' were also 'Asyla' or Cities of Refuge. The homicide
could escape to them, and be safe from his pursuers. Once within the
precincts of the city and the protection of its deity, he could not be
injured or slain. But it was not only the man who had slain another by
accident who could thus claim an 'asylum' from his enemies. The debtor
and the political refugee were equally safe. Doubtless the right of
asylum was frequently abused, and real criminals took advantage of
regulations which were intended to protect the unfortunate in an age of
lawlessness and revenge. But the institution on the whole worked well,
and, while it strengthened the power of the priesthood, it curbed
injustice and restrained violence.
Now the institution of Cities of Refuge did not exist only in Asia Minor
and in the region occupied by the Hittites. It existed also in
Palestine, and it seems not unlikely that it was adopted by the great
Hebrew lawgiver, acting under divine guidance, from the older population
of the country. The Hebrew cities of refuge were six in number. One of
them was 'Kedesh in Galilee,' whose very name declares it to have been a
'Holy City,' like Kadesh on the Orontes, while another was the ancient
sanctuary of Hebron, once occupied by Hittites and Amorites. Shechem,
the third city of refuge on the western side of the Jordan, had been
taken by Jacob 'out of the hand of the Amorite' (Gen. xlviii. 22); and
the other three cities were all on the eastern side of the Jordan, in
the region so long held by Amorite tribes. We are therefore tempted to
ask whether these cities had not already been 'asyla' or cities of
refuge long before Moses was enjoined by God to make them such for the
Israelitish conquerors of Palestine.
Closely connected with Hittite religion was Hittite art. Religion and
art have been often intertwined together in the history of the world,
and we can often infer the religion of a people from its art, as in the
case of the sculptures of Boghaz Keui. Hittite art was a modification of
that of Babylonia, and bears testimony to the same Babylonian influence
as the worship of the 'Mother-goddess.' The same Chaldæan culture is
presupposed by both.
But while the art of the Hittites was essentially Babylonian in origin,
it was profoundly modified in the hands of the Hittite artists. The
deities, indeed, were made to ride on the backs of animals, as upon
Babylonian cylinders, the walls of the palaces were adorned with long
rows of bas-reliefs, as in Chaldæa and Assyria, and there was the same
tendency to arrange animals face to face in heraldic style; but
nevertheless the workmanship and the details introduced into it were
purely native. Even a symbol like the winged solar disk assumes in
Hittite sculpture a special character which can never be mistaken. The
Hittite artist excelled in the representation of animal forms, but the
lion, which he seems to have never wearied of designing, is treated in a
peculiar way which marks it sharply off from the sculptured lions either
of Babylonia or of any other country. So, too, in the case of the human
figure, though the general conception has been derived from Babylonian
art, the conception is worked out in a new and original manner. Those
who have once seen the sculptured image of a Hittite warrior or a
Hittite god, can never confuse it with the artistic productions of
another race. The figure is clearly drawn from the daily experience of
the sculptor's own life. The dress with its peaked shoes, the thick
rounded form, the strange protrusive profile, were copied from the
costume and appearance of his fellow-countrymen, and the striking
agreement that exists between his representation of them and that which
we find on the Egyptian monuments proves how faithfully he must have
worked. The elements, in short, of Babylonian art are present in the art
of the Hittite, but the treatment and selection are his own.
It is in his selection and combination of these elements that he
exhibits most clearly his originality. Monsters, half human, half
bestial, were known to the Babylonians, but it was left to the Hittite
to invent a double-headed eagle, or to plant a human head on a column of
lions. The so-called rope-pattern occurs once or twice on Babylonian
gems, but it became a distinguishing characteristic of Hittite art, like
the employment of the heads only of animals instead of their entire
forms.
So, again, the heraldic arrangement of animals face to face, or more
rarely back to back, had its first home in Chaldæa, but it was the
Hittites who raised it into a principle of art. We may perhaps trace
their doing so to their love of animal forms.
The influence of Babylonian culture may have made itself first felt in
the age of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, when the cuneiform tablets
of Tel el-Amarna represent the Hittite tribes as descending southward
into the Syrian plains. It may on the other hand go back to a much
earlier epoch. We have no materials at present for deciding the
question. One fact, however, is clear; there was a time when the
Hittites were profoundly affected by Babylonian civilisation, religion
and art. Before this could have been the case they must have been
already settled in Syria.
It is more easy to fix the period when the Hittite sculptor received
that inspiration from Egyptian art which produced the sphinxes of Eyuk
and the seated image on Mount Sipylos. It can only have been the age of
Ramses II., and of the great wars between Egypt and the Hittite princes
in the fourteenth century before our era. The influence of Egypt was but
transitory, but it was to it, in all probability, that the Hittites owed
the idea of hieroglyphic writing.
At a far later date Babylonian influence was superseded by that of
Assyria. The later sculptures of Carchemish betray the existence of
Assyrian rather than of Babylonian models. The winged figure of the
goddess of Carchemish now in the British Museum is Assyrian in style and
character, and it is possible that other draped images of the goddess
may be derived from the same source. In Babylonian art Istar was
represented nude.
However this may be, Professor Perrot has made it clear that the
beginnings of Hittite art must be looked for in Syria, on the southern
slopes of the Taurus, from whence it spread to the tribes of Kappadokia.
It is in Northern Syria that its rudest and most infantile attempts have
been found. The sculptors of Eyuk were already advanced in skill.
To Professor Perrot we also owe the discovery of bronze figures of
Hittite manufacture. The execution of them is at once conventional and
barbarous. Nothing can exceed the rudeness of a figure now in the
Louvre, which represents a god with a pointed tiara, standing on the
back of an animal. Though the face of the god has evidently been
modelled with care, it is impossible to tell to what zoological species
the animal which supports him is intended to belong. Almost equally far
removed from nature is the bronze image of a bull which is also in the
Louvre.
If these bronzes are to be regarded as the highest efforts of Hittite
metallurgic work, it is not to be regretted that they are few in number.
But it is quite different with the engraved gems which we now know to
have been of Hittite workmanship. Many of them are exceedingly fine; a
hæmatite cylinder, for instance, which was discovered at Kappadokia, is
equal to the best products of Babylonian art. The gems and cylinders
were for the most part intended to be used as seals, and some of them
are provided with handles cut out of the stone, the seal itself having
designs on four, and sometimes on five faces. These handles seem to be a
peculiarity of Hittite art, or at least of the art which derived its
inspiration from that of the Hittites. Another peculiarity noticeable in
many of the gems, consists in enclosing the inner field of the engraved
design with one or more concentric circles, each circle containing an
elaborate series of ornaments or figures, or even characters, though the
characters are usually placed in the central field. Thus two gems have
been found at Yuzghât, in Kappadokia, so much alike, that they must have
been the work of the same artist. On the larger an inscription has been
engraved in the centre, round which runs a circle containing a large
number of beautifully-executed figures. The winged solar disk rests upon
the symbol of 'kingship,' on either side of which kneels a figure, half
man and half bull. On the right and left is the figure of a standing
priest, behind whom we see on the left a man adoring what seems to be
the stump of a tree, while on the right are a tree, two arrows and a
quiver, a basket, a stag's head, and a seated deity, above whose hand
is a bird. The two groups are separated by the picture of a boot--the
symbol, it may be, of the earth--which rests, like the winged solar
disk, on the symbol of royalty. The smaller seal has a different
inscription in the centre, encircled by two rings, one containing a row
of ornaments, and the other the same figures as those engraved on the
larger seal, excepting only that the arrangement of the figures has been
changed, and a tree introduced among them. What is curious, however, is
that a gem has been found at Aidin, far away towards the western
extremity of Asia Minor, containing a central inscription almost
identical with that of the smaller Yuzghât seal, though the figures
which surround it are not the same.
These circular seals must be regarded not only as characteristic of
Hittite art, but also as a product of Hittite invention. We meet with
nothing resembling them in Babylonia or Assyria.
The gems can be traced across the Ægean to the shores of Greece. Among
the objects discovered by Dr. Schliemann at Mykenæ were two rings of
gold, on the chatons of which designs are engraved in what we may now
recognise as the Hittite style of art. On one of them are two rows of
animals' heads; on the other an elaborate picture, which reminds us of
the elaborate designs on the gems of Asia Minor. It represents a woman
under a tree, facing two other persons, who wear the upturned boots and
flounced dress that we find in Hittite sculptures, while the background
is filled in with the heads of animals.
These gems are not the only indication the ruins of Mykenæ have afforded
that Hittite influence was spread beyond the coasts of Asia Minor.
Allusion has already been made to the figures of the Hittite goddess and
the doves that rested on the pinnacles of her temple; another figure in
thin gold gives us a likeness of the Hittite goddess seated on the cliff
of Sipylos, as she appeared before rain and tempest had changed her into
'the weeping Niobê.' Perhaps, however, the most striking illustration of
the westward migration of Hittite influence, is to be found in the
famous lions which stand fronting each other, carved on stone, above the
great gate of the ancient Peloponnesian city. The lions of Mykenæ have
long been known as the oldest piece of sculpture in Europe, but the art
which inspired it was of Hittite origin. A similar bas-relief has been
discovered at Kümbet, in Phrygia, in the near vicinity of Hittite
monuments; and we have just seen that the heraldic position in which the
lions are represented was a peculiar feature of Hittite art.
Greek tradition affirmed that the rulers of Mykenæ had come from Lydia,
bringing with them the civilisation and the treasures of Asia Minor. The
tradition has been confirmed by modern research. While certain elements
belonging to the prehistoric culture of Greece, as revealed at Mykenæ
and elsewhere, were derived from Egypt and Phoenicia, there are others
which point to Asia Minor as their source. And the culture of Asia Minor
was Hittite. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, may be right in seeing the
Hittites in the Keteians of Homer--that Homer who told of the legendary
glories of Mykenæ and the Lydian dynasty which held it in possession.
Even the buckle, with the help of which the prehistoric Greek fastened
his cloak, has been shown by a German scholar to imply an arrangement
of the dress such as we see represented on the Hittite monument of
Ibreez.
For us of the modern world, therefore, the resurrection of the Hittite
people from their long sleep of oblivion possesses a double interest.
They appeal to us not alone because of the influence they once exercised
on the fortunes of the Chosen People, not alone because a Hittite was
the wife of David and the ancestress of Christ, but also on account of
the debt which the civilisation of our own Europe owes to them. Our
culture is the inheritance we have received from ancient Greece, and the
first beginnings of Greek culture were derived from the Hittite
conquerors of Asia Minor. The Hittite warriors who still guard the Pass
of Karabel, on the very threshold of Asia, are symbols of the position
occupied by the race in the education of mankind. The Hittites carried
the time-worn civilisations of Babylonia and Egypt to the furthest
boundary of Asia, and there handed them over to the West in the grey
dawn of European history. But they never passed the boundary themselves;
with the conquest of Lydia their mission was accomplished, the work that
had been appointed them was fulfilled.
[Illustration: AN INSCRIPTION FOUND AT CARCHEMISH (_now destroyed_).]