NS: Persian painting is something about which
little is known because little remains. The Louvre contains
some reconstructed friezes made in mosaics of stamped brick
and square tile, showing figures of lions and a number of
archers. The coloring is particularly rich, and may give
some idea of Persian pigments. Aside from the chief museums
of Europe the bulk of Persian art is still seen half-buried
in the ruins of Persepolis and elsewhere.

PHOENICIAN, CYPRIOTE, AND ASIA MINOR PAINTING.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before cited, Babelon, Duncker, Ely,
Girard, Lenormant; Cesnola, _Cyprus_; Cesnola, _Cypriote
Antiquities in Metropolitan Museum of Art_; Kenrick,
_Phoenicia_; Movers, _Die Phonizier_; Perrot and Chipiez,
_History of Art in Phoenicia and Cyprus_; Perrot and
Chipiez, _History of Art in Sardinia, Judea, Syria and Asia
Minor_; Perrot and Chipiez, _History of Art in Phrygia,
Lydia, etc._; Renan, _Mission de Phenicie_.

THE TRADING NATIONS: The coast-lying nations of the Eastern
Mediterranean were hardly original or creative nations in a large
sense. They were at different times the conquered dependencies of
Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and their lands were but bridges over
which armies passed from east to west or from west to east. Located on
the Mediterranean between the great civilizations of antiquity they
naturally adapted themselves to circumstances, and became the
middlemen, the brokers, traders, and carriers of the ancient world.
Their lands were not favorable to agriculture, but their sea-coasts
rendered commerce easy and lucrative. They made a kingdom of the sea,
and their means of livelihood were gathered from it. There is no
record that the Egyptians ever traversed the Mediterranean, the
Assyrians were not sailors, the Greeks had not yet arisen, and so
probably Phoenicia and her neighbors had matters their own way.
Colonies and trading stations were established at Cyprus, Carthage,
Sardinia, the Greek islands, and the Greek mainland, and not only
Eastern goods but Eastern ideas were thus carried to the West.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.--PAINTED HEAD FROM EDESSA. (FROM PERROT AND
CHIPIEZ.)]

Politically, socially, and religiously these small middle nations were
inconsequential. They simply adapted their politics or faith to the
nation that for the time had them under its heel. What semi-original
religion they possessed was an