The Greatest Empires & Civilizations of the Ancient East: Egypt, Babylon, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Assyria, Media, Chaldea, Persia, Parthia & Sasanian Empire. George Rawlinson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ lingering spark of decency.11138

A vivid conception of another world, and of the reality of a life after death, especially if connected with a belief in future rewards and punishments, might have done much, or at any rate something, to counteract the effect upon morals and conduct of the degrading tenets and practices connected with the Astarte worship; but, so far as appears, the Phoenicians had a very faint and dim conception of the life to come, and neither hoped for happiness, nor feared misery in it. Their care for the preservation of their bodies after death, and the provision which in some cases they are seen to have made for them,11139 imply a belief that death was not the end of everything, and a few vague expressions in inscriptions upon tombs point to a similar conviction;11140 but the life of the other world seems to have been regarded as something imperfect and precarious11141—a sort of shadowy existence in a gloomy Sheôl, where was neither pleasure nor pain, neither suffering nor enjoyment, but only quietness and rest. The thought of it did not occupy men’s minds, or exercise any perceptible influence over their conduct. It was a last home, whereto all must go, acquiesced in, but neither hoped for nor dreaded. A Phoenician’s feelings on the subject were probably very much those expressed by Job in his lament:—11142

      “Why died I not from the womb? Why gave I not up the ghost at my birth? Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? For now should I have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept, and then should I have been at rest; I should have been with the kings and councillors of the earth, Who rebuilt for themselves the cities that were desolate. I should have been with the princes that had much gold, And that filled their houses with silver . . . There they that are wicked cease from troubling, There they that are weary sink to rest; There the prisoners are in quiet together, And hear no longer the voice of the oppressor: There are both the great and small, and the servant is freed from his master.”

Still their religion, such as it was, had a great hold upon the Phoenicians. Parents gave to their children, almost always, religious names, recognising each son and daughter as a gift from heaven, or placing them under the special protection of the gods generally, or of some single divinity. It was piety, an earnest but mistaken piety, which so often caused the parent to sacrifice his child—the very apple of his eye and delight of his heart—that so he might make satisfaction for the sins which he felt in his inmost soul that he had committed. It was piety that filled the temples with such throngs, that brought for sacrifice so many victims, that made the worshipper in every difficulty put up a vow to heaven, and caused the payment of the vows in such extraordinary profusion. At Carthage alone there have been found many hundreds of stones, each one of which records the payment of a vow;11143 while other sites have furnished hundreds or even thousands of ex votos—statues, busts, statuettes, figures of animals, cylinders, seals, rings, bracelets, anklets, ear-rings, necklaces, ornaments for the hair, vases, amphoræ, oenochoæ, pateræ, jugs, cups, goblets, bowls, dishes, models of boats and chariots—indicative of an almost unexampled devotion. A single chamber in the treasury of Curium produced more than three hundred articles in silver and silver-gilt;11144 the temple of Golgi yielded 228 votive statues;11145 sites in Sardinia scarcely mentioned in antiquity have sufficed to fill whole museums with statuettes, rings, and scarabs. If the Phoenicians did not give evidence of the depth of their religious feeling by erecting, like most nations, temples of vast size and magnificence, still they left in numerous places unmistakable proof of the reality of their devotion to the unseen powers by the multiplicity, and in many cases the splendour,11146 of their votive offerings.

Chapter XII—Dress, Ornaments, and Social Habits

       Table of Contents

      Dress of common men—Dress of men of the upper classes— Treatment of the hair and beard—Male ornaments—Supposed priestly costume—Ordinary dress of women—Arrangement of their hair—Female ornaments—Necklaces—Bracelets—Ear- rings—Ornaments for the hair—Toilet pins—Buckles—A Phoenician lady’s toilet table—Freedom enjoyed by Phoenician women—Active habits of the men—Curious agate ornament—Use in furniture of bronze and ivory.

The dress of the Phoenician men, especially of those belonging to the lower orders, consisted, for the most part, of a single close-fitting tunic, which reached from the waist to a little above the knee.0121 The material was probably either linen or cotton, and the simple garment was perfectly plain and unornamented, like the common shenti of the Egyptians. On the head was generally worn a cap of one kind or another, sometimes round, more often conical, occasionally shaped like a helmet. The conical head-dresses seem to have often ended in a sort of top-knot or button, which recalls the head-dress of a Chinese Mandarin.

Where the men were of higher rank, the shenti was ornamented. It was patterned, and parted towards the two sides, while a richly adorned lappet, terminating in uræi, fell down in front.0122 The girdle, from which it depended, was also patterned, and the shenti thus arranged was sometimes a not inelegant garment. In addition to the shenti, it was common among the upper classes to wear over the bust and shoulders a close-fitting tunic with short sleeves,0123 like a modern “jersey;” and sometimes two garments were worn, an inner robe descending to the feet, and an outer blouse or shirt, with sleeves reaching to the elbow.0124 Occasionally, instead of this outer blouse, the man of rank has a mantle thrown over the left shoulder, which falls about him in folds that are sufficiently graceful.0125 The conical cap with a top-knot is, with persons of this class, the almost universal head-dress.

Great attention seems to have been paid to the hair and beard. Where no cap is worn, the hair clings closely to the head in a wavy compact mass, escaping however from below the wreath or diadem, which supplies the place of a cap, in one or two rows of crisp, rounded curls.0126 The beard has mostly a strong resemblance to that affected by the Assyrians, and familiar to us from their sculptures. It is arranged in three, four, or five rows of small tight curls,0127 and extends from ear to ear around the cheeks and chin. Sometimes, however, in lieu of the many rows, we find one row only, the beard falling in tresses, which are curled at the extremity.0128 There is no indication of the Phoenicians having cultivated mustachios.

For ornaments the male Phoenicians wore collars, which were sometimes very elaborate, armlets, bracelets, and probably finger-rings. The collars resembled those of the Egyptians, being arranged in three rows, and falling far over the breast.0129 The armlets seem to have been plain, consisting of a mere twist of metal, once, twice, or thrice around the limb.1210 The royal armlets of Etyander, king of Paphos, are single twists of gold, the ends of which only just overlap: they are plain, except for the inscription, which reads Eteadoro to Papo basileos, or “The property of Etyander, СКАЧАТЬ