s rather later than that of Abba and his
wife, since the Aramaic characters are transitional from the
archaic to the square alphabet; see Driver, _Notes on the
Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel_, pp. xviii ff., and
Cooke, _North Semitic Inscriptions_, p. 205 f. The Vatican
Stele (op. cit. tab. XIV. No. 142), which dates from the
fourth century, represents inferior work.

If our examples of Semitic art were confined to the Persian and later
periods, they could only be employed to throw light on their own
epoch, when through communication had been organized, and there was
consequently a certain pooling of commercial and artistic products
throughout the empire.(1) It is true that under the Great King the
various petty states and provinces were encouraged to manage their own
affairs so long as they paid the required tribute, but their horizon
naturally expanded with increase of commerce and the necessity for
service in the king's armies. At this time Aramaic was the speech of
Syria, and the population, especially in the cities, was still
largely Aramaean. As early as the thirteenth century sections of this
interesting Semitic race had begun to press into Northern Syria from
the middle Euphrates, and they absorbed not only the old Canaanite
population but also the Hittite immigrants from Cappadocia. The latter
indeed may for a time have furnished rulers to the vigorous North Syrian
principalities which resulted from this racial combination, but the
Aramaean element, thanks to continual reinforcement, was numerically
dominant, and their art may legitimately be regarded as in great measure
a Semitic product. Fortunately we have recovered examples of sculpture
which prove that tendencies already noted in the Persian period were
at work, though in a minor degree, under the later Assyrian empire.
The discoveries made at Zenjirli, for example, illustrate the gradually
increasing effect of Assyrian influence upon the artistic output of a
small North Syrian state.

(1) Cf. Bevan, _House of Seleucus_, Vol. I, pp. 5, 260 f.
The artistic influence of Mesopotamia was even more widely
spread than that of Egypt during the Persian period. This is
suggested, for example, by the famous lion-weight discovered
at Abydos in Mysia, the town on the Hellespont famed for the
loves of Hero and Leander. The letters of its Aramaic
inscription (_C.I.S._, II. i, tab. VII, No. 108) prove