SIMON BOLIVAR Bolivar was bom in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 24, 1783, Educated by private tutors in Caracas, and also in Spain, Bolivar was profoundly influenced by the French political philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. Bolivar fought under the Command of Francisco de Miranda, who led the revolt against the Spanish in ‘Venezuela in 1810. The rebels were defeated by the Spanish royalists, and Bolivar was forced to flee the country. In 1812 he led another expedition to Venezuela. He captured Caracas in’ 1813 and assumed dictatorship. Royalist = Gefeated him again in 1814, and he went into exile in Jamaica and later ¢ Uniting his forces with those of Jose Antonio Paez and European volunteers, Bolivar again “invaded Venezuela in 1817. He established a revolutionary ‘government at Angostura (now Ciudad Bolivar), and he was elected president of Venezuela. In 1819 Bolivar’s army crossed the Andes Mountains into New ‘Granada (now Colombia), defeating the Spanish at Boyacé, thus ending royalist Tule there. Several months later, on December 17, 1819," the fepublic of , consisting ‘of Venezuela and New Granada, was\ proclaimed, with Bolivar as president. He countered a resurgence of royalist activity by leading ‘his army on June 24, 1821, to an overwhelming victory near Carabobo, ensuring ‘Venezuelan independence, a lov of Bolivar, with a vision of a united Spanish America, secured independence for ‘Quito (now Ecuador) in 1822,,which then became part of Colombia, In 1824 he ed the revolutionary forces of Peru in their fight for independence. Victorious, he ‘was elected president of Peru in February 1825, and the following May he ‘Qruanized in southem Peru a new republic, which was named Bolivia in his honor. To-preserve the independence of the new nations Bolivar initiated a ‘series of Inter-American conferences in Panama in-June 1826. From that » when he left Peru, to 1830, Bolivar sought unsuccessfully to maintain the politcal unity of the republic of Colombia, He resigned the residency of the republic in August 1828, then assumed dictatorial control the ext month. Unable to pacify contending factions, he relinquished power on April 27, 1890, He died on December 17 of that year, a defeated, disilusioned, sd hated'man. Today, however, the memory of Bolivar is revered throughout South ‘America, and in Venezuela and Bolivia his birthday is a national holiday. Sin cet Gaz,PYRAMIDS Y Ik Ir Pyramids, permanent structures built by the people of some ancient civilizations, found mainly in Egypt, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Peru. The Egyptian Pyramids are pyramidal in form, with four triangular sides that meet at a point at the top; the New World pyramids are four-sided, flat-topped polyhedrons. Because both the Egyptian and the American structures are called pyramids, many people have erroneously assumed that the Egyptians influenced the rise of civilization in the New World The Egyptian pyramids were built from about 2700 BC. to about 1000 BC; in the Americas, mound construction continued from 1200 BC until the Spanish conquest in AD 1519. The Egyptian pyramids differ from the American in their shape but have some similarity in their use. The Egyptian pyramids served as royal tombs, and recent excavations increasingly indicate that tombs in the Americas were sometimes incorporated into pyramids as well. The American pyramids were also used for military defense and served as platforms for temples and palaces; they are called temple mounds or platform mounds by archaeologists. Egypt ‘The outstanding group of pyramids in Egypt is at Giza, near Cairo. The largest, the Great Pyramid, was built as the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu and is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. When built, the Great Pyramid measured 147 m (481 ft) high with a square base measuring 230 m (756 ft) on each side. The remains of about 70 pyramids may still be seen in Egypt and the Sudan. The prototype of the true pyramid in Egypt was the step pyramid, so called because its successive layers of stone suggest a series of enormous steps. The most famous and best preserved of the step pyramids is that at Saqgara, near Cairo, built about 2700 BC. America The New World pyramids were arranged around a ceremonial plaza. The earliest complex, built about 1200 BC, is at the Olmec site of La Venta in the State of Tabasco in southeastern Mexico. Presumably, the later ceremonial centers in central Mexico, the Mayan region of the Yueatén Peninsula, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Andean region of Peru were based on the Olmec plan. The largest mounds in the New World include the Pyramid of Quetzalcoat! at Cholula outside Puebla, Mexico; the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacdn, near Mexico City; and the Huaca del Sol in Moche, Peru.HOMER ame traditionally assigned to the author of the liad and the Odyssey, ‘major epics of Greek antiquity. Nothing is known of Homer as an znd in fact the question of whether a single person can be said to be for the creation of the two epics is highly controversial. Linguistic evidence, however, allows the supposition that the poems were in the Greek settlements on the west coast of Asia Minor sometime in ‘century BC. Miad ‘=pics deal with legendary events that were believed to have occurred ‘Centuries before their composition. The liad is set in the final year of the Wer, which forms the background for its central plot, the story of the ‘of the Greek hero Achilles. insulted by his commander in. chief , the young warrior Achilles withdraws from the war, leaving his Greeks to suffer terrible defeats at the hands of the Trojans. Achilles the Greeks’ attempts at reconciliation, but he finally relents to some llowing his companion Patroclus to lead his troops in his place. is slain, and Achilles, filled with fury and remorse, tums his wrath the Trojans, whose leader, Hector (son of King Priam), he kills in single The poem closes as Achilles surrenders the corpse of Hector to Priam fal, recognizing a certain kinship with the Trojan king as they both face ‘tragedies of mortality and bereavement, Odyssey Odyssey describes the retum of the Greek hero Odysseus from the Trojan = The opening scenes depict the disorder that has arisen in Odysseus’ during his long absence: A band of suitors is devouring his property 48s they woo his wife Penelope. The focus then shifts to Odysseus himself, The pic tells of his ten years of traveling, during which he has to face such dangers 8 the man-eating giant Polyphemus and such subtler threats as the goddess Calypso, who offers him immortality if he will abandon his quest for home. The Second half of the poem begins with Odysseus’ arrival at his home island of ithaca. Here, exercising infinite patience and self-control, Odysseus tests the foyalty of his servants, plots and carries out a bloody revenge on Penelope's Suitors, and is reunited with his son, his wife, and his aged father. Epic Style Both epics are written in impersonal, elevated, formal verse, employing language that was never used for ordinary discourse; the metrical form is Gactylic hexameter. Stylistically no real distinction can be made between the two works. It is easy, however, to see why, since antiquity, many readers have believed that they come from different hands. The tliad deals with passions, with insoluble dilemmas. It has no real villains; Achilles, Agamemnon, Priam, and the Test are caught up, as actors and victims, in a cruel and ultimately tragic universe. In the Odyssey, on the other hand, the wicked are destroyed, right Prevails, and the family is reunited—with rational intellect, Odysseus’ in articular, acting as the guiding force throughout the story.The Homeric Hymns Besides the Iliad and the Odyssey, the so-called Homeric Hymns, a series of relatively short poems celebrating the various gods and composed in a style similar to that of the epics, have also traditionally been attributed to Homer.Rome was said to have been founded by Latin colonists from Alba Longa, a Nearby city'in ancient Latium. The legendary date of the founding was 753 BC; it ‘was ascribed to Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of Rhea Silvia, a vestal Virgin and the daughter of Numitor, king of Alba Longa. Later legend carried the ‘ancestry of the Romans back to the Trojans and their leader Aeneas, whose ‘son Ascanius, or lulus, was the founder and the first king of Alba Longa. The tales conceming Romulus's rule, notably the rape of the Sabine women and the ‘war with the Sabines under the leader Titus Tatius, point to an early infiltration ‘of Sabine peoples or to a union of Latin and Sabine elements at the beginning. The three tribes, the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, that appear in the legend of Romulus as the parts of the new commonwealth suggest that Rome arose from the amalgamation of three stocks, thought to be Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan. ‘The seven kings of the regal period and the dates traditionally assigned to their feigns are as follows: Romulus, from 753 to 715 BC; Numa Pompilius, from 715 10 676 or 872 BC, to whom was attributed the introduction of many religious ‘customs; Tullus Hostilius, from 673 to 641 BC, a warlike king, who destroyed ‘Alba Longa and fought against the Sabines; Ancus Marcius, from 641 to 616 ‘BC, said to have built the port of Ostia and to have captured many Latin towns, ‘ansferring their inhabitants to Rome; Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, from 616 to ‘578 BC, celebrated both for his military exploits against neighboring peoples and ‘forhis construction of public buildings at Rome; Servius Tullius, from 578 to 534 ‘BC, famed for his new constitution and for the enlargement of the boundaries of ‘the city; and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, from 534 to 510 BC, the seventh and last king, whose tyrannical rule was overthrown when his son ravished Lucretia, ‘the wife of a kinsman. Tarquinius was banished;and attempts by Etruscan or Latin cities to reinstate him on the throne at Rome were unavailing. the names, dates, and events of the fegal period are considered as Belonging to the realm of fiction’ and myth, rather than to that ofifaciual history, ‘certain facts seem well attested’ the existence of an early rule by kings; the ‘growth of the city and its struggles with neighboring peoples; the conquest of Rome by Etruria and the establishment of a dynasty of Etruscan princes, ‘the abolition of the kingship. The existence of certain-sociat and political ‘conditions may also be accepted, such as ‘the division of the inhabitants, ‘exclusive of slaves, from the beginning into two orders: the patricians, who alone possessed political rights and constituted the populus, or people; and their dependents, known as clients or the plebs, who had originally no political ‘existence. The rex, or king, chosen by the Senate (senatus), or Council of ‘Elders, from the ranks of the patricians, held office for life, called out the populus for war, and led the army in person; he was preceded by officers, known as. ‘lictors, who bore the fasces, the symbols of power and punishment, and was the ; : ‘symbolized by the rule of the Tarquins; the overthrow of this alien control; and ~ ownsupreme judge in ai{ civil and criminal suits. The senatus gave its advice only when the king chose to consult it, but the elders (patres) possessed great moral authority, inasmuch as their tenure was for life. Originally only patricians could bear arms in defense of the state. At some stage in the regal period an important military reform occurred, usually designated as the Servian reform of the constitution, because it was ascribed to Servius Tullius. As the plebs could by this time acquire property and wealth, it was decided that all property holders, both patrician and plebian, must serve in the amy, and each took a rank in accordance with his wealth. This arrangement, although initially military, paved the way for the great political struggle between the patricians and the plebs in the early centuries of the Republic.CAVE DWELLERS term used to designate ancient people who occupied caves in ‘Of the world. Cave dwellers date generally from that part of the ‘called the Paleolithic, which started, according to some authorities, on years ago. Caves are natural shelters, offering shade and wind, rain, and snow. As archaeological sites, caves are easy to en provide conditions that encourage the preservation of normally Such as bone. As a result, the archaeological exploration contributed significantly to the reconstruction of the human past. faves were available, prehistoric nomadic hunters and gatherers them into the yearly cycle of seasonal camps. Most of their Place around campfires at the cave mouth, and some caves walls and pavements providing additional protection from winds . Hunting, particularly of reindeer, horse, red deer, and bison, was ‘many caves are situated on valley slopes providing views of animal of Artifacts Dave been found in caves in France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, ttaly, ~at Britain. The association of these remains with the bones of extinct Such as the cave bear and saber-toothed tiger, indicates the great of many of the cave deposits. A variety of stone and bone points @ in excavated caves documents the importance of spears until the arrow appeared in the late Paleolithic era. Other common tools Stone scrapers for working hides and wood, burins for engraving, and ‘or butchering and cutting, Throughout the Paleolithic period such tools © increasingly diverse and well made. Bone needies, barbed harpoons, Pear-throwers were made and decorated with carved designs. Evidence of Pendants and shell necklaces also exists. Among the caves that have felics of early humans are the Cro-Magnon and Vallonnet in France. ings have been found in more than 200 caves, largely from 25,000 to 10,000 years ago. Frequently found the paintings depict animals, geometric signs, and human figures. In the cave of La Colombiére in France, a remarkable sketches engraved on bone and smoothed stones was unearthed in ‘such as Altamira in Spain and Lascaux in France, multicolored figures were drawn using mineral pigments mixed with animal fats. Some of the paintings adom walls of large chambers suitable for ritual gatherings; fgthers are found in narrow passages accessible only to individuals. Hunting and fertty seem to have been important artistic themes. The ritual gatherings femselves promoted communication and intermarriage among the normally Scattered small groups.) —,On every continent, prehistoric foragers made use of caves. Chinese caves contain some of the earliest evidence of human use of fire, approximately 400,000 years ago. In the Zhoukoudian (Chou-kou-tien) Cave near Beijing, remains of bones and tools of Homo erectus (Peking Man) have been discovered. In the Shanidar Cave in Iraq, 50,000-year-old Neandertal skeletons were unearthed in 1957. Ancient pollen buried with them has been int as evidence that these cave dwellers had developed funeral rituals. In the western deserts of North America, caves have been located that contain plant foods, woven sandals, and baskets, representing the desert culture of 9000 years ago. Early inhabitants of Australia, the Middle East, and the Peruvian Andes have also left remains in caves. Gradually people leamed to grow food, rather than forage for it. This was the beginning of the Neolithic age, which, although ending in western Europe some 4500 years ago, continued elsewhere in the world until modem times. Once agriculture became important, people established villages of permanent houses and found new uses for caves, mainly as hunting and herding campsites and for ceremonial activities. In Europe, Asia, and Africa caves continued to be used as shelters by nomadic groups. Preservation in Caves {n dry caves, preservation is often excellent, due to moistureless air and limited bacterial activity. Organic remains such as charred wood, nutshells, plant fibers, and bones sometimes are found intact. In wet caves, artifacts and other remaing often are found encrusted with, or buried beneath, calcareous deposits of Gripstone. The collected evidence of human habitation on the cave floor was often buried under rockfalls from the ceilings of cavers. Intentional burials have also been found in a number of cave sites. Because of the unusual preservative nature of caves and the great age of many of the remains found in them, the fallacious belief has arisen that a race of cave People existed. Actually, most cave sites represent small, seasonal camps. Because prehistoric people spent much of the year in open-air camps, the caves Contain the remains of only part of a group's total activities. Also, the cultural remains outside caves were subject to greater decay. Thus, the archaeological record of remote times is better seen in cave deposits. Gaves have been systematically excavated during the past one hundred years. Since they often contain the remains of repeated occupations, caves can document changing cultures. For example, the economic transition from food collecting to agriculture is demonstrated by finds in highland Mexico and in Southeast Asia. Some caves in the Old World continued to be inhabited even after the close of the Stone Age; relics from the Bronze and Iron ages have been found in cave deposits. On occasion, material dating from the time of the Roman Empire has been recovered. The famous Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, were preserved in caves.MAYAN CIVILIZATION aN ‘Maya, group of related Native American tribes of nations of the Mayan linguistic living in Mexico, in the states of Veracruz, Yucatan, Campeche, Tabasco, nd Chiapas, and also in the greater part of Guatemala and in parts of Belize d Honduras. The best-known tribe, the Maya proper, after whom the entire oup is named, occupies the Yucatén Peninsula. Among the other important are the Huastec of northern Veracruz; the Tzental of Tabasco and the Chol of Chiapas; the Quiche, Cakchiquel, Pokonchi, and Pokomam. ‘Guatemalan highlands; and the Chorti of eastern Guatemala and western . With the exception of the Huastec, these tribes occupy contiguous ‘They were all part of a common civilization, which in many respects < the highest development among the original inhabitants of the western ture formed the basis of the Mayan economy in pre-Columbian times, being the principal crop. Cotton, beans, squash, manioc and cacao were ‘The techniques of spinning, dyeing, and weaving cotton were highly ‘The Maya domesticated the dog and the turkey but had no draft ‘oF wheeled vehicles. They produced fine pottery, unequaled in the New Outside of Peru. Cacao beans and copper bells were used as units of Copper was also used for ornamental purposes, as were gold, silver, and colorful plumage. Metal tools, however, were unknown. The ere ruled by hereditary chiefs, descended in the male line, who d authority over village communities to local chieftains. Land, held in by each village, was parceled out by these chieftains to the separate produced a remarkable architecture, of which great ruins remain ‘Dumber of places, including Palenque, Uxmal, Mayapan, Copan, Tikal, ‘and Chichén Itz. These sites were vast centers for religious ‘The usual plan consisted of a number of pyramidal mounds, often d by temples or other buildings, grouped around open plazas. The iit in successive steps, were faced with cut stone blocks and d @ steep stainway built into one or more of their sides. The ‘of the pyramids was usually made of earth and rubble, but blocks of stone were used. The commonest type of consisted of a core of rubble or broken limestone mixed with then faced with finished stones or stucco. Stone walls were also aid without mortar. Wood was used for door lintels and for sculpture. ot known, but its effect was approximated in roofing buildings by ‘Upper layers of stone of two parallel walls approach each other in r until they met overhead. This system, requiring very natrow interiors. Windows were rare and were small and and exteriors were painted in bright colors. Exteriors received ‘and were lavishly decorated with painted sculpture, carved moldings, and stone mosaics.| The decorations generally were EANarranged in wide friezes contrasting with bands of plain masonry. Commoners! dwellings probably resembled the adobe and palm-thatched huts seen today among Mayan descendants. Writings The Mayan peoples developed a method of hieroglyphic notation and recorded mythology, history, and rituals in inscriptions carved and painted on stelae {stone slabs or pillars); on jintels and stairways; and on other monumental remains. Records were also painted in hieroglyphs and preserved in books of {folded sheets of paper made from the fibers of the maguey plant. Four examples of these codices have been preserved: the Codex Dresdensis, now in Dresden: the Perez Codex, now in Paris; and the Codex Tro and the Codex Cortesianus, both now in Madrid. The Codex Tro and Codex Cortesianus comprise parts of @ single original document and are commonly known under the joint name Codex Tro-Cortesianus. These books were used as divinatory almanacs containing topics such as agriculture, weather, disease, hunting, and astronomy. Calendar and Religion Chronology among the Maya was determined by an elaborate calendar system. The year began when the sun crossed the zenith on July 16 and consisted of 365 days; 364 of the days were divided into 28 weeks of 13 days each, the new year beginning on the 365th day. In addition, 360 days of the year were divided into 18 months of 20 days each. The series of weeks and the series of months both ran consecutively and independently of each other; however, once every 260 days, that is, the multiple of 13 and 20, the week and the month began on the same day. The Mayan calendar, although highly complex, was the most accurate known to humans until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. The Mayan religion centered about the worship of a large number of nature Sods. Chac, a god of rain, was especially important in popular ritual. Among the Supreme deities were Kukulcan, a creator god closely related to the Toltec and Aztec Quetzalcoatl, and Itzamna, a sky god. An important Mayan trait was their complete trust in the gods’ control of certain units of time and of all peoples’ activities during those periods. Linguistic Stock Maya, called also Yucatec, the language of the Maya proper, is spoken by about 350,000 people in Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize. The other languages of the Mayan stock include the language of the Huastec and several groups of closely affliated languages, including those of the Chafiabal, Chol, Chontal, Chor Chuj, Jacaltec, Motozintlec, Tzental, and Tzotzil, those of the Kekchi, Pokomam, and Pokonchi, those of the Cakchiquel, Quiché, Tzutuhil, and Uspantec; and those of the Aguacatec, Ixil, and Mam. History The origins of Mayan civilization are conjectural, depending on conflicting interpretations of archaeological evidence. The Formative period began at least as early as 1500 BC. During the Classic period, from about AD 300 to 900, a More or less uniform civilization was diffused throughout the Mayan territories. Great ceremonial centers such as Palenque, Tikal, and Copan were built. About, the Mayan centers were mysteriously abandoned. Some Maya Yucatan. Post-Classic period, from 900 to the arrival of the Spanish in the 46th civilization centered in Yucatan. A Toltec migration or invasion valley of Mexico strongly influenced its art styles. Chichén Itz4 and ‘Were prominent cities. For a while the league of Mayapan maintained but after a period of civil war and revolution, the cities were ‘The Spanish easily overcame the major Mayan groups, although government did not succeed in subduing the last independent until 1901. In the late 20th century the Maya made up the bulk of Population in their former landsThe Amazing Gothic Cathedrals For over 800 years the Gothic cathedrals of Europe have stood as one of the most ‘awe-inspiring achievements of man. But they also represent a major ‘advance in the search for an answer fo one af civiization’s oldest prablems, namely how to cover an enclosed space. Thousands of years ago this problem was solved with vertical pilars for wails and horizontal crossbeams of wood or stone for the roof. However, people soon found that if they placed their walls too far apart, the stress on the center of the crossbeams would cause them to break in half. Asa result, when large buildings (like Greek temples) were buit, interior pitars had to ‘be used to give the crossbeams extra support, which made for a very crowded interior. Then the ancient Romans invented the semi-circular arch. This served the same purpose as the crossbeam, but its design distributed the stress more equally and made it possible to move the walls farther apart. Although more spacious than Greek temples, buildings constructed with Roman arches were stil filed with interior pillars. What's ‘More, in order to support the arches and the roof, the walls had fo be very thick, which meant there couldn't be many windows. As a result, most pre-Gothic European churches were low and fat with dark, column-filed interiors, The Gothic style dramatically changed all that with two remarkable inventions. The first was the pointed, or Gothic, arch. To reach greater heights with the ‘Semi-cireular Roman arch, it was necessary fo use an arch wih a larger semicircle. This was tried, of course, but builders realized that a larger semi-circle would require walls that were farther apart. Given the building materials at the time, at some point the waits would be so far apart that the arch would crumble, Since itis based upon the oval instead of the circle, the pointed arch doesn't have this disadvantage. Greater heights could be obtained by simply “stretching” the oval to make it more pointed. invented around 1144 A.D. the pointed arch also had the advantage of transferring the stress to the outside of the building. This was where. ‘@ second invention came into play-the flying buttress. First used for the famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, fying buttresses are essentially exterior arches, ‘They are attached to the upper parts of a building and serve to carry the stress from there to the ground. |No one knows how these innovations were arrived at step by step. But itis known that the builders used only pieces of string with a lead weight attached to determine vertical ines, compasses to draw circles and ovals, and other simple tools. Yet they were able to create cathedrals as high as a modem 18-story building. That in itself is amazing. Equally impressive are the effects of the pointed arch and the flying buttress. Because of the way they transferred stress, cathedral interiors could be more spacious than ever before, with far fewer support columns. The walls could not only be made much thinner, they could be filled with beaufffully colored windows. It’s proof of the greatness of these buildings that today we find their soaring spaces and magnificent windows every bit as moving as the people who created them more than eight centuries ago.BYZANTINE AESTHETIC The aesthetic merits of Byzantine art . have been recognized only during the last fifty years or so; therein it shared the lot of all the arts of the close of Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. For it was not until vanguard artists of modem Europe had undermined our deeply rooted faith in the absolute supremacy of the traditional aesthetic which, by way of the Renaissance, derived from ancient Greece, that the eyes of artlovers were opened to the aesthetic value of Romanesque and Byzantine works, interest being focused primarily on sculpture as regards the Romanesque creations and on paintings and mosaics as regards Byzantine art. In fact any definition of the aesthetic of Byzantine art is something of a problem if we ‘are to avoid lapsing into purely subjective evaluations and opinions too patently reflecting the tastes and outlook of our time. The historical survey given above has, we hope, made it clear that the great fiowering of art to which we give the name "Byzantine" does not fan into the category of art movements confined to a single race or to any specific area. rather, an art-form bound up with the existence for over a thousand years (from 330 to 1453) of a Christian Empire ruled from Constantinople and predominantly Greek. It was not in the imperial capital that the foundations of Byzantine aesthetic were laid, nor was it in Constantinople that it ceased to function after ‘he fall of the Byzantine Empire. However, it was the permanence of the central govemment that enabled this aesthetic to hold its ground for so many centuries, since throughout this period bath Church and State, whose power was absolute, gave it their full support. The very circumstance of its exceptional duration played a part in shaping the aesthetic evolution of Byzantine art; for all methods of artistic expression are not equally suitable for an art whose function it is to perpetuate itself, without toying with the illusion that it is progressing-indeed repudiating the very idea of progress. Thus the central authority at Byzantium not ‘only had the last word in determining the artists’ "programs" but also controlled the aesthetic of the figural arts; above all, after it was enacted that religious images were to be venerated as sacred objects and, as such, came under thentrol, explicit or implicit, of the Church. This edict (formulated by the cumenical Council Of 787) did not merely lower the prestige of secular inting; it also indicated the manner in which the artist was to handle religious es-and these were in the vast majority. In sum, the aesthetic of mediaeval Byzantine works of art was stamped by e taste of those who, within the Byzantine community, were its almost exclusive rons: high dignitaries of the Empire, headed by the Emperor, and the abbots of reat monasteries. The former favored the sumptuous style and the refinement agreeable to an éite; the others expected of the artist that vision of the Cosmos and mankind which unfolds itself to the inner eye of the ascetic visionary. When we regard Byzantine art as a phase in the evolution of Mediterranean rt, we imply that, in its inception, it took over most of the characteristics of the etter. For what distinguishes Byzantine from Mediterranean art in general is primarily its interpretation of these elements. Thus Byzantine paintings, in their eneral approach to the composition of a picture, the human figure, a scene or indscape, are a continuation of the Greek and Roman painting of the first centuiry of our era. The Byzantines did not look to other countries for their odels, nor did they invent a type of picture that would have struck artists of the es of Augustus and Trajan as unfamiliar, And this holds good not only for the Byzantine artists, but for all Byzantine painters up fo the fall of the Empire, d even later. From the fifth century on, omamental motifs of Persian origin are often t in Byzantine painting. But, before this, Greek and Latin artists too (in, for ple, some Pompeian frescos) had indulged in similar borrowings from the ian repertory. Thus there was nothing revolutionary, or even new, in the Byzantines’ commerce with Sassanian art, It merely became more persistent, vital, than in the past.Now that the Empire included within its frontiers lands and races that had art ‘raditions of their own, and these were being less and less replaced by influences ‘stemming from the great centers of Graeco-Latin art, indigenous arts, in Syria, Asia Minor, Africa and Gaul, were given more scope and only slightly or sporadically affected by Graeco-Latin aesthetic. This, in fact, was fused into local tastes and traditions. So even in Italy itself Greek classicism was tempered by forms of expression racy of the soil In the third century this flowering of provincial forms in art had become general all over the Empire. Thus when Byzantine painters blended elements of Classical tradition with others foreign to it, this was no radical innovation as regards the course of art in the Mediterranean lands. True, Byzantine art to begin with was essentially an art sponsored by the government whose headquarters from 330 on was Constantinople, and as such cannot be assimilated to a "regional" art. But itis 2 matter of common knowledge that provincial influences had made themselves felt in works of even the most official order, even before the founding of Constantinople and in Rome itself (e.g, the sculpture on Constantine's Triumphal ‘Arch Of 315). And it well may be that when Constantinople became the capital of the Empire, its art, too, was strongly tinctured with that of the nearby lands of Asia Minor. In any case the divergencies from classical tradition manifested in Byzantine works, if thus accounted for, would have nothing exceptional about them, given the practices of the age, nor would they involve any break with Mediterranean tradition True, Byzantine art, especially Byzantine painting, was a new departure as regards the art preceding it in the same countries, but its originality did not lie in any wholesale rejection of the practices and forms of the earlier art, nor in the introduction of new elements. It merely carried a stage farther the disintegration of ancient art which had set in before Byzantium, and accentuated it by selecting and incorporating the anticlassical elements which already existed in the art of the Period of transition. But above all-in sc far as the works we style Byzantine at this early stage were those which were sponsored by the Govemment and Church-it laid down and stabilized for a considerable period a number of set rules and forms Precisely corresponding to the art forms prevailing in the fourth century. Thisfal consecration of the status quo probably averted a more radical break-up of sical aesthetic and its forms (we have only to observe their fate in Latin Europe the downfall of the Wester Empire between the fifth and eighth centuries); by the same token, it prevented a complete return to classical aesthetic. The st that was achieved in this direction at Byzantium during many centuries was & es of tentative, more or less felicitous efforts to imitate specific classical - Even as early as the reign of Constantine, thereafter under Theodosius, intermittently throughout the Middle Ages, there were revivals of this sort iscalled “renaissances") which, anyhow, had the merit of promoting direct tacts with works of classical Antiquity and broadening the artists’ horizons. ‘these contacts (which were not peculiar to Byzantium) were always itary, and helped to keep the technique of painting at 2 reasonably high level. Paradoxically enough, though the triumph of Byzantine art afier the founding of e Christian Empire spelt the end of classical art, the only means it ever found for enating its failing powers was to transfuse into itself some drops of the blood the classical ancestors it repudiated. Nevertheless the Byzantine aesthetic lich, from the historical angle, appears to be a sort of compromise between Glassical tradition and the new ertistic aspirations of the last centuries of Antiquity, ded in building up with these elements a language that, though it could not all the possible demands of art, attained a quite remarkable expressive power several art-forms.