Prof. Frothingham Lecture.

On account of the storm only a fair audience gathered last evening to hear the last of the series of lectures on Assyria Archaeology. The subject of the lecture was the influence of Assyrian and Babylonia on the art of the surrounding nations, and the effect felt to some extent by these countries themselves from their intercourse with other countries.

Ninevah in the height of her power, was the center of the commercial world; people from all parts of the world congregated there and left the point of their civilization on the art of Assyria, to a very slight extent, to be sure; still, the effect is perceptable.

The protracted wars which were waged between Egypt and Assyria, threw the two peoples into close contact and the effect is perceived in art of both countries; only, however, in the medals and ivory carvings, etc., and not in the architecture and monumental sculpture. The influence of the Hittites was much more marked. A highly civilized people, they had an art and a system of hieroglyphics of their own; they left monuments scattered over many parts of Syria. There was little unity in their art, however, except some peculiarities of costumes, a boot turned up at the toe, and a high, peaked hat.

The Phoenician art felt strongly the influence of both Egypt and Assyria; we can trace the two types of art in the same bas-relief. It was a heterogenious art, in which every peculiarity was borrowed from the surrounding countries.

No direct evidence can be found that Assyrian art was affected by, or itself affected the art of the Elamities, so little is known of the works of this people. Most scholars are agreed, however, that these two peoples did effect each other, though they are, as yet, unable to trace any influence of the art of the one in that of the other.

A most striking influence of Assyrian as well as Egyptian art can be traced in the archaic sculpture and bas-reliefs of Greece. Greek vases have been found, the figures on which are known to have been copied directly from Egyptian monuments, and the famous Doric Column is but a development of a form common in Assyrian architecture. It was not in the form alone that foreign influence is traced in Greek art; many of the ideas one derived from the Assyrian and Egyptian mythology.

The story of Hercules is but a transposition of an Assyrianmyth. From the earliest time to the decline of the Assyrian empire, the valley of the Euphrates was the centre of art; its influence can be traced in Italian tombs, Greek bas-reliefs, and the various works of art of Phoenecia, Egypt, and other countries of the East.