126 FLORA OF THE 



a much more useful and beautiful one, in their own 

 country. Similarly it would have been very stupid in 

 the Assyrians to go to Egypt to copy the lotus as 

 their ' anthemion,' when they had it on their natural 

 and sacred palms. The contact of the two nations suffi- 

 ciently explains the intermingling of the two motives. 

 Then when the Greek artistic genius came in contact 

 with them both, there was no knowing to what further 

 developments the motives derived from the two sources 

 might be worked up into. 



Miss Amelia Edwards evidently thought she was 

 saying the last word on the matter of the origin of 

 zwlntes. Not so. I have treated so fully of the sacred 

 date tree and its horns, though perhaps to a wearisome 

 extent, in order to show what influence horns must 

 have had on the spiritual and artistic thoughts of the 

 Assyrians. It is impossible to leave them out in the 

 cold in speculating on the genesis of architectural and 

 other decorations. I shall not say that horns, and ' horns 

 only,' were the models from which all volutes were born, 

 as Miss Edwards said of the lotus sepals ; but rather 

 that horns, and the date tree, and the lotus, and also 

 other flowers and fruits, have formed the basis of a vast 

 number of ornamentations. The virtue of horns must 

 have been a reality in the every-day life of the 

 Assyrians, and so they became mixed up in their 

 religious beliefs. What is the spiritual belief of a nation 



