THE METHODS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH, 605 



been so well begun at Silchester, and how much some of us long to see 

 the spade i^ut into your own Uriconiuu], When the Roman capital was 

 removed to Byzantium new and fresh ideas were apparently developed, or 

 perhaps old ones which had been localized there were distributed in all 

 directions. In one direction Parthians and Sassanians drank at the 

 well, and it is not possible now to say whether the embroideries, the 

 damasks, the silver bowls, etc., which we associate with these Eastern 

 l)eople were Byzantine or not. In another direction the art of Byzan- 

 tium spread all over the Teutonic world. The art we call Teutonic is 

 really Byzantine. The tribes which were planted on the various fron- 

 tiers of the Empire and were largely in its service and its pay were all 

 directly indebted to Byzantium for their art. Hence, why we hnd tlie 

 same art with slight local differences among the Goths of the Crimea, 

 the Lombards in Italy, the Burgundians in Austria and Switzerland, 

 the Alemanni on the Rhine, the jMerovingians in Gaul, the Angles and 

 Saxons in Britain, the Visigoths in Spain, the Yandals in Africa, and 

 the earlier Scandinavians in Denmark and Scandinavia. The cloissonee 

 jewelry, the interlaced dragon patterns, etc., all of which have such a 

 common likeness, have an equally common likeness with the work 

 which we can trace to the Queen of the Bosphorus; and as Lindin- 

 schmidt was never tired of preaching, there is no Teutonic art. The 

 art of all the Teutonic tribes who founded the modern States of Europe 

 was in reality the art of Byzantium, and this was so in later times also. 

 The art of the Carloviugian Empire and of the later Anglo-Saxons 

 was the art of the exarchate of Kavenna, just as the art of southeastern 

 Europe, as preserved in the churches of Kief, was the direct daughter 

 of Constantinople. The enamels, the bronze work, the ivories, the 

 illuminations in books, the jewelry, etc., are all directly traceable to 

 the same opulent mother. 



But it was among the Arabs that the seeds of Byzantine art flour- 

 ished and thrived the most. The Arabs themselves in regard to art 

 were always a sterile race. Like their own sands, they do not seem to 

 have had the instinct for art; but they had the instinct of government, 

 and at Bagdad, at Cairo, and at Granada they founded communities 

 which are as famous as any in the world's history. They had the Semitic 

 instinct, too, for making money, and, having made it, for spending it 

 freely as munificent patrons; but they initiated nothing. When Ave 

 speak of Arab art we mean the art of Byzantium, which had a curious 

 renaissance of its own under the impulse of fresh ideas gathered together 

 from every wind of heaven by the enterprise of these Arab traders, 

 who crossed all the known seas from China to the Straits of Gibraltar. 

 Cicsarea, Antioch, Damascus, and Alexandria, the mother of Cairo, were 

 Byzantine cities with flourishing arts before the Arabs annexed them, 

 and, so far as we know, the arts of Damascus and Cairo were the daugh- 

 ters of Byzantine art. The» mosques of St. Sophia and of Omar were 

 Christian churches before they became the models for the stately build- 



