Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 2 of 2) With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present Condition

NO. I. – MESSENE

Pausanias¹ appears to have had great interest in the history of the Messenians; for his history of their wars is more minute and animated than any other part of his narrative. His account of the city gives us a grand idea of what it must once have been; and the present splendid remains produce a conviction of his veracity.

The walls of Messene², built of hewn stone, crowned with battlements, and flanked with towers, were stronger and higher than those of Byzantium, Rhodes, and the other cities of Greece. They included within their circuit Mount Ithome. It had a large public square or forum, ornamented with temples, statues, and a splendid fountain. Beautiful edifices were on every side.

The Messenians had several wars with the Lacedæmonians; and at one time were so unfortunate as to be reduced to the condition of the Helots. They were at length, however, reinstated by the Thebans, who took their city from the Spartans, who had possessed it a long time, after having expelled all its inhabitants. Those who were dispersed in different regions of Greece, Italy, and Sicily, on the first notice given them, returned with incredible joy: animated by the love of their country, natural to all men, and almost as much by their hatred of the Spartans, which length of time had only increased. They built themselves a city, which, from the ancient name, was called Messene.

After their return they fell out with the Achaians, and having worsted their celebrated general, Philopœmen, they had the meanness and atrocity to put him to death. His history is thus related by Rollin: —

“Dinocrates, the Messenian, had drawn off Messene from the Achaian league; and was meditating how he might best seize upon a considerable post near that city. Philopœmen, then seventy years of age, and generalissimo of the Achaians for the eighth time, lay sick. However, the instant the news of this was brought him, he set out, notwithstanding his indisposition, made a counter-march, and advanced towards Messene with a small body of forces. Dinocrates, who had marched out against him, was soon put to flight; but five hundred troopers, who guarded the open country of Messene, happening to come up and reinforce him, he faced about and routed Philopœmen. This general, who was solicitous of nothing but to save the gallant youths who had followed him in this expedition, performed the most extraordinary acts of bravery; but happening to fall from his horse, and receiving a deep wound in the head, he was taken prisoner by the enemy, who carried him to Messene.

“Upon the arrival of the news that Philopœmen was taken prisoner, and on his way to the city, the Messenians ran to the gates; not being able to persuade themselves of the truth of what they heard, till they saw him themselves; so greatly improbable did this relation appear to them. To satisfy the violent curiosity of the inhabitants, many of whom had not yet been able to get a sight of him, they were forced to show the illustrious prisoner on the theatre. When they beheld Philopœmen, dragged along in chains, most of the spectators were so moved to compassion, that the tears trickled from their eyes. There even was heard a murmur among the people, which resulted from humanity, and a very laudable gratitude; “That the Messenians ought to call to mind the great services done by Philopœmen, and his preserving the liberty of Achaia, by the defeat of Nabis the tyrant.” But the magistrates did not suffer him to be long exhibited in this manner, lest the pity of the people should be attended with ill consequences. They therefore took him away on a sudden; and, after consulting together, caused him to be conveyed to a place called the Treasury. This was a subterraneous place, whither neither light nor air entered from without, and had no door to it, but was shut with a huge stone that was rolled over the entrance of it. In this dungeon they imprisoned Philopœmen, and posted a guard round every part of it.

“As soon as it was night, and all the people were withdrawn, Dinocrates caused the stone to be rolled away, and the executioner to descend into the dungeon with a dose of poison to Philopœmen, commanding him not to stir till he had swallowed it. The moment the illustrious Megalopolitan perceived the first glimmerings of light, and saw the man advance towards him, with a lamp in one hand and a sword in the other, he raised himself with the utmost difficulty, for he was very weak, sat down, and then taking the cup, he inquired of the executioner, whether he could tell what was become of the young Megalopolitans his followers, particularly Lycortas? The executioner answering, that he heard almost all had saved themselves by flight, Philopœmen thanked him by a nod, and looking kindly on him, – “You bring me,” says he, “good news; and I find we are not entirely unfortunate;” after which, without breathing the least complaint, he swallowed the deadly dose, and laid himself again on his cloak. The poison was very speedy in its effects; for Philopœmen, being extremely weak and feeble, expired in a moment.

“When the news of his death spread among the Achaians, all their cities were inexpressibly afflicted. Immediately all their young men who were of age to bear arms, and all their magistrates, came to Megalopolis. Here a grand council being summoned, it was unanimously resolved not to delay a moment the revenge of so horrid a deed; and, accordingly, having elected on the spot Lycortas for their general, they advanced with the utmost fury into Messene, and filled every part of it with blood and slaughter. The Messenians having now no refuge left, and being unable to defend themselves by force of arms, sent a deputation to the Achaians, to desire that an end might be put to the war, and to beg pardon for their past faults. Lycortas, moved at their intreaties, did not think it advisable to treat them as their furious and insolent revolt seemed to deserve. He told them that there was no other way for them to expect a peace, but by delivering up the authors of the revolt, and of the death of Philopœmen; to submit all their affairs to the disposal of the Achaians, and to receive a garrison into their citadel. These conditions were accepted, and executed immediately. Dinocrates, to prevent the ignominy of dying by an executioner, laid violent hands on himself, in which he was imitated by all those who had advised the putting Philopœmen to death.”

A mere village³ now occupies the site of Messene, and this is situated on its ruins, about three quarters of a mile from the great gate, which, of its kind, is the most magnificent ruin in Greece.

A circular wall, composed of large regular blocks, incloses an area of sixty-two feet diameter. In this wall are two gates, one facing Cyparissaii, and the other looking towards Laconia. The architraves have fallen; but that which belonged to the Laconian gate remains entire, with one end on the ground, and the other leaning against the wall.

There are the remains, also, of a stadium, and of a theatre, one of the smallest in Greece. Several other traces, masses of fine walls, and heaps of stones, that are scattered about the place, are overgrown or nearly concealed by large trees and luxuriant shrubs⁴.

NO. II. – MYCENÆ

This city was the capital of Agamemnon, who was the commander-in-chief of the assembled Greeks, before the walls of Troy. This event took place, B. C. 1184; and the present ruins are supposed to be the ruins of the city before that event.

Perseus translated the seat of his kingdom from Argos to Mycenæ. The kings who reigned at Mycenæ, after Perseus, were Erectryon, Sthenelus, and Eurystheus. The last, after the death of Hercules, declared open war against his descendants, apprehending they might some time or other attempt to dethrone him; which, as it happened, was done by the Heraclidæ; for, having killed Eurystheus in battle, they entered victorious into Peloponnesus; and made themselves masters of the country. But a plague obliged them to quit the country. Three years after this, being deceived by the ambiguous expression of the oracle, they made a second attempt, which likewise proved fruitless. This was about twenty years before the taking of Troy.

Atreus, the son of Pelops, uncle by the mother’s side to Eurystheus, was the latter’s successor. And in this manner the crown came to the descendants of Pelops, from whom Peloponnesus, which before was called Apia, derived its name. The bloody hatred of the two brothers, Atreus and Thyestes, is known to all the world.

Plisthenes, the son of Atreus, succeeded his father in the kingdom of Mycenæ, which he left to his son Agamemnon, who was succeeded by his son Orestes.

The kingdom of Mycenæ was filled with enormous and horrible crimes, from the time it came into the family of Pelops.

Tisamenes and Penthilus, sons of Orestes, reigned after their father, and were at last driven out by the Heraclidæ.

The length of the Acropolis of Mycenæ, is about four hundred yards,⁵ and its breadth about two hundred. The whole circuit of this citadel can still be made out; and, in some places, the walls remain to the height of fifteen or twenty feet. They are constructed of huge stones, and belong to that style of building commonly called Cyclopean. This description of wall building is recognised by its massy materials, and by a certain style of rudeness; in which, however, different epochs are easily distinguished. The oldest part of the walls of Mycenæ, resembles the Cyclopean walls of Tiryns, a place to the south, about seven miles distant, which are apparently nothing more than huge masses of unwrought stone, placed one above another, with the interstices filled up by smaller materials.

The citadel of Mycenæ is of an irregular oblong form, and is now chiefly an object of curiosity for the gate, or great entrance, to the north and west angle. The approach to this gate is by a passage of fifty feet long, and thirty wide, formed by two parallel and projecting walls, which was a part of the fortification, and were obviously designed to command the entrance, and annoy any enemy who might venture to attack the place. The door is formed of three stones, two upright, and a cross-stone, forming a soffit. This last is fifteen feet long, four wide, and six feet seven inches thick in the middle, but diminishes towards each end. On this stone stands another of a triangular shape, which is twelve feet long, ten high, and two thick. Two lions are cut in relief on the face of this stone, standing on their hind legs, on opposite sides of a round pillar, on which their forepaws rest.

The kingdom of the Argives⁶ was divided into two portions, by Acrisius and his brother Prœtus. Argos and Mycenæ were their capitals. These, as belonging to the same family, and distant only about six miles and a quarter from each other, had one tutelary deity, Juno; and were, jointly, proprietors of her temple, the Heræum. This renowned temple was adorned with curious sculpture, and numerous statues. The image was very large, made by Polycletus, of gold and ivory, sitting on a throne. Among the offerings was a shield, taken by Menelaus, from Euphorbus, at Ilium; an altar of silver, on which the marriage of Hebe with Hercules was represented; a golden crown and purple robe, given by Nero; and a peacock of gold, set with precious stones, dedicated by Hadrian.

Near it were the remains of a more ancient temple, which had been burned; a taper setting some garlands on fire, while the priestess was sleeping.

The cause of the destruction of Mycenæ is said to have been this: – Eighty of its heroes accompanied the Spartans to the defile of Thermopylæ, and shared with them the glory of their immortal deed. This is said so to have excited the jealousy of their sister city, Argos, that it was never afterwards forgiven. The Argives, stung by the recollection of the opportunity they had thus lost of signalising themselves, and unable to endure the superior fame of their neighbours, made war against Mycenæ, and destroyed it. This event happened about five centuries before Christ. We cannot, however, believe that the Argives, who were an exceedingly mild and benevolent people, could have done such an act of atrocity as this.

Strabo could not imagine where Mycenæ could have stood. He says, that not a single vestige remained. Pausanias, however, who lived at a much later period, found its colossal ruins, and described them as they are seen at this very day.

“It is not,” says Dr. Clarke, “merely the circumstance of seeing the architecture and the sculpture of the heroic ages, which renders a view of Mycenæ one of the highest gratifications a literary traveller can experience; the consideration of its remaining at this time, exactly as Pausanias saw it in the second century, and in such a state of preservation, that an alto-relievo, described by him, yet exists in the identical position he has assigned for it, adds greatly to the interest excited by these remarkable ruins: indeed, so singularly does the whole scene correspond with his account of the place, that, in comparing them together, it might be supposed, a single hour had not elapsed since he was himself upon the spot.”

Everything⁷ conspires to render these ruins pre-eminently interesting; whether we consider their venerable age, the allusions made to them in such distant periods, when they were visited by Sophocles, Euripides and other poets and historians of Greece, as the classical antiquities of their country; or the indisputable examples they afford of the architecture, sculpture, mythology and customs of the heroic ages.

The walls consist of huge unhewn masses of stone, so fitted and adapted to each other, as to have given rise to an opinion, that the power of man was inadequate to the labour necessary in building them.

One of the first things that is noticed is a tumulus of an immense size. This has been opened, and the entrance is no longer concealed. This sepulchre has been erroneously called the “treasury of Atreus;” and the “monument of Agamemnon.” “That this sepulchre,” says Clarke, “could not have been the treasury of Atreus, is evident from Pausanias‘s description, because it was without the walls of the Acropolis; and that it cannot be the monument of Agamemnon, because it was within the citadel.”

In regard to the tomb of Agamemnon, the following account has been given by Mr. Turner: “I entered by a subterraneous passage, opened by Lord Elgin, and was surprised to find myself in an immense dome, about ninety feet high, and fifty round the bottom. It had two doors, one into the open air, and another into an interior chamber, which was thoroughly dark, and, I was told, very small. It was built of immense stones, and was in excellent preservation. The tomb being subterraneous, there are no traces above-ground, and you might walk over it for years, without suspecting that you were walking over so interesting a ruin.”

The other antiquities must remain for the more attentive examination of future travellers; who, as it is hoped, will visit the ruins provided with the necessary implements for making researches, where, with the slightest precaution, they will be little liable⁸ to interruption, the place being as destitute of inhabitants, and almost as little known, as it was in the time of Strabo; when it was believed that not a vestige could be found⁹.

NO. III. – MILETUS

This celebrated city was the capital of Ionia, situated, in the time of Pausanias, ten stadia from the mouth of the Meander; but that river accumulated its deposit, afterwards, so closely, that the town was removed, in process of time, more than three miles within the land. Of its origin there are two accounts: some ascribing it to a colony from Crete, under the conduct of Miletus; some to Sarpedon; and others to Neleus, the son of Codrus, king of Athens, who died there, and whose tomb was in existence for many ages.

“Alyattes, king of Sardis, made war upon the Milesians in the following manner,” says Herodotus. “As the time of harvest approached, he marched an army into their country to the sound of the pastoral pipe, harp, and flutes, played upon by women as well as men. On his arrival in their territories, he neither hunted, nor in any respect injured their edifices, which stood in the fields; but he totally destroyed the produce of their lands, and then returned. As the Milesians were securely situated near the sea, all attacks upon their city would probably have proved ineffectual. His motive for not destroying their buildings was, that they might be induced again to cultivate their lands, and that on every repetition of his excursions, he might be secure of plunder.”

In this manner the war was protracted during a period of eleven years; the Milesians receiving no succour from any of their neighbours, except the natives of Chios. In the twelfth year of the war the enemy again set fire to the corn, and a sudden wind springing up, the flames caught the temple of Minerva and burnt it to the ground. Alyattes, supposing that the Milesians must be destitute of corn from these repeated conflagrations, sent word that an ambassador would be at Miletus to make a truce, until he had rebuilt the temple. When Thrasybulus, king of Miletus, heard this, he directed all the corn that could be in any way collected, to be brought into the public market-place; and at an appointed time ordered the Milesians to commence a scene of feasting and dances. When Alyattes heard of this festivity, convinced that he had been mistaken as to the hope of starving the Milesians out, he not only immediately offered peace, but entered into a strict alliance with them, and forthwith erected two temples to Minerva instead of one.

The Ionians having been drawn into revolt through the intrigues and ambitious views of two persons, Aristagoras and Hysteius, the Persians, having routed the Ionians, laid siege to Miletus, both by sea and land. They not only undermined the walls, but applied every species of military machines against it. The oracle had declared: —

And thou, Miletus, versed in ill too long,
Shalt be the prey and plunder of the strong:
Your wives shall stoop to wash a long-hair’d train,
And others guard our Didymæan fane.

This prophecy was fulfilled. The city was taken and utterly destroyed. The greater part of the Milesians were slain by the Persians, who at that time wore long hair; and their wives and children were carried into slavery. Those who survived, were sent to Susa; Darius treating them with great humanity.

The Milesians, continues Herodotus, on suffering these calamities from the Persians, did not meet with the return from the people of Sybaris, which they might justly have expected. When Sybaris was taken by the Crotoniati, the Milesians had shaved their heads, and discovered every testimony of sorrow; for betwixt these two cities a strict hospitality prevailed. And here we must give room for a beautiful instance of sensibility on the part of the Athenians. When they heard of the destruction of Miletus, they gave way to many indications of sorrow; and some years after the capture of Miletus, a drama, written by Phrynicus, being represented at Athens, the whole audience melted into tears. The poet, for thus reminding them of so terrible a calamity, was fined a thousand drachmæ, and the piece forbidden to be played in future.

A bloody battle was fought under the walls of the town, between the Athenians and Argives on one side, and the Peloponnesians assisted by the Persians and the revolted Milesians on the other. The fortune of the day turned to the side of the Athenians; and they would have entered the city and recovered their authority, had not a fleet of fifty-five sail, belonging to the enemy, compelled them to draw off their forces and retire.

B. C. 412¹⁰. In this year the inhabitants of Miletus joined the Lacedæmonian party against Athens. When the Athenians heard of this, they voted the expenditure of a thousand talents, which, in more prosperous times, they had deposited in the citadel, under the sanction of a decree of the senate and people, to reserve it for an occasion of the utmost danger. This enabled them to recruit their fleet; and having secured the fidelity of the Lesbians, they endeavoured to recover their authority in Miletus.

Lysander of Lacedæmon acted a great atrocity at Miletus. Apprehending that those who were then at the head of the people, would escape his revenge, he swore that he would do them no harm. These chiefs, giving credit to his oath, appeared therefore in public; but no sooner had they done so, than the treacherous Lysander gave leave to the nobles of the town to put them all to death, which they immediately did, although the number amounted to no less than eight hundred! He caused, also, an incredible number of persons, who were of the party opposed to him, to be massacred; and this he did not only to gratify his own malice and revenge, but to serve the enmity, malice, and avarice of his friends, whom he took delight in supporting in the gratification of their passions by the death of their enemies.

The Milesians, when free from a foreign yoke, were often reduced to a state of vassalage by domestic tyrants, who governed them with absolute sway, and made them feel all the evils of a foreign subjection. In the time of Antiochus II., for instance, we read of one Timarchus, who, reigning in Miletus, and practising all manner of cruelties, was driven out by that prince, and rewarded by the citizens with the title of Theos.

When Alexander left Ephesus, he marched to Miletus. But the city, expecting succours from the Persians, closed its gates against him. Memnon, one of the most valiant commanders of Darius, who had shut himself up in the fortress, determined to make as stout a defence as possible. The Macedonian, however, attacked him skilfully and vigorously, sending fresh troops to supply the places of those that were wearied; yet finding his troops still repulsed in all directions, the garrison being well supplied with every thing necessary for a siege, he planted all his machines against the walls, made a great number of breaches, and attempted new scalados wherever they were attached. At length the besieged, after many brave efforts, fearful of being taken by storm, capitulated. When he had succeeded, Alexander acted in a manner much more noble and generous than he had done before, or did after in many cases; – he treated the Milesians with great humanity. The foreigners, however, that had taken part with them, he sold as slaves.

Miletus is thus described in the pages of Barthelemy, whose Travels of Anacharsis, as we have before observed, have all the authority of an ancient author: – “When at Miletus, we surveyed with admiration its temples, festivals, manufactures, harbours, and the innumerable concourse of ships, mariners, and workmen, there perpetually in motion. This city is an abode of opulence, learning, and pleasure; – it is the Athens of Ionia. Within the walls the city is adorned by the productions of art; and without, embellished by the riches of nature. How often have we directed our steps to the banks of the Mæander, which, after having received a multitude of rivers, and bathed the walls of various cities, rolls its waters in innumerable windings through the plain which is honoured by bearing its name, and proudly ornaments its course with the plenty it creates! How often, seated on the turf, which borders its flowery margin, surrounded on all sides with the most delightful prospects, and unable to satiate our senses with the purity and serene splendour of the air and sky, have we not felt a delicious languor insinuate into our souls, and throw us, if I may so speak, into the intoxication of happiness! Such is the influence of the climate of Ionia: and as moral causes, far from correcting, have only tended to increase it, the Ionians have become the most effeminate, but, at the same time, are to be numbered among the most amiable people, of Asiatic Greece. In their ideas, sentiments, and manners, a certain softness prevails, which constitute the charm of society; and in their music and dancing is a liberty, which at first offends, and then seduces. They have added new charms to pleasure, and enriched their luxury by inventions. Numerous festivals occupy them at home, or attract them to the neighbouring cities, where the men appear in magnificent habits, and the women in all the elegance of female ornament, and with all the desire of pleasing.”

St. Paul, in his way from Corinth to Jerusalem, passed through Miletus; and as he went by sea, and would not take Ephesus in his way, he caused the priests and bishops of the church of Ephesus to come to Miletus¹¹.

Miletus fell under subjection to the Romans, and became a considerable place under the Greek emperors. Then it fell under the scourge of the Turks; one of the sultans of which (A. D. 1175) sent twenty thousand men, with orders to lay waste the Roman imperial provinces, and bring him sand, water, and an oar. All the cities on the Mæander were then ruined: since which, little of the history of Miletus has been known.

The Milesians early applied themselves to navigation; in the spirit of which they, in the process of time, planted not less than eighty colonies, in different parts of the world; and as we are ourselves so largely engaged in colonisation, perhaps an account of the colonies, sent out by the Milesians, may not be deemed uninteresting.

From this list we may imagine to what a height of power and civilisation this city must have once attained. Babylon stands in a wilderness and a desert by its side.

Miletus was adorned with superb edifices; and was greatly celebrated for its trade, sciences, and arts. It gave birth also to many eminent persons; amongst whom may be particularly mentioned, Thales¹², Anaximenes¹³, Anaximander¹⁴, Hecatæus¹⁵, Timotheus¹⁶, also the celebrated Aspasia, the wife of Pericles. It was also famous for its excellent wool, with which were made stuffs and garments, held in the highest reputation both for softness, elegance, and beauty.

It had a temple dedicated to Apollo Didymæus, which was burnt by Xerxes. The Milesians, however, soon after rebuilt it, and upon so large a scale, that Strabo describes it as having been equal in extent to a village; so large indeed was it, that it could never be covered. It stood in a thick grove. With what magnificence and prodigious spirit this edifice was designed, may in some measure be collected from the present remains. Strabo called it the “greatest of all temples;” adding that it continued without a roof on account of its bigness; Pausanias mentions it as unfinished, but as one of the wonders peculiar to Ionia; and Vitruvius mentions this among the four temples, which have raised their architects to the summit of renown¹⁷.

There was a magnificent theatre also built of stone, but cased with marble, and greatly enriched with sculptures. There was also one temple of Venus in this town, and another in the neighbourhood.

Miletus is now called Palatskia (the palaces). Notwithstanding its title, and the splendour of its ancient condition, it is but a mean place now. The principal relic of its former magnificence is a ruined theatre, measuring in length four hundred and fifty-seven feet. The external face of this vast fabric is marble. The front has been removed. A few seats only remain, and those, as usual, ranged on the slope of a hill. The vaults which supported the extremities, with the arches or avenues of the two wings, are constructed with such solidity, that they will not easily be demolished. The entrance of the vault is nearly filled up with rubbish; but when Dr. Chandler crept into it, led by an Armenian, with a candle in a long paper lantern, innumerable bats began flitting about them; and the stench was intolerable.

The town was spread with rubbish and overgrown with thickets. The vestiges of “the heathen city,” are pieces of wall, broken arches, and a few scattered pedestals and inscriptions, a square marble urn, and many wells. One of the pedestals has belonged to a statue of the Emperor Hadrian, who was a friend to the Milesians, as appears from the titles of Saviour and Benefactor, bestowed upon him. Another has supported the Emperor Severus, and has a long inscription, with this preamble: “The senate and people of the city of the Milesians, the first settled in Ionia, and the mother of many and great cities both in Pontus and Egypt, and in various other parts of the world.” This lies among the bushes behind the theatre.

Several piers of an aqueduct are standing. Near the ferry is a large couchant lion, of white marble; and in a Turkish burying-ground another; and traces remain of an old fortress. Besides these, there are a considerable number of forsaken mosques; and among the ruins are several fragments of ancient churches.

Wheler says, that in his time, there were many inscriptions, most of them defaced by time and weather; some upon single stones, others upon very large tombs. On one of them were carved two women hunting, with three dogs; the foremost holding a hare in its mouth.

“Miletus,” says Dr. Chandler, from whom we have borrowed several passages in this article, “was once powerful and illustrious. The early navigators extended its commerce to remote regions; the whole Euxine Sea, the Propontis, Egypt, and other countries, were frequented by its ships, and settled by its colonies. It withstood Darius, and refused to admit Alexander. It has been styled the metropolis and head of Ionia; the bulwark of Asia; chief in war and peace; mighty by sea; the fertile mother, which had poured forth her sons to every quarter. It afterwards fell so low as to furnish a proverbial saying, ‘The Milesians were once great;’ but if we compare its ancient glory, and its subsequent humiliation, with its present state, we may justly exclaim, ‘Miletus, how much lower art thou now fallen¹⁸!’”

NO. IV. – NAUPLIA

This town, now called Napoli di Romania, is situated along the foot of the rocky promontory, which projects into the sea, at the head of the gulf of Napoli. Its walls were built by the Venetians.

Ancient Nauplia, which is said to have been built by Nauplius, absurdly called the son of Neptune, became the chief naval arsenal of the Argives. Even so early as the time of Pausanias, however, it had become desolate; only a few remains of a temple, and of the walls, then existing. Its modern history is rather interesting.

The Venetians obtained possession in 1460. In 1495 it surrendered to Bajazet, but was again taken by the Venetians, under Morozini, in 1586, after a month’s siege, and became the head-quarters of that nation, in the Morea. In 1714, it was treacherously given up to Ali Coumourgi, and was the seat of Turkish government, and residence of the Pasha of the Morea; till Tripolizzi was selected as being more central; when it became subject to the Bey of Argos. The crescent remained uninterruptedly flying on this fortress, till the 12th of December 1822, when it surrendered to the Greeks, after a long and tedious blockade; the Turkish garrison having been reduced to such a state of starvation, as to feed on the corpses of their companions. In 1825, Ibrahim Pasha made a fruitless attempt to surprise the place; and it has been the strong-hold of the Greeks in their struggle for liberty. In April, 1826, the commission of government held their sittings here; but were obliged to retire to Ægina, on account of civil dissentions, and two of the revolted chiefs being in possession of the Palamadi. During the presidency of Capo d’Istrias, who always resided, and was assassinated in the town, it again became the seat of government; and on the 31st of January, 1833, Otho, Prince of Bavaria, arrived here, as first king of restored Greece.

The strength of Napoli is the citadel, which is called the Palamadi, over whose turreted walls a few cypresses raise their sombre heads. It stands on the easternmost and highest elevation of the promontory, and completely overhangs and commands the town. To all appearance it is impregnable, and, from its situation and aspect, has been termed the Gibraltar of Greece. It is seven hundred and twenty feet above the sea; and has only one assailable point, where a narrow isthmus connects it with the main land; and this is overlooked by a rocky precipice.

Mr. Dodwell made fruitless inquiries in respect to the caves and labyrinths near Nauplia, which are said to have been formed by the Cyclops; but a minute examination is neither a safe nor easy undertaking. “The remains that are yet unknown,” says he, “will be brought to light, when the reciprocal jealousy of the European powers permits the Greeks to break their chains,¹⁹ and to chase from their outraged territory that host of dull oppressors, who have spread the shades of ignorance over the land that was once illuminated by science, and who unconsciously trample on the venerable dust of the Pelopidæ and the Atridæ.”

Nauplia is a miserable village; the houses have nothing peculiar about them, but are built in the common form of the lowest habitations of the villages of France and Savoy. The inhabitants are indolent. “The indolence of the Napolitans,” says M. La Martine, “is mild, serene, and gay – the carelessness of happiness; while that of the Greek is heavy, morose, and sombre; it is a vice, which punishes itself.”²⁰

NO. V. – NEMEA

A town of Argolis, greatly distinguished by the games once celebrated there. These games (called the Nemean games) were originally instituted by the Argives in honour of Archemorus, who died from the bite of a serpent; and, afterwards, renewed in honour of Hercules, who in that neighbourhood is said to have destroyed a lion by squeezing him to death.

These games consisted of foot and horse races, and chariot races; boxing, wrestling, and contests of every kind, both gymnastic and equestrian. They were celebrated on the 12th of our August, on the 1st and 3rd of every Olympiad; and continued long after those of Olympia were abolished.

In the neighbouring mountains is still shown the den of the lion, said to have been slain by Hercules; near which stand the remains of a considerable temple, dedicated to Jupiter Nemeus and Cleomenes, formerly surrounded by a grove of cypresses.

Of this temple three columns only are remaining. These columns, two of which belonging to the space between antæ, support their architrave. These columns are four feet six inches and a half in diameter, and thirty-one feet ten inches and a half in height, exclusive of the capitals. The single column is five feet three inches diameter, and belongs to the peristyle. The temple was hexastyle and peripteral, and is supposed to have had fourteen columns on the sides. The general intercolumniation is seven feet and a half, and those at the angles five feet eleven inches and a quarter. It stands upon three steps, each of which is one foot two inches in height. The capital of the exterior column has been shaken out of its place, and will probably ere long fall to the ground. “I have not seen in Greece,” continues Mr. Dodwell, “any Doric temple, the columns of which are of such slender proportions as those of Nemea. The epistylia are thin and meagre, and the capitals too small for the height of the columns. It is constructed of a soft calcareous stone, which is an aggregate of sand and small petrified shells, and the columns are coated with a fine stucco. Pausanias praises the beauty of the temple; but, even in his time, the roof had fallen, and not a single statue was left.”

No fragments of marble are found amongst the ruins, but an excavation would probably be well repaid, as the temple was evidently thrown down at one moment, and if it contained any sculptured marbles, they are still concealed by the ruins.

Near the temple are several blocks of stones, some fluted Doric frusta, and a capital of small dimensions. This is supposed to have formed part of the sepulchre of Archemorus. Mr. Dodwell, however, found no traces of the tumulus of Lycurgus, his father, king of Nemea, mentioned by Pausanias, nor any traces of the theatre and stadium.

Beyond the temple is a remarkable summit, the top of which is flat, and visible in the gulf of Corinth. On one side is a ruinous church, with some rubbish; perhaps where Osspaltes and his father are said to have been buried. Near it is a very large fig-tree. To this a goatherd repaired daily before noon with his flock, which huddled together in the shade until the extreme heat was over, and then proceeded orderly to feed in the cool upon the mountain.

“Nemea,” continues Mr. Dodwell, “is more characterised by gloom than most of the places I have seen. The splendour of religious pomp, and the long animation of gymnastic and equestrian exercises, have been succeeded by the dreary vacancy of a death-like solitude. We saw no living creatures but a ploughman and his oxen, in a spot which was once exhilarated by the gaiety of thousands, and resounded with the shouts of a crowded population²¹.”

NO. VI. – NINEVEH

Of Nineveh, the mighty city of old,

How like a star she fell and pass’d away!

Atherstone.

The Assyrian empire was founded by Ashur, the son of Shem, according to some writers; but according to others, by Nimrod; and to others, by Ninus.

Ninus, according to Diodorus Siculus, is to be esteemed the most ancient of the Assyrian kings. Being of a warlike disposition, and ambitious of that glory which results from courage, says he, he armed a considerable number of young men, that were brave and vigorous like himself; trained them up in laborious exercises and hardships, and by that means accustomed them to bear the fatigues of war patiently, and to face dangers with intrepidity. What Diodorus states of Ninus, however, is much more applicable to his father, Nimrod, the son of Cush, grandson of Cham, and great-grandson of Noah; he who is signalised in scripture as having been “a mighty hunter before the Lord;” a distinction which he gained from having delivered Assyria from the fury and dread of wild animals; and from having, also, by this exercise of hunting, trained up his followers to the use of arms, that he might make use of them for other purposes more serious and extensive.

The next king of Assyria was Ninus, the son of Nimrod. This prince prepared a large army, and in the course of seventeen years conquered a vast extent of country; extending to Egypt on one side, and to India and Bactriana on the other. On his return he resolved on building the largest and noblest city in the world; so extensive and magnificent, as to leave it in the power of none, that should come after him, to build such another. It is probable, however, that Nimrod laid the foundations of this city, and that Ninus completed it: for the ancient writers often gave the name of founder to persons, who were only entitled to the appellation of restorer or improver.

This city was called Nineveh. Its form and extent are thus related by Diodorus, who states that he took his account from Ctesias the Gnidian: – “It was of a long form; for on both sides it ran out about twenty-three miles. The two lesser angles, however, were only ninety furlongs a-piece; so that the circumference of the whole was about seventy-four miles. The walls were one hundred feet in height; and so broad, that three chariots might be driven together upon it abreast; and on these walls were fifteen hundred turrets, each of which was two hundred feet high.”

When the improver had finished the city, he appointed it to be inhabited by the richest Assyrians; but gave leave, at the same time, to people of other nations (as many as would) to dwell there; and, moreover, allowed to the citizens at large a considerable territory next adjoining them.

Having finished the city, Ninus marched into Bactria; his army consisting of one million seven hundred thousand men, two hundred thousand horse, and sixteen thousand chariots armed with scythes. This number is, doubtless, greatly exaggerated. With so large a force, he could do no otherwise than conquer a great number of cities. But having, at last, laid siege to Bactria, the capital of the country, it is said that he would probably have failed in his enterprise against that city, had he not been assisted by the counsel of Semiramis, wife to one of his officers, who directed him in what manner to attack the citadel. By her means he entered the city, and becoming entire master of it, he got possession of an immense treasure. He soon after married Semiramis; her husband having destroyed himself, to prevent the effects of some threats that Ninus had thrown out against him. By Semiramis, Ninus had one son, whom he named Ninyas; and dying not long after, Semiramis became queen: who, to honour his memory, erected a magnificent monument, which is said to have remained a long time after the destruction of the city.

The history of this queen is so well known,²² that we shall not enlarge upon it; we having already done so in our account of Babylon; for she was one of the enlargers of that mighty city.

There is a very great difference of opinion, in regard to the time in which Semiramis lived. According to

Alexander’s opinion of this celebrated woman may be gathered from the following passage of his speech to his army: – “You wish to enjoy me long; and even, if it were possible, for ever; but, as to myself, I compute the length of my existence, not by years, but by glory. I might have confined my ambition within the narrow limits of Macedonia; and, contented with the kingdom my ancestors left me, have waited, in the midst of pleasures and indolence, an inglorious old age. I own that if my victories, not my years, are computed, I shall seem to have lived long; but can you imagine, that after having made Europe and Asia but one empire, after having conquered the two noblest parts of the world, in the tenth year of my reign and the thirtieth of my age, that it will become me to stop in the midst of so exalted a career, and discontinue the pursuit of glory to which I have entirely devoted myself? Know, that this glory ennobles all things, and gives a true and solid grandeur to whatever appears insignificant. In what place soever I may fight, I shall fancy myself upon the stage of the world, and in presence of all mankind. I confess that I have achieved mighty things hitherto; but the country we are now in reproaches me that a woman has done still greater. It is Semiramis I mean. How many nations did she conquer! How many cities were built by her! What magnificent and stupendous works did she finish! How shameful is it, that I should not yet have attained to so high a pitch of glory! Do but second my ardour, and I will soon surpass her. Defend me only from secret cabals and domestic treasons, by which most princes lose their lives; I take the rest upon myself, and will be answerable to you for all the events of the war.”

“This speech,” says Rollin, “gives us a perfect idea of Alexander’s character. He had no notion of true glory. He did not know either the principle, the rule, or end of it. He certainly placed it where it was not. He was strongly prejudiced in vulgar error, and cherished it. He fancied himself born merely for glory; and that none could be acquired but by unbounded, unjust, and irregular conduct. In his impetuous sallies after a mistaken glory, he followed neither reason, virtue, nor humanity; and as if his ambitious caprice ought to have been a rule and standard to all other men, he was surprised that neither his officers nor soldiers would enter into his views, and that they lent themselves very unwillingly to support his ridiculous enterprises.” These remarks are well worthy the distinguished historian who makes them.

Semiramis was succeeded by her son Ninyas; a weak and effeminate prince, who shut himself up in the city, and, seldom engaging in affairs, naturally became an object of contempt to all the inhabitants. His successors are said to have followed his example; and some of them even went beyond him in luxury and indolence. Of their history no trace remains.

At length we come to Pull, supposed to be the father of Sardanapalus; in whose reign Jonah is believed to have lived. “The word of the Lord,” says the Hebrew scripture, “came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” Jonah, instead of acting as he was commanded, went to Joppa, and thence to Tarshish. He was overtaken by a storm, swallowed by a whale, and thrown up again. Being commanded again, he arose and went to Nineveh, “an exceedingly great city of three days’ journey;” where, having warned the inhabitants, that in forty days their city should be overthrown, the people put on sackcloth, “from the greatest of them even to the least.” The king sat in ashes, and proclaimed a fast. “Let neither man nor beast,” said the edict, “herd nor flock, taste any thing; let them not feed, nor drink water; but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth; and cry mightily unto God; yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?”

On the king’s issuing this edict, the people did as they were commanded, and the ruin was delayed. On finding this, the prophet acted in a very unworthy manner. To have failed as a prophet gave him great concern; insomuch, that he desired death. “Take, I beseech thee, O Lord, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” “Shall I not spare Nineveh,” answered the Lord, “that great city, wherein are more than six-score thousand persons, that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”

Sardanapalus was, beyond all other sovereigns recorded in history, the most effeminate and voluptuous; the most perfect specimen of sloth, luxury, cowardice, crime, and elaborate folly, that was, perhaps, ever before exhibited to the detestation of mankind. He clothed himself in women’s attire, and spun fine wool and purple amongst throngs of concubines. He painted likewise his face, and decked his whole body with other allurements. He imitated, also, a woman’s voice; and in a thousand respects disgraced his nature by the most unbounded licentiousness and depravity. He even wished to immortalise his impurities; selecting for his epitaph the following lines: —

Hæc habeo quæ edi, quæque exsaturata libido
Hausit; at illa jacent multa et præclara relicta.

“This epitaph,” says Aristotle, “is only fit for a hog.”²³

Through all the city sounds the voice of joy,
And tipsy merriment. On the spacious walls,
That, like huge sea-cliffs, gird the city in,
Myriads of wanton feet go to and fro;
Gay garments rustle in the scented breeze;
Crimson and azure, purple, green, and gold;
Laugh, jest, and passing whisper are heard there;
Timbrel and lute, and dulcimer and song;
And many feet that tread the dance are seen,
And arms unflung, and swaying head-plumes crown’d:
So is that city steep’d in revelry²⁴.

In this dishonourable state Sardanapalus lived several years. At length the governor of Media, having gained admittance into his palace, and seen with his own eyes a king guilty of such criminal excesses; enraged at the spectacle, and not able to endure that so many brave men should be subject to a prince more soft and effeminate than the women themselves, immediately resolved to put an end to his dominion. He therefore formed a conspiracy against him; and in this he was joined by Belesis, governor of Babylon, and several others. Supporting each other for the same end, the one stirred up the Medes and Persians; the other inflamed the inhabitants of

Babylon. They gained over, also, the king of Arabia. Several battles, however, were fought, in all of which the rebels were repulsed and defeated. They became, therefore, so greatly disheartened, that at length the commanders resolved every one to return to their respective countries; and they had done so, had not Belesis entertained great faith in an astrological prediction. He was continually consulting the stars; and at length solemnly assured the confederated troops, that in five days they would be aided by a support, they were at present unable to imagine or anticipate; – the gods having given to him a decided intimation of so desirable an interference. Just as he had predicted, so it happened; for before the time he mentioned had expired, news came that the Bactrians, breaking the fetters of servitude, had sprung into the field, and were hastening to their assistance.

Sardanapalus, not knowing any thing of the revolt of the Bactrians, and puffed up by former successes, was still indulging in sloth and idleness, and preparing beasts for sacrifice, plenty of wine, and other things necessary wherewith to feast and entertain his soldiers. While the army was thus indulging itself, Arbaces, receiving intelligence, by some deserters, of the security and intemperance of the enemy, fell in upon them in the night on a sudden; and being in due order and discipline, and setting upon such as were in confusion, he being before prepared, and the other altogether unprovided, they easily broke into their camp, and made a great slaughter of some, forcing the rest into the city. Upon this, Sardanapalus committed the charge of his whole army to his wife’s brother, (Salamenes,) and took upon himself the defence of the city. But the rebels twice defeated the king’s forces; once in the open field, and the second time before the walls of the city; in which last engagement Salamenes was killed, and almost all his army lost; some being cut off in the pursuit, and the rest (save a very few) being interrupted, and prevented from entering into the city, were driven headlong into the Euphrates; and so great was the number destroyed, that the river became dyed with the blood, and retained that colour for a great distance and a long course together.

Sardanapalus, now perceiving that his kingdom was like to be lost, sent away his three sons and his three daughters, with a great deal of treasure, into Paphlagonia, to Cotta, the governor there, his most entire friend; and sent posts into all the provinces of the kingdom, in order to raise soldiers, and to make all other preparations necessary to endure a siege; being greatly encouraged to do this from an acquaintance with an ancient prophecy; viz. – that Nineveh could never be taken by force, till the river should become a foe to the city.

The enemy, on the other hand, grown more courageous by their successes, eagerly urged on the siege. They made, nevertheless, but little impression on the besieged, by reason of the strength of the walls; for balistæ to cast stones, testudos to cast up mounts, and battering-rams, were not known in those ages. The city was also well supplied with every thing needful. The siege, therefore, lasted two years: during which time nothing to any purpose was done, save that the walls were sometimes assaulted, and the besieged penned up in the city. At length, in the third year, an unfortunate circumstance took place. This was no other than the overflowing of the Euphrates, and from continual rains, coming up into a part of the city, and tearing down thirty furlongs of the walls in length.

When the king found this – conceiving it to be no other than a fulfilment of the prophecy, on the improbability of which he had so strongly relied – he gave himself up to despair; caused a large pile of wood to be made in one of the courts of his palace; heaped together all his gold, silver, and wearing apparel; and inclosing his eunuchs and concubines in an apartment within the pile, caused it to be set on fire; when all perished in the flames in common with himself.

When the revolters heard of this, they entered through several breaches made in the walls, and took the city. They clothed Arbaces with a royal robe, proclaimed him king, and invested him with despotic authority: in gratitude for which Arbaces rewarded every one according to his deserts. He showed great clemency, also, to the inhabitants of Nineveh; for though he dispersed them into several villages, he restored every one to his estate. He, nevertheless, razed the city to the ground. The sum, found in the palace and elsewhere, appears to be incredible: for it is stated to have been no less than equivalent to 25,000,000,000 of pounds sterling. The fire lasted more than fifteen days. Thus, after a continuance of thirty generations, the Assyrian empire was overturned, in the year of the world, 3080; and before Christ 868. Thus far Diodorus; but Usher, and many other historians, amongst whom may be mentioned Herodotus, state, that the Assyrian empire, from Ninus, lasted only 520 years.

Several kings reigned after this, under what is called the second Assyrian empire. For on the fall of the former, three considerable kingdoms were generated, viz: – that of the Medes, which Arbaces, on the fall of Nineveh, restored to its liberty; that of the Assyrians of Babylon, which was given to Belesis, governor of that city; and that of the Assyrians of Nineveh.

The first king that reigned in Nineveh, after the death of Sardanapalus, is called in Scripture Tiglath-Pileser²⁵; the second Salmanaser, in whose reign, Tobit, with Anna his wife, and his son Tobias, was carried captive into Assyria, where he became one of Salmanaser’s principal officers. That king having died after a reign of fourteen years, he was succeeded by his son Sennacherib; he, whose army was cut off in one night before the walls of Jerusalem. He had laid siege to that city some time before, but had marched against Egypt, which country having subdued, he once more sat down before the sacred city: “And it came to pass, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and four score and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses²⁶.” After so terrible a blow, the pretended king of kings, as he presumed to call himself, “this triumpher over nations, and conqueror of gods,” returned to his own country, where “it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch, his god, that he was struck by his two sons²⁷, who smote him with the sword: and Esarhaddon, his youngest son, reigned in his stead²⁸.” The destruction that fell upon his army, has been thus described by a celebrated poet of modern times.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB

I

“The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

II

“Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

III

“For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.

IV

“And there lay the steed, with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

V

“And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

VI

“And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail;
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.”

Esarhaddon was succeeded by Nebuchadnezzar the First, in whose reign Tobit died²⁹. Perceiving his end approaching, that good old man called his children to him, and advised them to lose no time, after they had buried him and their mother, but to quit the city, before its ruin came on. “The ruin of Nineveh,” said he, “is at hand; the wickedness of the city will occasion its ruin.”

Nahum represents the wickedness of this city, too, in terms exceedingly vivid³⁰: “Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery.” “It shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste; who will bemoan her?” “The gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies; the fire shall devour thy bars.” “The sword shall cut thee off; it shall eat thee up like the canker-worm.” “Thy nobles shall dwell in the dust; thy people be scattered upon the mountains, and no man shall gather them.”

Zephaniah, also, issued similar denunciations³¹. “The Lord will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness: and flocks shall lie down in the midst of her; both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds.” “This is the rejoicing city, that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, ‘I am, and there is none beside me.’ How shall she become a desolation; a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passes by shall hiss and wag his hand.”

The ruin, predicted, came in the reign of Saracus. Cyaxares, king of the Medes, entering into an alliance with the king of Babylon, they joined their forces together, laid siege to the city, took it, slew their king, and utterly destroyed it.

“God,” says the historian, “had foretold by his prophets, that he would bring vengeance upon that impious city, for the blood of his servants, wherewith the kings thereof had gorged themselves, like ravenous lions; that he himself would march at the head of the troops that should come to besiege it; that he would cause consternation and terror to go before him; that he would deliver the old men, the mothers, and their children, into the merciless hands of the soldiers; and that all the treasures of the city should fall into the hands of rapacious and insatiable plunderers; and that the city itself should be so totally destroyed, that not so much as a footstep of it should be left; and that the people should ask hereafter, Where did the proud city of Nineveh stand?”³²

This prophecy has been fulfilled only in part; the absolute completion of it remains still to be fulfilled. In the time of Hadrian, the ruins of it still existed; and at a subsequent period a great battle was fought on the space left among the ruins, between Heraclius, Emperor of Constantinople, and Rhazates, general to Chosroes, king of Persia. On that memorable day, Heraclius, on his horse Phallas, surpassed the bravest of his warriors; his hip was wounded with a spear; the steed was wounded in the thigh; but he carried his master safe and victorious through the triple phalanx of the enemy. In the heat of the action, three valiant chiefs were successively slain by the sword and lance of the emperor; amongst whom was Rhazates himself. He fell like a soldier: but the sight of his head scattered grief and despair through the fainting ranks of the Persians. In this battle, which was fiercely fought from day-break to the eleventh hour, twenty-eight standards, besides those which might be torn or broken, were taken from the Persians; the greatest part of their army was cut to pieces, and the victors, concealing their own loss, passed the night on the field. They acknowledged that on this occasion it was less difficult to kill than to discomfit the soldiers of Chosroes. The conquerors recovered three hundred Roman standards, as well as a great number of captives, of Edessa and Alexandria. Soon after this battle, Chosroes felt compelled to fly: he was afterwards deposed, thrown into a dungeon, where he was insulted, famished, tortured, and at length murdered by one of his own sons.

We have given an account of its ancient size and splendour: we must now give some account of the ruins which still remain: for though some writers insist, that even the dust of this vast city has disappeared, it is certain that some of its walls still subsist, beside the city of Mosul.

Mosul was visited by Captain Kinneir, in the years 1813-14. “About a mile before we entered Mosul,” says he, “we passed two artificial tumuli, and extensive ramparts, supposed to be the ruins of the ancient Nineveh. The first tumulus is about three quarters of a mile in circumference. It has the same appearance, and is of about the same height, as those we saw at Susa. The circumference of the other is not so considerable; but its elevation is greater, and on the top stands the tomb of Jonah, the prophet, round which has been erected a village, called Nunia.”

Captain Kinneir proceeds to state, that the Jews go in pilgrimage to this tomb; which is a small and insignificant building, crowned with a cupola. The rampart is esteemed, by some, to have been thrown up by Nadir Shah, when he besieged Mosul. Captain Kinneir, however, had no doubt that this opinion is founded in error, since they in no way resembled the field-works which an army, such as that of Nadir Shah, was likely to erect. “I cannot doubt, therefore,” says he, “that they are the vestiges of some ancient city, probably Nineveh; or that Larissa, described by Xenophon.” In regard to Mosul, he describes it as a sombre-looking town, fast dwindling into insignificance.

These ruins were subsequently visited by Mr. Rich, the East India Company’s resident at Bagdat. They lie on the eastern banks of the Tigris³³. To the north are the Gara mountains, on the chain of which snow is said to lie in clefts and sheltered situations from one year to another. The Tigris is here about four hundred feet broad, its depth, for the most part, about two fathoms; and near the bridge was fought the celebrated battle between Chosroes’ troops and those of Heraclius, to which we have just now alluded. On the eastern side of this bridge many remains of antiquity have been found, consisting, for the most part, of bricks, some of which are whole and some in fragments, and pieces of gypsum, some of which are covered with inscriptions, in cruciform character³⁴. There are also narrow ancient passages, with apertures or doors, opening one into the other, dark, narrow, and vaulted, appearing as if designed as vaults for the reception of dead bodies.

Mr. Rich afterwards rode through the area of Nineveh to the first wall of the inclosure. He found it a line of earth and gravel, out of which large hewn stones are frequently dug, as out of all the walls of the area. Beyond was a ditch still very regular; beyond which was a wall, and beyond that another wall larger than any. “The area of Nineveh,” says Mr. Rich, “is, on a rough guess, about one and a half to two miles broad, and four miles long. On the river on the west side there are only remains of one wall; and I observed the same at the north and south extremities; but on the east side there are the remains of three walls. The west one appears to have run a little in front of Nebbi Yunus. Between it and the river the ground is subject to frequent inundations and changes; but it has not interfered with the area.”

Mr. Rich did not observe at the angles of the walls any traces of towers, bastions, or any works of that kind. These walls are not more than from ten to fifteen feet high. Large masses of hewn stone are frequently dug up, and bricks are ploughed up perpetually. There is also a piece of grey stone, shaped like the capital of a column, such as at this day surmounts the wooden pillars or posts of Turkish, or rather Persian, verandahs; but there was no carving on it. Pottery, too, is often found, and other Babylonian fragments; also bits of brick adhering to them. These are found near a mound, called the Mount of Koyunjuk, the height of which is about forty-three feet, and its circumference 7691 feet. Its sides are very steep, and its top nearly flat.

Some years ago, a very large bas-relief was dug up among the ruins, representing men and animals, covering a grey stone about ten or eleven feet in height. All the town of Mosul left their houses to go and see this remarkable specimen of antiquity; but not one had the taste to endeavour to preserve it. It was in a few days, therefore, cut up or broken to pieces.

One day, as Mr. Rich was riding along on the outside of the walls, his attention was directed to an object of great antiquity. “Some people had been digging for stones,” says he, “and had dug a hole in the ground, from which they had turned up many large hewn stones with bitumen adhering to them. I examined the excavation, which was about ten feet deep, and found it consisted of huge stones, laid in layers of bitumen and lime-mortar. I brought away some specimens of them sticking together. I also saw some layers of red clay, which were very thick, and had become as indurated as burnt brick; but there was not the least appearance of reeds or straw having been used. This mass appeared to have been a foundation or superstructure. We found among the rubbish some pieces of coarse unglazed pottery. It would not have been possible to tell, from the appearance of the surface of the ground, that there had been building beneath – a watercourse full of pebbles had even passed over it. It is, therefore, very difficult to say to what extent vestiges of building may exist outside the inclosures, the area of which may have been the royal quarter; but certainly was never sufficient for the city of Nineveh.”

“Except the ruins of some large and lofty turrets,” says Mr. Morier, “like that of Babel or Belus, the cities of Babylon and Nineveh are so completely crumbled into dust, as to be wholly undistinguishable, but by a few inequalities of the surface on which they once stood. The humble tent of the Arab now occupies the spot formerly adorned with the palaces of kings; and his flocks procure but a scanty pittance of food, amidst fallen fragments of ancient magnificence. The banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, once so prolific, are now, for the most part, covered with impenetrable brushwood; and the interior of the province, which was traversed and fertilised with innumerable canals, is destitute of either inhabitants or vegetation.”

Among the ruins is a wall, and on the borders of that the peasants of the neighbourhood assemble every year, and sacrifice a sheep, with music and other festivities; a superstition far anterior to the religion they now possess. “One thing is sufficiently obvious,” says Mr. Rich, “to the most careless observer, and that is, the equality of age of all the vestiges discovered here. Whether they belonged to Nineveh or some other city, is another question; but that they are all of the same age and character does not admit of a doubt.”

Mr. Rich took measurements of the mounds, that still exist among these ruins, and did not neglect to cut her name on the wall of what is called Thisbe’s Well. “Some traveller in after times,” says he, with an agreeable enthusiasm, “when her remembrance has long been swept away by the torrent of time, may wonder, on reading the name of Mary Rich³⁵, who the adventurous female was, who had visited the ruins of Nineveh. He will not be aware, that had her name been inscribed at every spot she had visited in the course of her weary pilgrimage, it would be found in places, compared with which, Mousul is the centre of civilisation.”

From the circumstance that from all the mounds large stones, sometimes with bitumen adhering to them, are frequently dug out, Mr. Rich was inclined to believe, that but few bricks were used in the building of this once vast city. There is, however, not much certainty as to this, or in regard to what kind of architecture it was, for the most, or, indeed, any part constructed; for though its walls may be traced in a multitude of directions, nothing now remains beside a few mounds, some bricks, and large stones, hewn into a shape which evidently prove, that they once formed the houses or the temples of a city³⁶.

NO. VII. – NUMANTIA

This city stood near the river Douro; out of the ruins of which has arisen the town of Soria. According to Strabo, it was the capital of Celtiberia.

Strong by nature and art, and by the number of its inhabitants, it was built upon a hill, difficult of access, and on three sides surrounded by mountains. Its extent was, also, so great, that it had within its circuit pasture for cattle. It was unprotected by walls or towers; yet it bravely maintained itself, for a considerable time, against the power of the Romans. The cruelty and injustice of the Romans during this war is justly stigmatised, as being altogether unworthy a great and powerful people. The inhabitants at first gained some advantages over the Roman forces, till Scipio Africanus was commanded to finish the war, and to destroy Numantia altogether. With an army of sixty thousand men he began the siege. He was opposed by the inhabitants with great skill and courage, though their force did not exceed four thousand men. Finding themselves, however, greatly pressed, the Numantians gave themselves up, – first to despair, and then to fury. Their provisions, too, at length began to fail; and they were constrained to feed upon the flesh of horses; then on that of their slain companions; and, lastly, they drew lots to kill and devour each other. After a multitude of misfortunes, they signified a desire to capitulate; but Scipio having demanded, that they should surrender unconditionally on the next day, the Numantians refused; and when they obtained a longer time, instead of surrendering, they retired and set fire to their houses, and destroyed themselves; so that not even one remained to grace the triumph of the conqueror. This, however, has been denied by some writers, who insist, that a number of Numantines delivered themselves into the hands of Scipio, and that fifty of them were drawn in triumph at Rome, and that the rest were sold as slaves. This occurred in the year of Rome 629.

Not a vestige remains, but a few traces at a place called Puente Gavay, a spot difficult of access³⁷.

NO. VIII. – OLYMPIA

This city, known likewise by the name of Pisa, was situated on the right bank of the Alpheus, at the foot of an eminence called the Mount of Saturn. It is peculiarly worthy of attention; since it was near its walls that the most celebrated games, from the institution of which all occurrences were dated in Greece³⁸, were held.

For nearly the whole of what follows, in regard to the games, we are indebted to Rollin; ours being an abstract.

There were four kinds of games solemnised in Greece. The Olympic, so called from Olympia, near which they were celebrated after the expiration of every four years, in honour of Jupiter Olympicus. The Pythic, sacred to Apollo Pythius, also celebrated every four years. The Nemean, which took their name from Nemea, a city and forest of Peleponnesus, instituted by Hercules, solemnised every two years. And lastly, the Isthmian; celebrated upon the isthmus of Corinth, from four years to four years, in honour of Neptune. That persons might be present at these public sports with greater quiet and security, there was a general suspension of arms and cessation of hostilities, throughout all Greece, during the time of their celebration.

The Greeks thought nothing comparable to a victory in these games. They looked upon it as the perfection of glory, and did not believe it permitted to mortals to desire any thing beyond it. Cicero assures us, that with them it was no less honourable than the consular dignity, in its original splendour with the ancient Romans.

We shall confine ourselves to the Olympic games, which continued five days.

The combats, which had the greatest share in the solemnity of the public games, were boxing, wrestling, the pancratium, the discus or quoit, and racing. To these may be added the exercises of leaping, throwing the dart, and that of the trochus or wheel; but as these were neither important, nor of any great reputation, we shall content ourselves with having only mentioned them.

Of the Athletæ, or combatants. – The term athletæ was given to those who exercised themselves with design to dispute the prizes in the public games. The art, by which they formed themselves for these encounters, was called gymnastic, from the athletæ’s practising naked.

Those who were designed for this profession frequented, from their most tender age, the gymnasia or palæstræ, which were a kind of academies maintained for that purpose at the public expense. In these places, such young people were under the direction of different masters, who employed the most effectual methods to inure their bodies for the fatigues of the public games, and to form them for the combats. The regimen they were under was very severe. At first they had no other nourishment but dried figs, nuts, soft cheese, and a gross heavy sort of bread. They were absolutely forbid the use of wine, and enjoined continence.

Who, in the Olympic race, the prize would gain,
Has borne from early youth fatigue and pain,
Excess of heat and cold has often tried,
Love’s softness banish’d, and the glass denied.

The athletæ, before their exercises, were rubbed with oils and ointments, to make their bodies more supple and vigorous. At first they made use of a belt, with an apron or scarf fastened to it, for their more decent appearance in the combats; but one of the combatants happening to lose the victory by this covering’s falling off, that accident was the occasion of sacrificing modesty to convenience, and retrenching the apron for the future. The athletæ were only naked in some exercises, as wrestling, boxing, the pancratium, and the foot-race.

It was necessary that their morals should be unexceptionable, and their condition free. No stranger was admitted to combat in the Olympic games; and when Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of Macedon, presented himself to dispute the prize, his competitors, without any regard to the royal dignity, opposed his reception as a Macedonian, and consequently a barbarian and a stranger; nor could the judge be prevailed upon to admit him till he had proved, in due form, that his family was originally descended from the Argives.

They were made to take an oath, that they would religiously observe the several laws prescribed in each kind of combat, and do nothing contrary to the established orders and regulations of the games. Fraud, artifice, and excessive violence, were absolutely prohibited; and the maxim so generally received elsewhere, that it is indifferent whether an enemy is conquered by deceit or valour, was banished from these combats.

It is time to bring our champions to blows, and to run over the different kinds of combats in which they exercised themselves.

Wrestling is one of the most ancient exercises of which we have any knowledge, having been practised in the time of the patriarchs, as the wrestling of the angel with Jacob proves³⁹.

Wrestling among the Greeks, as well as other nations, was practised at first with simplicity, little art, and in a natural manner; the weight of the body, and the strength of the muscles, having more share of it, than address or skill.

The wrestlers, before they began their combats, were rubbed all over in a rough manner, and afterwards anointed with oils, which added to the strength and flexibility of their limbs. But as this unction, in making the skin too slippery, rendered it difficult for them to take hold of each other, they remedied that inconvenience, sometimes by rolling themselves in the dust of the palæstræ, sometimes by throwing a fine sand upon each other, kept for that purpose in the porticoes of the gymnasia.

Thus prepared, the wrestlers began their combat. They were matched two against two, and sometimes several couples contended at the same time.

Of Boxing, or the Cestus. – The combatants covered their fists with a kind of offensive arms called cestus, and their heads with a sort of leather cap, to defend their temples and ears, which were most exposed to blows, and to deaden their violence. The cestus was a kind of gauntlet or glove, made of straps of leather, and plated with brass, lead, or iron, inside. Their use was to strengthen the hands of the combatants, and to add violence to their blows.

Boxing was one of the rudest and most dangerous of the gymnastic combats; because, besides the danger of being crippled, the combatants ran the hazard of losing their lives. They sometimes fell down dead, or dying, upon the sand; though that seldom happened, except the vanquished person persisted too long in not acknowledging his defeat: yet it was common for them to quit the fight with a countenance so disfigured, that it was not easy to know them afterwards.

Of the Pancratium. – The Pancratium was so called from two Greek words⁴⁰ which signify that the whole force of the body was necessary for succeeding in it. It united boxing and wrestling in the same fight, borrowing from one its manner of struggling and throwing, and from the other, the art of dealing blows, and of avoiding them with success.

Of the Discus, or quoit. – The discus was a kind of quoit of a round form, made sometimes of wood, but more frequently of stone, lead, or other metal, as iron or brass. Those who used this exercise were called Discoboli; that is, flingers of the discus.

The athletæ, in hurling the discus, put themselves into the best posture they could, to add force to their cast. He that flung the discus farthest was the victor.

The most famous painters and sculptors of antiquity, in their endeavours to represent naturally the attitudes of the discoboli, have left posterity many masterpieces in their several arts. Quintilian exceedingly extols a statue of this kind, which had been finished with infinite care and application by the celebrated Myron⁴¹.

Of the Pentathlum. – The Greeks gave this name to an exercise composed of five others: – wrestling, running, leaping, throwing the dart, and the discus. It is believed that this sort of combat was decided in one day, and sometimes the same morning; and that the prize, which was single, could not be given but to the victor in all those exercises.

Of Races. – Of all the exercises which the athletæ cultivated with so much pains and industry, for their appearance in the public games, running was in the highest estimation, and held the foremost rank.

The place where the athletæ exercised themselves in running, was generally called the Stadium by the Greeks; as was that wherein they disputed in earnest for the prize. Under that denomination was included not only the space in which the athletæ ran, but also that which contained the spectators of the gymnastic games.

The middle of the Stadium was remarkable only by the circumstance of having the prizes allotted to the victors set up there. St. Chrysostom draws a fine comparison from this custom. “As the judges,” says he, “in the races and other games, expose in the midst of the Stadium, to the view of the champions, the crowns which they are to receive; in like manner the Lord, by the mouth of his prophets, has placed the prizes in the midst of the course, which he designs for those who have the courage to contend for them.”

There were three kinds of races, the chariot, the horse, and the foot-race.

1. Of the Foot-race. – The runners, of whatever number they were, ranged themselves in a line, after having drawn lots for their places. Whilst they waited the signal to start, they practised, by way of prelude, various motions to awaken their activity, and to keep their limbs pliable and in a right temper. They kept themselves breathing by small leaps, and making little excursions, which were a kind of trial of their speed and agility. Upon the signal’s being given, they flew towards the goal, with a rapidity scarcely to be followed by the eye, which was solely to decide the victory; for the Agnostic laws prohibited, upon the penalty of infamy, the attaining it by any foul method.

2. Of the Horse-races. – The race of a single horse with a rider was less celebrated by the ancients; yet it had its favourers amongst the most considerable persons, even kings themselves, and was attended with uncommon glory to the victor.

3. Of the Chariot-races. – This kind of race was the most renowned of all the exercises used in the games of the ancients, and that from whence most honour redounded to the victors. It is plain they were derived from the constant custom of princes, heroes and great men, of fighting in battle upon chariots. Homer has an infinity of examples of this kind. All those, who presented themselves in the Olympic games to dispute the prize in the chariot races, were persons considerable either for their riches, their birth, their employments, or great actions. Kings themselves aspired passionately to this glory, from the belief that the title of victor in these games was scarcely inferior to that of conqueror, and that the Olympic palm added new dignity to the splendours of a throne.

The chariots were generally drawn by two or four horses. Sometimes mules supplied the place of horses. These chariots, upon a signal given, started together. Their places were regulated by lot, which was not an indifferent circumstance as to the victory; for being to turn round a boundary, the chariot on the left was nearer than those on the right, which in consequence had a greater compass to take. They ran twelve times round the Stadium. He that came in first the twelfth round was victor. The chief art consisted in taking the best ground at the turning of the boundary; for if the charioteer drove too near it, he was in danger of dashing the chariot to pieces; and if he kept too wide of it, his nearest antagonist might get foremost.

To avoid such danger, Nestor gave the following directions to his son Antilochus, who was going to dispute the prize in the chariot races. “My son,” says he, “drive your horses as near as possible to the turning; for which reason, always inclining your body over your chariot, get the left of your competitors; and encouraging the horse on the right, give him the rein, whilst the near-horse, hard held, turns the boundary so close to it, that the nave of the wheel seems to graze upon it; but have a care of running against the stone, lest you wound your horses, and dash the chariot in pieces.”

It was not required, that those who disputed the victory should enter the lists, and drive their chariots in person. Their being spectators of the games, or sending their horses thither, was sufficient.

No one ever carried the ambition of making a great figure in the public games of Greece so far as Alcibiades, in which he distinguished himself in the most splendid manner, by the great number of horses and chariots, which he kept only for the races. It is not easy to comprehend, how the wealth of a private person should suffice to so enormous an expense: but Antisthenes, the scholar of Socrates, who relates what he saw, informs us, that many cities of the allies, in a kind of emulation with each other, supplied Alcibiades with all things necessary for the support of such magnificence. Equipages, horses, tents, sacrifices, the most exquisite provisions, the most delicate wines; in a word, all that was necessary to the support of his table or train.

We must not omit, in speaking of the Olympic games, to notice that ladies were admitted to dispute the prize in them as well as the men, which many of them obtained. Cynisca, sister of Agesilaus, king of Sparta, first opened this new path of glory to her sex, and was proclaimed victrix in the race of chariots with four horses. This victory, which till then had no example, did not fail of being celebrated with all possible splendour. – A magnificent monument was erected in Sparta in honour of Cynisca; and the Lacedæmonians, though otherwise very little sensible to the charms of poetry, appointed a poet to transmit this new triumph to posterity, and to immortalize its memory by an inscription in verse.

Of the honours and rewards granted to the victors. – These honours and rewards were of several kinds. The spectators’ acclamations in honour of the victors were only a prelude to the rewards designed them. These rewards were different wreaths of wild olive, pine, parsley, or laurel, according to the different places where the games were celebrated. Those crowns were always attended with branches of palm, that the victors carried in their right hands. As he might be victor more than once in the same games, and sometimes on the same day, he might also receive several crowns and palms.

When the victor had received the crown and palm, a herald, preceded by a trumpeter, conducted him through the Stadium, and proclaimed aloud his name and country.

When he returned to his own country, the people came out in a body to meet him, and conducted him into the city, adorned with all the marks of his victory, and riding upon a chariot drawn by four horses. He made his entry not through the gates, but through a breach purposely made in the walls. Lighted torches were carried before him, and a numerous train followed, to do honour to the procession.

One of the most honourable privileges granted to the athletic victors, was the right of taking place at the public games. At Sparta it was a custom for the king to take them with him in military expeditions, to fight near his person, and to be his guard; which, with reason, was judged very honourable. Another privilege, in which the useful united with the honourable, was that of being maintained for the rest of their lives at the expense of their country. They were also exempted from all civil offices and employments.

The praises of the victorious athlete were, amongst the Greeks, one of the principal subjects of their lyric poetry. We find, that all the odes of the four books of Pindar turn upon it, each of which takes its title from the games, in which the combatants signalised themselves, whose victories those poems celebrate.

Sculpture united with poetry to perpetuate the fame of the champions. Statues were erected to the victors, in the very place where they had been crowned, and sometimes in that of their birth also, which was commonly done at the expense of their country. Amongst the statues which adorned Olympia, were those of several children of ten or twelve years old, who had obtained the prize at that age in the Olympic games. They did not only raise such monuments to the champions, but to the very horses to whose swiftness they were indebted for the Agonistic crown: and Pausanias mentions one, which was erected in honour of a mare, called Aura, whose history is worth repeating. Phidolas, her rider, having fallen off in the beginning of the race, the mare continued to run in the same manner as if he had been upon her back. She outstripped all the rest, and upon the sound of the trumpets, which was usual toward the end of the race to animate the competitors, she redoubled her vigour and courage, turned round the goal, and, as if she had been sensible of the victory, presented herself before the judges of the games.

Nor did the entertainments finish here. There was another kind of competition; and that, too, which does not at all depend upon the strength, activity, and address of the body, and may be called, with reason, the combat of the mind; wherein the orators, historians, and poets, made trial of their capacities, and submitted their productions to the judgment of the public.

It was a great honour, and, at the same time, a most sensible pleasure for writers, who are generally fond of fame and applause, to have known how to reconcile the voices in their favour of so numerous and select an assembly as that of the Olympic games, in which were present all the finest geniuses of Greece, and all the best judges of the excellence of a work. This theatre was equally open to history, eloquence, and poetry.

Herodotus read his history in the Olympic games to all Greece, assembled at them, and was heard with such applause, that the names of the nine Muses were given to the nine books which compose his work, and the people cried out wherever he passed, “That is he, who has written our history, and celebrated our glorious successes against the Barbarians.”

Anciently, Olympia was surrounded by walls; it had two temples, – one dedicated to Jupiter, and another to Juno; a senate-house, a theatre, and many other beautiful edifices, and also an innumerable multitude of statues.

The temple of Jupiter was built with the spoils, taken from certain states which had revolted; it was of the Doric order; sixty-eight feet high, two hundred and thirty long, and ninety-five broad. This edifice was built by an able architect, named Libon; and it was adorned by two sculptors of equal skill, who enriched the pediments of the principal front with elaborate and elegant ornaments. The statue of the god, the work of Phidias, was of gold and ivory, fifty cubits high. On the one pediment, [Oe]nomaus and Peleus were disputing the prize of the race in the presence of Jupiter; on the other was the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithæ. On the summit of each pediment was a Victory, of gilt brass; and at each angle a large vase of the same metal.

This statue was the finest the world ever saw. “Indeed,” says Mr. Dodwell; and he is borne out by the authorities of all those ancient writers who have written of it, “it appears to have united all the beauty of form, and all the splendour of effect, that are produced by the highest excellence of the statuary and the painter.”

The altar in this temple⁴² was composed of ashes from the thighs of the victims, which were carried up and consumed on the top with wood of the white poplar-tree. The ashes, also, of the Prytanæum, in which a perpetual fire was kept on a hearth, were removed annually, on a fixed day, and spread on it, being first mingled with water from the Alpheus. The people of Elis sacrificed daily, and private persons as often as they chose.

Olympia⁴³ preserved, much longer than Delphi, and with less diminution, the sacred property, of which it was a similar repository. Some images were removed by Tiberius Nero. His successor, Caius Caligula, who honoured Jupiter with the familiar appellation of brother, commanded that his image should be transported to Rome; but the architects declared it was impossible, without destroying the work.

The god, in the time of Pausanias, retained his original splendour. The native offerings of crowns and chariots, and of charioteers, and horses, and oxen, in brass, the precious images of gold, ivory, or amber, and the curiosities consecrated in the temples, the treasuries, and other edifices, could not be viewed without astonishment. The number of statues within the grove, was itself an amazing spectacle. Many were the works of Myron, Lysippus, and the prime artists of Greece. Here kings and emperors were assembled; and Jupiter towered in brass from twelve to thirty feet high! Let the reader peruse the detail given by Pausanias, and imagine, if he can, the entertainment which Olympia must then have afforded to the antiquary, the connoisseur, and historian.

Of all splendour, the temple of Juno alone can be ascertained with any degree of certainty. The soil, which has been considerably elevated, covers the greater part of the ruin. The walls of the cella rise only two feet from the ground. “We employed,” says Mr. Dodwell, “some Turks to excavate; and we discovered some frusta of the Doric order, of which the flutings were thirteen inches wide, and the diameter of the whole column seven feet three inches. We found, also, part of a small column of Parian marble, which the intervals of the flutings show to have been of the Ionic or the Corinthian order. The work of ruin, however, is constantly going on; and lately the people of Lalla (a town in the neighbourhood) have even rooted up some of the foundations of this once celebrated sanctuary, in order to use the materials in the construction of their houses⁴⁴”.

NO. IX. – PUTEOLI

A maritime city of Campania, between Baiæ and Naples. It was founded by a colony from Cumæ. It was, in the first instance, called Dicæarchia, (“Just Power⁴⁵,”) and afterwards Puteoli, from the great number of wells that were in the neighbourhood.

It was delightfully situated on a point projecting into the sea, nearly in the centre of the bay of Puzzuoli. It was the sea-port of the inhabitants of Cannæ; and a rendezvous for merchants from Greece, Sicily, and all parts of Italy. The attractions of the town, also, on account of its hot baths and mineral waters, allured the more opulent citizens of Rome to its vicinity.

In the square of the town stands a beautiful marble pedestal, covered with bas-reliefs, representing the fourteen towns of Asia Minor, destroyed by an earthquake, and rebuilt by Tiberius. It supported a statue of that emperor, erected by the same cities as a monument of gratitude. The cathedral stands on the ruins of a temple, and is built chiefly of ancient materials.

A temple of Serapis offers many subjects of observation. Half of its buildings, however, are still buried under the earth thrown upon it by volcanic commotions, or accumulated by the windings of the hill. The inclosure is square, environed by buildings for priests, and baths for votaries; in the centre remains a circular platform, with four flights of steps up to it; vases for fire, a central altar, rings for victims, and other appendages of sacrifice, entire and not displaced; but the columns that held its roof have been removed to the new palace of Caserta. The temple itself was not discovered till A. D. 1750, on the removal of some rubbish and bushes, which had, till then, partly concealed it from observation.

Behind this place of worship, stand three pillars without capitals, part of the pronaos of a large temple. These are of Cipoline marble, and at the middle of their height, are full of holes eaten in them by the file-fish⁴⁶.

In the neighbourhood of Puteoli are many relics of ancient grandeur, of which none deserves more attention than the Campanian Way, paved with lava, and lined on each side with venerable tombs, the repositories of the dead, which are richly adorned with stucco in the inside. This road was made in the most solid, expensive manner, by order of Domitian, and is frequently the subject of encomium in the poems of Statius.

One of the most striking monuments of the city is the remains of the mole that formed the ancient part. Several of its piers still stand unbroken; they are sunk in the water, and once supported arches (to the number of twenty-five,) part of which remain above the water.

At the end of this mole began the bridge of Caligula, which extended across part of the bay to Baiæ, no less than half a mile in length in a straight line. This structure has long since been swept away.

On the hill behind the town are the remains of an amphitheatre, called, after that at Rome, the Coliseum. It was of considerable magnitude. The gates, and a large portion of the vault and under apartments, remain. One of these apartments, or rather dungeons, in which St. Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, was confined, is now turned into a damp and gloomy chapel; the arena is a garden; vines, fig-trees, and pomegranates, have gradually crept up the circumference, and now cover the slope, and run over the ruin⁴⁷.

It is easy to guess what the animation and splendour of Puteoli must have been, at the time when the riches of the East were poured into its bosom; and when its climate, wit, and beauty, allured the most opulent Romans to its vicinity.

Cicero had a marine villa here, called Puteolanum. Pliny relates that it was on the shore, and adorned with a portico, which seems to have been remarkable for its beauty. He adds that Cicero erected here a monument, and that, shortly after his death, a fountain of warm water, very wholesome for the eyes, burst forth, and gave occasion to an epigram, which the philosopher quotes with applause⁴⁸. The portico is fallen, the groves are withered, the fountain dried up, and not a vestige of the retreat left behind to mark its situation. The verses remain, and perpetuate the glory of the orator, the fame of the fountain, the beauty of the villa, and what is more honourable than all united, the gratitude of Cicero’s freed-man, Tullius.

St. Paul landed here in his way from Rhegium to Rome; and found Christians even in that early age. In the museum of Portici is a picture presenting a view of ancient Puteoli, supposed to have been painted before St. Paul landed there. “The picture,” says Mr. Williams, “is of course very different from the present state of the city; but still a likeness may be traced, if we keep in view the site of the various temples, and other objects, the foundations of which are still visible.”

On the sea shore, near Puzzuoli, are also found seals, coins, cornelians, and agates; bearing impressions of corn, grapes, and vine-branches, ants, eagles, and other animals. These are thrown up by the waves, after violent storms; and commemorate the magnificence of a city, now forming part of the Mediterranean bed⁴⁹.

NO. X. – PALMYRA. (TADMOR.)

“As patience is the greatest of friends to the unfortunate, so is time the greatest of friends to the lovers of landscape. It resolves the noblest works of art into the most affecting ornaments of created things. The fall of empires, with which the death of great characters is so immediately associated, possesses a prescriptive title, as it were, to all our sympathy; forming at once a magnificent, yet melancholy spectacle; and awakening in the mind all the grandeur of solitude. Who would not be delighted to make a pilgrimage to the East to see the columns of Persepolis, and the still more magnificent ruins of Palmyra? Where awe springs, as it were, personified from the fragments, and proclaims instructive lessons from the vicissitudes of fortune. Palmyra, once a paradise in the centre of inhospitable deserts, the pride of Solomon, the capital of Zenobia, and the wonder and admiration of all the East, now lies ‘majestic though in ruins!’ Its glory withered, time has cast over it a sacred grandeur, softened into grace. History, by its silence, mourns its melancholy destiny; while immense masses and stupendous columns denote the spot, where once the splendid city of the desert reared her proud and matchless towers. Ruins are the only legacy the destroyer left to posterity.” – Harmonies of Nature.

This city was the capital of Palmyrene, a country on the eastern boundaries of Syria. Its origin is uncertain; but a portion of its history is exceedingly interesting; and its vast assemblage of ruins are beheld with astonishment and rapture by the curious, the learned, and the elegant.

It was situated in the midst of a large plain, surrounded on three sides by a long chain of mountains. It stands in a desert, in the pachalic of Damascus, about forty-eight leagues from Aleppo, and about the same distance from Damascus, eighty-five miles west from the Euphrates, and about one hundred and seventeen from the shores of the Mediterranean.

History is, for the most part, silent in regard to the early history of this city. It is said to have been built by Solomon, after he had conquered the king of Hamathzoba, within whose dominion the country lay, in which the city was afterwards erected. He called it Tadmor⁵⁰, which some have construed as the place of Palms⁵¹; and sometimes “Tadmor in the Wilderness.”

We are assured by Josephus, that this was the city which the Greeks and Romans afterwards called Palmyra. His words are: – “Now, Solomon went in the desert above Syria, and possessed himself of it; and built there a very great city, which was distant two days’ journey from the upper Syria, and one day’s journey from the Euphrates, and six long days’ journey from Babylon the great. Now the reason why this city lay so remote from those parts of Syria, that are inhabited, is this: that below there is no water to be had; and that it is in that place only that there are springs and pits of water. When, therefore, he had built that city, and encompassed it with very strong walls, he gave it the name of Tadmor; and that is the name it is still called by at this day among the Syrians⁵²: but the Greeks name it Palmyra.”

That the city was built by Solomon is most probable; but that the present ruins have any relation to buildings of his erection is very improbable: indeed we must assume it as certain that they are not; they being entirely those of the Greek orders. With the exception of four Ionic half-columns in the Temple of the Sun, and two in one of the mausoleums, the whole architecture of Palmyra is Corinthian. Neither history nor even tradition, moreover, speaks of any other architect than Solomon.

Some have been disposed to give it an earlier existence⁵³. The Arabic translator of Chronicles makes Palmyra older than Solomon; John of Antioch, surnamed Melala, says, that he built it on the spot where David slew Goliah, in memory of that action; and Abul-Farai mentions in what year, with the particulars. These and other accounts of the early state of Palmyra, which might be collected from the Arabic authors, bear such evident marks of fable and wild conjecture, that we shall pass them over.

Notwithstanding this, we assume the city to have been founded by the celebrated king to whom the honour is given: who built the temples is totally unknown.

The motives which tempted Solomon to build a city in a plain, now altogether a desert, we copy from Mr. Addison’s Travels to Damascus: – “The astonishment that takes hold of the mind at the strange position of this magnificent city, at one time the capital of the East, on the edge of the great desert, and surrounded for several days’ journey on all sides by naked solitary wilds, is removed by marking well the peculiarity of its geographical position. The great caravans coming to Europe, laden with the rich merchandise of India, would naturally come along the Persian gulf, through the south of Persia, to the Euphrates, the direct line; their object then would be to strike across the great Syrian desert as early as possible, to reach the large markets and ports of Syria. With more than 600 miles of desert without water, between the mouth of the Euphrates and Syria, they would naturally be obliged to keep along the banks of that river, until the extent of desert country became diminished. They would then find the copious springs of Tadmor the nearest and most convenient to make for; and in their direct route from the north of India along the Euphrates. These springs would then immediately become most important, and would naturally attract the attention of a wise prince like Solomon, who would ‘fence them with strong walls.’ Here the caravans would rest and take in water; here would congregate the merchants from adjacent countries and Europe; and from hence the great caravan would be divided into numerous branches, to the north, south, and west⁵⁴. A large mart for the exchange of commodities would be established, and an important city would quickly arise. The choice of this spot by Solomon, we may naturally consider founded on a policy of enriching himself by drawing the commerce of India through his dominions, from which commerce, probably, he derived the wealth for which he is so celebrated. In the chapter, succeeding that in which Solomon is mentioned to have built Tadmor in the wilderness, we read that ‘the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year, was six hundred three score and six talents of gold⁵⁵; besides that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice-merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country.’”

The city which Solomon built was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; but who rebuilt it is entirely unknown. It is not mentioned by Xenophon, in his history of the expedition of Cyrus the younger, though he gives a very accurate account of the desert, and must have left this place not a great way to the right in his march towards Babylon. Nor is it once alluded to by Diodorus, nor Plutarch, nor Arrian, nor Quintus Curtius, nor, indeed, by any of the biographers or historians of Alexander; although he marched through this desert to Thapsacus.

Nor is it taken any notice of as being in existence even in the time of Seleucus Nicator, he who built so many cities in Syria; nor is it once mentioned in the history of his successor. It is not even mentioned so lately as the time in which Pompey the Great conquered the country in which it is situated. No notice is taken in Roman history of its being in any way existing, till the time of Mark Antony; who, after the battle at Philippi, marched against it, as we are told by Appian, with a view of plundering it; but the inhabitants escaped with their effects over the Euphrates. This very circumstance proves it to have been at that time no very large place; added to which, it seems to be certain, that none of these temples, &c., could have been in existence; for the Romans had, for some time, been alive to the benefits of works of art; especially paintings, sculpture, and architecture. His sole object, in going thither, was to plunder the Palmyrene merchants, who were supposed to have acquired considerable wealth, by selling the commodities of India and Arabia.

Added to all this, Strabo, the best and most accurate geographer of ancient times, does not once speak of its name. The first description of this now celebrated place is by Pliny; and it runs thus: – “Palmyra is remarkable for situation, a rich soil, and pleasant streams. It is surrounded on all sides by a vast sandy desert, which totally separates it from the rest of the world, and has preserved its independence between the two great empires of Rome and Parthia, whose first care, when at war, is to engage it in their interest. It is distant from Seleucia three hundred and thirty-seven miles; from the Mediterranean two hundred and three; and from Damascus one hundred and seventy-six.”

These distances are not quite accurate, being too great. Palmyra is also mentioned by Ptolemy, who makes it the capital of sixteen cities in Syria Palmyrena. Trajan and Hadrian made expeditions into the East, and must have passed through this city, or near it. Nothing, however, is said of it. Had the temples been there at that time, Hadrian, who was so great a patron of the elegant arts, would, there can be no doubt, have valued them. Some, indeed, insist that he repaired the city; and that it was thence called Hadrianopolis.

The Palmyrenes submitted to that emperor about the year 130. Hadrian, then, making a tour through Syria into Egypt, delighted with the situation and native strength of the place, is said to have determined on furnishing it with various splendid edifices and ornaments; and it is probable, that he then conferred upon it the privileges of “Colonia Juris Italici,” which, as we learn from Ulpian, it actually enjoyed, and the inhabitants were thence induced by gratitude to call themselves “Hadrianopolitæ.” It is supposed that many of its marble pillars, particularly those of the long porticoes, were the gift of this emperor. It must, nevertheless, be borne in mind, that all this is little better than conjecture. Mr. Halifax, however, says, “that as the most ancient inscription, he met with at Palmyra, was dated the three hundred and fourteenth year from the death of Alexander, that is, ten years before Christ, and another, dated between twenty and thirty years before Hadrian, consequently before the Romans got footing there, he concluded, that the sumptuous structures he saw there were not raised by the Romans.”

From an inscription on the shaft of a column in the long portico, where all the inscriptions seem to have been under statues, it appears that, in the reign of Alexander Severus, they joined that emperor in his expedition against the Persians.

From this time to the reign of Gallienus, no mention is made of this city: but then it became so conspicuous, that its history will be a subject of interest to all succeeding times.

The following is an abstract of the history of this period, presented to us in the pages of Gibbon, Mr. Wood, and other writers. A place possessed of such singular advantages, and situated at a convenient distance from the gulf of Persia, and the Mediterranean, was soon frequented by the caravans, which conveyed to the nations of Europe a considerable part of the rich commodities of India. Palmyra insensibly increased into an opulent and independent city; and, connecting the Roman and Parthian empire by the mutual benefits of commerce, was suffered to observe an humble neutrality; till at length, after the victories of Trajan, the little republic sank into the bosom of Rome, and flourished more than one hundred and fifty years in the subordinate yet honourable rank of a colony; and it is during this period of peace, Mr. Gibbon is disposed to believe, that the wealthy Palmyrians constructed those temples, palaces and porticoes of Grecian architecture, the ruins of which in modern times have excited so much admiration and wonder.

The Roman affairs in the East had been for some time in a very deplorable condition, when Odenatus, a Palmyrene, but of what family or rank originally in the state is not agreed⁵⁶, made so judicious a use of his situation between the two rival powers of Rome and Persia, as to succeed in getting the balance of power into his hands. It appears, that he declared in favour of different interests, as alterations of affairs rendered necessary. At length he joined the shattered remains of the Roman army in Syria, routed Sapor, the Persian king, and advanced as far as Ctesiphon, the capital of his empire. He returned from this expedition in great glory; and hence Gallienus, emperor of Rome, was induced to declare him Augustus and co-partner of his empire.

This elevation, – which he enjoyed jointly with his celebrated consort, Zenobia, – appeared to reflect a new splendour on their country, and Palmyra for a while stood upon an equality with Rome. The competition, however, was fatal; and ages of prosperity were sacrificed to a moment of glory.

The last public action of Odenatus was his relieving Asia from the Goths, who had over-run several of its provinces, committing great ravages; but retired upon his approach: in pursuing them, however, Odenatus was assassinated by an officer of his own guard, named Mæonius, who was also his kinsman; and who, having taken the son off also, became for a short time sovereign. He, too, shared the fate of those he had betrayed, and Zenobia became sovereign queen in his stead.

All that is known of Zenobia’s extraction is, that she claimed a descent from the Ptolemies of Egypt⁵⁷; and that she boasted of having Cleopatra for an ancestress. She was a woman of very great beauty⁵⁸; and of very extraordinary enterprise. We cannot enter into her history so fully as we could wish. She conquered Syria and Mesopotamia; she subdued Egypt; and added the greater part of Asia Minor to her dominions. Thus a small territory in the desert, under the government of a woman, made the great kingdoms of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ part of the dominions of a single city, whose name we look in vain for in their history; and Zenobia, lately confined to the barren plain of Palmyra, ruled from the south of Egypt to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea.

At length Aurelian, the Roman emperor, entered the field against her; and the loss of two great battles, the former near Antioch, the latter at Emesa, reduced her to the necessity of taking shelter within the walls of her own capital. Aurelian besieged her there; but the enterprise was exceedingly difficult. “The Roman people,” said Aurelian, “speak with contempt of the war, which I am waging against a woman. They are ignorant both of the character and power of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations, of stones, of arrows, and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of the walls is provided with two or three balistæ⁵⁹, and artificial fires are thrown from her military engines. The fear of punishment has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet I still trust to the protecting deities of Rome, who have hitherto been favourable to all my undertakings.”

In another letter he writes to the senate in the following terms: – “I hear, Conscript Fathers, that it hath been urged against me, that I have not accomplished a manly task, in not triumphing over Zenobia. But my very blamers themselves would not know how to praise me enough, if they knew that woman; her firmness of purpose; the dignity she preserves towards her army; her munificence when circumstances require it; her severity, when to be severe is to be just. I may say, that the victory of Odenatus over the Persians, and his putting Sapor to flight, and his reaching Ctesiphon, were due to her. I can assert that such was the dread entertained of this woman among the nations of the East and of Egypt, that she kept in check the Arabians, the Saracens, and the Armenians; nor would I have preserved her life, if I had not thought she would much benefit the Roman state.” This was written after her defeat.

Tired of making unsuccessful attempts, Aurelian determined to try the effects of negotiation, and accordingly wrote to Zenobia. The style he adopted, however, rather commanded terms than proposed them: —

“Aurelian, emperor of the Roman world, to Zenobia, and the others united together in hostile alliance.

“You ought to do that of your own accord, which is commanded by my letters. I charge you to surrender, on your lives being spared; and you, Zenobia, may pass your life in some spot where I shall place you, in pursuance of the distinguished sentence of the senate; your gems, silver, gold, silk, horses, and camels, being given up to the Roman treasury. The laws and institutions of the Palmyrenes shall be respected.”

To this letter Zenobia returned the following answer: —

“Zenobia, Queen of the East, to the Roman Emperor, Aurelian.

“Never was such an unreasonable demand proposed, or such rigorous terms offered, by any but yourself! Remember, Aurelian, that in war, whatever is done should be done by valour. You imperiously command me to surrender: but can you forget, that Cleopatra chose rather to die with the title of queen, than to live in any inferior dignity? We expect succours from Persia; the Saracens are arming in our cause; even the Syrian banditti have already defeated your army. Judge what you are to expect from the junction of these forces. You shall be compelled to abate that pride with which, as if you were absolute lord of the universe, you command me to become your captive.”

When Aurelian read this letter, says Vopiscus, he blushed; not so much with shame, as with indignation.

Her answer inflamed the emperor to the highest pitch. He pressed the siege, therefore, with redoubled vigour; and the city was reduced to such extremities, that her council advised her to send for succour to the Persians. Thus counselled, she determined on going to the king of Persia in person. She set out, therefore, on the fleetest of her dromedaries, and had already reached the banks of the Euphrates (about sixty miles from Palmyra), when she was overtaken by Aurelian’s light horse, and brought back, captive, to the feet of Aurelian. We are told, that the sight of the queen gave the Roman emperor infinite pleasure; but that his ambition suffered some humiliation, when he considered that posterity would always look upon this only as the conquest of a woman⁶⁰. The city surrendered soon after, and was treated with great lenity.

Aurelian now went to Emesa; on arriving at which place, he questioned the queen as to her motives, and the persons who had advised her to make so obstinate a defence. He sternly asked her, how she had presumed to rise in arms against the emperors of Rome? “Because,” answered Zenobia, “I disdained to consider as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a Gallienus. You alone I acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign; and this I do, because you know how to conquer.”

When, however, the soldiers demanded her immediate execution, her fortitude forsook her. She confessed by whose counsel she had been guided. She purchased a dishonourable life at the expense of her friends. They were immediately led to execution; herself was reserved to grace the conqueror’s triumph.

Among those of her friends, whose names she had betrayed, was the illustrious Longinus, author of that noble Treatise on the Sublime, which is so well known and appreciated by every scholar. He it was, she confessed, who had drawn up the letter. “Her councillors,” she said, “were to be blamed, and not herself. What could a weak, short-sighted, woman do? especially when beset by artful and ambitious men, who made her subservient to all their schemes? She never had aimed at empire, had they not placed it before her eyes in all its allurements. The letter which affronted Aurelian was not her own – Longinus wrote it; the insolence was his.”

When Aurelian heard this, he directed all his fury against the unfortunate Longinus. That illustrious person was immediately led to execution. Far from lamenting his fate, however, he condoled with his friends, pitied Zenobia, and expressed his joy; looking upon death as a blessing, since it would rescue his body from slavery, and give his soul to that freedom he the most desired. “This world,” said he, with his expiring breath, “is nothing but a prison; happy, therefore, is he who gets soonest out of it, and gains his liberty.”

A modern poet has very finely alluded to this in his poem on Palmyra.

On the hushed plain, where sullen horror broods,
And darkest frown the Syrian solitudes;
Where morn’s soft steps no balmy fragrance leave,
And parched and dewless is the couch of eve;
Thy form, pale city of the waste, appears
Like some faint vision of departed years;
In massy clusters still a giant train,
Thy sculptured fabrics whiten on the plain.
Still stretch thy columned vistas far away,
The shadowed dimness of their long array.
But where the stirring crowd, the voice of strife,
The glow of action and the thrill of life?
Hear the loud crash of yon huge fragments fall,
The pealing answer of each desert hall;
The night-bird shrieking from her secret cell,
The hollow winds, the tale of ruin tell.
See, fondly lingering, Mithra’s parting rays
Gild the proud towers, once vocal with his praise:
But the cold altars clasping weeds entwine,
And Moslems worship at the godless shrine.
Yet here slow pausing memory loves to pour
Her magic influence o’er this pensive hour:
And yet, as yon recesses deep prolong
The echoed sweetness of the Arab song,
Recalls that scene, when wisdom’s sceptred child,
First broke the stillness of the lonely wild.
From air, from ocean, from earth’s utmost clime,
The summoned genii heard the muttered rhyme;
The tasking spell their airy hands obeyed,
And Tadmor glittered in the palmy shade.
So to her feet the tide of ages brings
The wealth of nations and the pomp of kings,
And for her warrior queen, from Parthia’s plain
To the dark Ethiop, spreads her ample reign:
Vain boast, ev’n she who winds the field along,
Waked fiercer frenzy in the patriot throng;
And sternly beauteous in the meteor’s light,
Shot through the tempest of Emesa’s fight.
While trembling captives round the victor wait,
Hang on his eye, and catch the word of fate,
Zenobia’s self must quail beneath his nod,
A kneeling suppliant to the mimic god.
But one there stood amid that abject throng,
In truth triumphant, and in virtue strong;
Beamed on his brow the soul which, undismayed.
Smiled at the rod, and scorned the uplifted blade.
O’er thee, Palmyra, darkness seems to lower
The boding terrors of that fearful hour;
Far from thy glade indignant freedom fled,
And hope too withered as Longinus bled⁶¹.

Palmyra, having become subject to a foreign yoke, bore the burthen with impatience. The inhabitants cut off the Roman garrison. On which Aurelian instantly returned, took the town, destroyed it, and put to death most of its population, without distinction of age or sex. The slaughter was so extensive, that none were left to plough the adjacent lands.

Aurelian soon repented of his severity. He wrote to Bassus: – “You must now sheathe the sword; the Palmyrenes have been sufficiently slaughtered. We have not spared women; we have slain children; we have strangled old men; we have destroyed the husbandmen. To whom, then, shall we leave the land? To whom shall we leave the city? We must spare those who remain; for we think, that the few there are now existing, will take warning from the punishment of the many who have been destroyed.”

The emperor then goes on to desire his lieutenant to rebuild the Temple of the Sun as magnificently as it had been in times past; to expend 300 pounds weight of gold, which he had found in the coffers of Zenobia, beside 1800 pounds weight of silver, which was raised from the sale of the people’s goods; together with the crown jewels, all which he ordered to be sold, to make money to beautify the temple; while he himself promises to write to the Senate, to send a priest from Rome to dedicate it. But, in the language of Gibbon, it is easier to destroy than it is to restore.

Zenobia was now to be led to the conqueror’s triumph. This triumph was celebrated with extraordinary magnificence. It was opened by twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the most curious animals from every climate of the known world. Ambassadors from Æthiopia, Arabia, Persia, Bactriana, India, and China, attended the triumph; and a long train of captives, – Goths, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians. Amongst these, Zenobia. She was confined in fetters of gold; a slave supported the gold chain which encircled her neck, and she almost fainted under the weight of her jewels. She did not ride, but walk! preceded by the chariot in which she had once indulged the vain hope of entering Rome as empress⁶².

The Palmyrenes⁶³, says Zosimus, had several declarations from the gods, which portended the overthrow of their empire; and, among others, having consulted the temple of Apollo, at Seleucia in Cilicia, to know if they should ever obtain the empire of the East, they got the following unceremonious answer:

Avoid my temple, cursed, treacherous nation!
You even put the gods themselves in passion.

The religion of the Palmyrenes, it is evident, was pagan; their government, for the most part, republican; but their laws are entirely lost; nor can anything be known in respect to their polity, but what may be gathered from the inscriptions. Their chief deity was the Sun.

In regard to their knowledge of art, they have left the finest specimens in the ruins that now remain; and, doubtless, Longinus’ work on the Sublime was written within its walls. “From these hints we may see,” says Mr. Wood, “that this people copied after great models in their manners, their vices, and their virtues. Their funeral customs were from Egypt, their luxury was Persian, and their letters and arts were from the Greeks. Their situation in the midst of these three great nations makes it reasonable to suppose, that they adopted most of their customs and manners. But to say more on that head from such scanty materials, would be to indulge too much in mere conjecture, which seems rather the privilege of the reader than of the writer.”

Some years after this, we find Diocletian erecting several buildings here; but what they were is not stated. Justinian, also, repaired Palmyra, which, according to Procopius, had been almost entirely deserted. These repairs, however, are supposed to have reference rather to strength than to ornament; and this is the last mention of Palmyra in Roman history.

The various fortunes of Palmyra, to and from the time of Mahomet’s appearance, are scarcely known, except that it was considered as a place of great strength; and that in the twelfth century, A. D. 1171, there were, according to Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the spot in that year, two thousand Jews in it.

Palmyra, according to the Arabs, once occupied an area nearly ten miles in circumference, and is supposed to have been reduced to its present confined and ruined state by the quantities of sand⁶⁴ driven on it by whirlwinds.

The walls of the city were flanked by square towers. They were three miles in circumference, and it is imagined that they included the great temple. What remains there are of the wall, do not look, according to Mr. Wood, unlike the work of Justinian; and may be part of the repairs mentioned by Procopius; and the highest antiquity anything else can claim is the time of the Mamelukes.

Примечание 1⁶⁵

We shall now give place to accounts in respect to the first impressions, made by these ruins on the minds of different travellers.

Mr. Halifax says⁶⁶, “the city itself appears to have been of a large extent by the space now taken up by the ruins;” but that there are no footsteps of any walls remaining, nor is it possible to judge of the ancient figure of the place. The present inhabitants, as they are poor, miserable, dirty people, so they have shut themselves up, to the number of about thirty or forty families, in little huts made of dirt, within the walls of a spacious court, which inclosed a most magnificent heathen temple: thereinto also Mr. Halifax’s party entered, the whole village being gathered together at the door; whether to stand upon their defence in case the strangers proved enemies (for some of them had guns in their hands), or out of mere curiosity to gaze, he knew not. However the guide, who was an Arab whom Assyne their king had sent to conduct them through the village, being a man known among them, they had an easy admittance; and, with a great many welcomes in their language, were led to the sheik’s house, with whom they took up their abode. “And to mention here what the place at first view represented, certainly the world itself could not afford the like mixture of remains of greatest state and magnificence, together with the extremity of poverty and wretchedness.” The nearest parallel Mr. Halifax could think of, was that of the temple of Baal, destroyed by Jehu, and converted into a draught-house.

“We had scarce passed the sepulchres,” says Mr. Wood, “when the hills opening discovered to us all at once the greatest quantity of ruins we had ever seen, all of white marble; and beyond them, towards the Euphrates, a flat waste as far as the eye could reach, without any object that showed either life or motion.”

When Mr. Wood’s party arrived, they were conducted to one of the huts, of which there were about thirty, in the court of the great temple. The inhabitants of both sexes were well-shaped, and the women, though very swarthy, had good features. They were veiled; but did not so scrupulously conceal their faces as the Eastern women generally do. They paint the ends of their fingers red, their lips blue, and their eyebrows and eyelashes black⁶⁷.

They had large rings of gold or brass in their ears and nostrils, and appeared to be healthy and robust.

The ruins were next visited by Mr. Bruce: – “When we arrived at the top of the hill,” says he, “there opened before us, the most astonishing, stupendous, sight, that perhaps ever appeared to mortal sight. The whole plain below, which was very extensive, was covered so thick with magnificent ruins, as the one seemed to touch the other, all of fine proportions, all of agreeable forms, all composed of white stone, which, at that distance, appeared like marble. At the end of it stood the Palace of the Sun, a building worthy so magnificent a scene.”

The effect on the imagination of Mr. Addison appears to have been equally lively: – “At the end of the sandy plain,” says he, “the eye rests upon the lofty columns of the Temple of the Sun, encompassed by a dark elevated mass of ruined buildings; and beyond, all around, and right and left towards the Euphrates, as far as the eye can reach, extends the vast level naked flat of the great desert, over which the eye runs in every direction, piercing the boundless horizon, without discovering a human being or a trace of man. Naked, solitary, unlimited space extends around, where man never breathes under the shade, or rests his limbs under the cover of a dwelling. A deep blue tint spreads along its surface, here and there shaded with a cast of brown; the distant outline of the horizon is clear and sharply defined; not an eminence rises to break the monotonous flat, and along the edge extends a large district covered with salt, distinguished from the rest by its peculiar colour.

“There is something grand and awe-inspiring in its boundless immensity. Like the first view of the ocean, it inspires emotions, never before experienced, unearthly in appearance, and out of character with the general fair face of nature. The eye shrinks from contemplating the empty, cheerless solitude, and we turn away in quest of some object to remove the scenes of utter loneliness, that its gloomy aspect is calculated to inspire.”

From these pages we turn with satisfaction to those of an American: – “I have stood before the Parthenon, and have almost worshipped that divine achievement of the immortal Phidias. I have been at Milan, at Ephesus, at Alexandria, at Antioch; but in none of these renowned cities I have beheld any thing, that I can allow to approach in united extent, grandeur, and most consummate beauty, this almost more than work of man. On each side of this, the central point, there rose upward slender pyramids – pointed obelisks – domes of the most graceful proportions, columns, arches, and lofty towers, for number and for form, beyond my power to describe. These buildings, as well as the walls of the city, being all either of white marble, or of some stone as white, and being everywhere in their whole extent interspersed, as I have already said, with multitudes of overshadowing palm trees, perfectly filled and satisfied my sense of beauty, and made me feel, for the moment, as if in such a scene I should love to dwell, and there end my days.”

Burckhardt speaks thus of Palmyra and Balbec: – “Having seen the ruins of Tadmor, a comparison between these two renowned remains of antiquity naturally offered itself to my mind. The temple of the Sun at Tadmor, is upon a grander scale than that of Balbec, but it is choked with Arab houses, which admit only a view of the building in detail. The architecture of Balbec is richer than that of Tadmor.”

In respect to the ruins, we must content ourselves with giving a very general account, as it would be impossible to render a minute description intelligible without the aid of plates.⁶⁸ Our account will be a compilation from those given by Mr. Halifax, Mr. Wood, Mr. Bruce, Mr. Addison, and other writers, who have been there.

The entire number of distinct buildings, which may still be traced, are from forty to fifty. To the northward of the valley of the tombs, on the highest eminence in the immediate vicinity, towers the ruined Turkish or Saracenic castle. It is seated on the very summit of the mountain, and surrounded by a deep ditch, cut out of the solid rock. It is said by the Arabs to have been built by Man Ogle, a prince of the Druses; its deserted chambers and passages partake of the universal solitude and silence; there is not a living thing about it; it seems to be deserted even by the bats.

From this castle is seen an extensive view round about: you see Tadmor under you, inclosed on three sides with long ridges of mountains, which open towards the east gradually, to the distance of about an hour’s riding; but to the east stretches a vast plain beyond the reach of the eye. In this plain you see a large valley of salt, lying about an hour’s distance from the city⁶⁹.

It is imagined by the Persians that this castle, as well as the edifices at Balbec, were built by genii, for the purposes of hiding in their subterranean caverns immense treasures, which still remain there⁷⁰. “All these things,” said one of the Arabs to Mr. Wood, “were done by Solyman ebn Doud, (Solomon, the son of David,) by the assistance of spirits.”

But of all the monuments of art and magnificence, the most considerable is the Temple of the Sun.

This temple, says Bruce, is very much ruined; of its peristyle there only remains70 a few columns entire, Corinthian, fluted and very elegant, though apparently of slenderer proportions than ten diameters. Their capitals are quite destroyed. The ornament of the outer gate are, some of them, of great beauty, both as to execution and design.

Within the court are the remains of two rows of very noble marble pillars, thirty-seven feet high. The temple was encompassed with another row of pillars, fifty feet high; but the temple itself was only thirty-three yards in length, and thirteen or fourteen in breadth. This is now converted into a mosque, and ornamented after the Turkish manner.

North of this place is an OBELISK, consisting of seven large stones, besides its capital, and the wreathed work above it, about fifty feet high, and just above the pedestal twelve in circumference. Upon this was probably a statue, which the Turks have destroyed.

On the west side is a most magnificent arch, on the remains of which are some vines and clusters of grapes, carved in the boldest imitation of nature that can be conceived.

Just over the door are discerned a pair of wings, which extend its whole breadth; the body to which they belong is totally destroyed, and it cannot now certainly be known, whether it was that of an eagle or of a cherub, several representations of both being visible on other fragments of the building.

The north end of the building is adorned with a curious fret-work and bas-relief; and in the middle there is a dome or cupola, about ten feet in diameter, which appears to have been either hewn out of the rock, or moulded of some composition, which, by time, is grown equally hard.

At about the distance of a mile from the OBELISK are two others, besides the fragment of a third; hence it has been reasonably suggested, that they were a continued row.

Every spot of ground intervening between the walls and columns, is laid out in plantations of corn and olives, inclosed by mud walls.

In the direction of the mountains lie fragments of stone, here and there columns stand erect, and clumps of broken pillars are met with at intervals. All this space seems to have been covered with small temples and ornamental buildings, approached by colonnades.

Next to the temple, the most remarkable structure is the long portico, which commences about two thousand two hundred feet to the north-west of the temple, and extends for nearly four thousand feet further in the same direction. “It is a remark worthy the observation of historians,” says Volney, “that the front of the portico has twelve pillars like that at Balbec; but what artists will esteem still more curious is that these two fronts resemble the gallery of the house built by Perrault, long before the existence of the drawing which made us acquainted with them. The only difference is, that the columns of the Louvre are double, whereas those of Palmyra are detached.”

About one hundred paces from the middle obelisk, straight forward, is a magnificent entry to a piazza, which is forty feet broad and more than half a mile in length, inclosed with two rows of marble pillars, twenty-six feet high, and eight or nine feet in compass. Of these there still remain one hundred and twenty-nine; and, by a moderate computation, there could not, originally, have been less than five hundred and sixty. The upper end of the piazza was shut in by a row of pillars, standing somewhat closer than those on each side.

A little to the left are the ruins of a stately building, which appears to have been a banqueting-house. It is built of better marble, and is finished with greater elegance, than the piazza. The pillars which supported it were one entire stone, which is so strong that one of them, which has fallen down, has received no injury. It measures twenty-two feet in length, and in compass eight feet nine inches.

In the west side of the piazza are several apertures for gates, into the court of the palace. Each of these is adorned with four porphyry pillars; not standing in a line with those of the wall, but placed by couples in the front of the gate facing the palace, on each side. Two of these only remain, and but one standing in its place. These are thirty feet long, and nine in circumference.

“We sometimes find a palace,” says Volney, “of which nothing remains but the courts and walls; sometimes a temple, whose peristyle is half thrown down; and now a portico, a gallery, or a triumphant arch. Here stand groups of columns, whose symmetry is destroyed by the fall of many of them; these we see ranged in rows of such length, that, similar to rows of trees, they deceive the sight, and assume the appearance of continued walls. On which side soever we look, the earth is strewed with vast stones, half buried, with broken entablatures, damaged capitals, mutilated friezes, disfigured reliefs, effaced sculptures, violated tombs, and altars defiled with mud.”

“In their ruined courts,” says another traveller, “and amid the crumbling walls of their cottages, may be seen, here and there, portions of the ancient pavement of the area; while all around the inclosure extend groups of columns, with pedestals for statues, and walls ornamented with handsome architectural decorations, the ruins of the majestic portico and double colonnade, which once inclosed the whole of the vast area. Portions of a frieze, or the fragments of a cornice, upon whose decoration was expended the labour of years, are now used by the poor villagers to bake their bread upon, or are hollowed out as hand-mills, in which to grind their corn.”

Among the walls and rubbish are a vast number of lizards and serpents; and that circumstance led to the celebrated poetic picture painted by Darwin.

Lo! where Palmyra, ‘mid her wasted plains,
Her shattered aqueducts, and prostrate fanes,
As the bright orb of breezy midnight pours
Long threads of silver through her gaping towers,
O’er mouldering tombs, and tottering columns gleams,
And frosts her deserts with diffusive beams,
Sad o’er the mighty wreck in silence bends,
Lifts her wet eyes, her tremulous hands extends.
If from lone cliffs a bursting rill expands
Its transient course, and sinks into the sands;
O’er the moist rock the fell hyena prowls,
The serpent hisses, and the panther growls;
On quivering wings the famished vulture screams,
Dips his dry beak, and sweeps the gushing streams.
With foaming jaws beneath, and sanguine tongue,
Laps the lean wolf, and pants, and runs along;
Stern stalks the lion, on the rustling brinks
Hears the dread snake, and trembles as he drinks.
Quick darts the scaly monster o’er the plain,
Fold after fold his undulating train;
And, bending o’er the lake his crested brow,
Starts at the crocodile that gapes below. – Darwin.

On the eastern side of the area of the Temple of the Sun, there is a curious doorway of one solid block of stone, which commands a fine view of the desert. “As we looked out of this narrow gateway,” says Mr. Addison, “we fancied, that Zenobia herself might have often stood at the same spot, anxiously surveying the operations of Aurelian and his blockading army. From hence the eye wanders over the level waste, across which the unfortunate queen fled on her swift dromedary to the Euphrates; and here, the morning after her departure, doubtless congregated her anxious friends, to see if she was pursued in her flight; and from hence she was probably first descried, being brought back a captive and a prisoner in the hands of the Roman horsemen.”

On the east side of the Piazza, stands a great number of marble pillars: some perfect, but the greater part mutilated. In one place eleven are ranged together in a square; the space, which they inclose, is paved with broad flat stones; but there are no remains of a roof.

At a little distance are the remains of a small temple, which is also without a roof; and the walls are much defaced; but from the door is enjoyed the magnificent coup-d’œil of all the ruins, and of the vast desert beyond. Before the entry, which looks to the south, is a piazza, supported by six pillars, two on each side of the door, and one at each end. The pedestals of those in front have been filled with inscriptions in the Greek and Palmyrene languages, which are become totally illegible.

Among these ruins there are many Sepulchres. They are ranged on each side of a hollow way, towards the north part of the city, and extend more than a mile. They are all square towers, four or five stories high. But though they are alike in form, they differ greatly in magnificence. The outside is of common stone; but the floors and partitions of each story are marble. There is a walk across the whole building, just in the middle; and the space on each hand is subdivided into six partitions by thick walls. The space between the partitions is wide enough to receive the largest corpse; and in these niches there are six or seven piled one upon another.

“As great a curiosity as any,” says Mr. Halifax, “were these sepulchres, being square towers four or five stories high, and standing on both sides of a hollow way, towards the north part of the city. They stretched out in length the space of a mile, and perhaps formerly might extend a great way further. At our first view of them, some thought them the steeples of ruined churches, and were in hopes we should have found some steps of churches here; others took them to have been bastions, and part of the old fortifications, though there is not so much as any foundation of a wall to be seen. But when we came, a day or two after, more curiously to inquire into them, we quickly found their use. They were all of the same form, but of different splendour and greatness, according to the circumstances of their founders. The first we viewed was entirely marble, but is now wholly in ruins; and we found nothing but a heap of stones, amongst which we found two statues; one of a man; another of a woman, cut in sitting, or rather leaning, posture, and the heads and part of the arms being broken off; but their bodies remaining pretty entire; so that we had the advantage of seeing their habits, which appeared very noble; but more approaching the European fashion, than what is now in use in the East, which inclined me to think they might be Roman. Upon broken pieces of stone, tumbled here and there, we found some broken inscriptions, but, not affording any perfect sense, they are not worth the transcribing.”

These are the most interesting of all the ruins. As you wind up a narrow valley between the mountain range, you have them on your right and left, topping the hills, or descending to the border of the valley: some presenting heaps of rubbish, and some half fallen, expose their shattered chambers, and one or two still exist in almost an entire state of preservation. They are seen from a great distance, and have a striking effect in this desert solitude.

The ruins of Palmyra and Balbec are very different. “No comparison can be instituted between them,” says Mr. Addison. “The ruins of Balbec consist merely of two magnificent temples, inclosed in a sort of citadel; while here, over an immense area, we wander through the ruins of long porticoes leading up to ruined temples and unknown buildings. Now we see a circular colonnade sweeping round with its ruined gateway, at either end; now we come to the prostrate walls, or ruined chambers of a temple or palace; anon we explore the recesses of a bath, or the ruins of an aqueduct; then we mount the solitary staircase, and wander through the silent chambers of the tombs, ornamented with busts, inscriptions, and niches for the coffins, stored with mouldering bones; and from the summits of funereal towers, five stories in height, we look down upon this mysterious assemblage of past magnificence; and beyond them, upon the vast level surface of the desert, silent and solitary; stretching away like the vast ocean, till it is lost in the distance, far as the eye can reach. The dwelling of man is not visible. The vastness and immensity of space strikes us with awe, and the mouldering monuments of human pride, that extend around, teach us a sad lesson of the instability of all human greatness.”

Though antiquity has left nothing either in Greece or Italy, in any way to be compared with the magnificence of the ruins of Palmyra, Mr. Wood observes, that there is a greater sameness in the architecture of Palmyra than at Rome, Athens, and other great cities, whose ruins evidently point out different ages of decay. But, except four half-columns in the Temple of the Sun, and two in one of the mausoleums, the whole architecture is Corinthian, richly ornamented with some very striking beauties and some as visible faults.

Through the valley of the tombs may be traced remnants of a ruined aqueduct, which formerly conducted water to the town from, at present, an unknown source; it consists of a vaulted passage running underground, covered with a fine hard stucco. In regard to the present supply, there are two rivers, the waters of which, when judiciously distributed, must have conduced greatly to the subsistence and comfort of the ancient inhabitants; but these are now allowed to lose themselves in the sand.

Mr. Wood says that all the inscriptions he saw were in Greek or Palmyrene, except one, which was in Latin. Many attempts have been made to explain the Palmyrene inscriptions. They were generally supposed to be Syriac. Gruter, having seen an inscription at Rome, gave it as his opinion that the characters were Arabic. Scaliger, speaking of the same inscription, gave the subject up in despair. Some have thought they were Greek, translated from the Palmyrene. Upon this hint M. Barthelemy examined the inscriptions copied into Mr. Wood’s work, and came to the conclusion, that Syriac was the living language of the inhabitants of Palmyra, at the time those monuments were erected; and that the greatest part, if not all the characters, are the same as those made use of in writing Hebrew at this day, although they have a different appearance.

We shall now give a few specimens: – “This splendid and durable monument, Jamblichus, the son of Mocimus, the son of Acaleises, the son of Malichus, erected for himself, his children, and his posterity, in the month of April, year 314.”

There is another to the same purport, erected in the same month, one hundred years after: – “This monument, Elabælus Manæus Cocchæus Malachus, the son of Waballathus, the son of Manæus, the son of Elabælus, built for himself and family in the month of April, year 414.”

Another inscription implies that “Septimius Odenathus, the most excellent senator, had erected this monument for himself and his posterity, to preserve their name for ever.”

Another contains an epitaph erected by Soræchus, to his wife Martha, in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, A. D. 178.

A third is of the same nature; appropriated by Malchus, to himself and his children, though built by his ancestors.

Besides sepulchral monuments there are others, erected by order of the senate and people of the commonwealth of Tadmor, to the honour of those citizens who had deserved well of the republic. Among these is one in honour of Alilamenes; another in honour of Julius Aurelius Zenobius; another in honour of Jarisbolus; and others in honour of Septimius Orodes. The last of these was a great benefactor to the public and private institutions of Palmyra. He had been an officer in his younger days, and had greatly distinguished himself under his prince, Odenathus, against the Parthians; during the year in which this monument was erected, he exercised the office of symposiarch, in the festival dedicated to their Patron God, Jupiter Belus. That in honour of Alilamenes runs thus: – “The senate and the people have placed this in honour of Alilamenes, the son of Panas, the son of Mocimus, the son of Æranes, devoted lovers of their country, and in every respect deserving well of their country, and of the immortal Gods, in the year 450, and the 30th day of the month of April.”

There are, also, monuments erected by private persons to the memory of their friends. The finest of these contains the grateful remembrance which the Palmyrene merchants, trading to Vologesias⁷¹, retained of the great services which Julius Zobeidas did them in that expedition.

Another inscription commemorates the virtues of a person named Malenthon, secretary to the republic of Palmyra, when “the God Hadrian” arrived in the city (A. D. 122). He is remembered for having contributed to the adornment of the temple of Belus, and for having given a largess to the public baths, of oil for the use, not only of the citizens, but of strangers.

The monument erected to Jamblichus seems to be the oldest, and the work of Domitian the latest; taking in about three hundred years between them. The other rich and extensive buildings were, Mr. Wood supposes, erected before the last of these dates, and probably after the first; perhaps about the time Elabælus built his monument.

It is rather remarkable, that there is no monument in memory of, nor any inscription in honour of Zenobia; for which Dr. Halley accounts on the supposition, that the Romans were so much irritated and ashamed, that they destroyed and defaced everything that might be erected in honour of her.

The decay of Palmyra has been accounted for from its peculiar situation. A country without land, if the expression may be allowed, could only exist by commerce: their industry had no other channel to operate in; and when loss of their liberty was followed by that of trade, they were reduced to live idly on as much of their capital as had been spared by Aurelian. When that was spent, necessity compelled them to desert the town.

Time has partially preserved the peristyles, the intercolumniations, and entablatures; the elegance of the designs of which equal throughout the richness of the materials. These being, in many respects, the greatest and most entire, is attributed to there having been, for so long a time, few inhabitants to deface them, to a dry climate, and their distance from any city which might apply the materials to other uses. These ruins present a sad contrast with the hovels of the wild Arabs, now the only inhabitants of a city which, in former times, emulated Rome. “Of all the contrasts of past magnificence with present meanness,” says Mr. Addison, “of the wealth and genius of by-gone times with the poverty and ignorance of the present day, no more striking instance, perhaps, can be found than is presented in the present poor Arab village of Tadmor. You there see a few poverty-stricken inhabitants living in square hovels of mud mixed with chopped straw, roofed with earth, leaves, and dry sticks, congregated round the magnificent Temple of the Sun of yore; despoiled of its ornaments by one of the haughtiest and most powerful of the Roman emperors, who came with his victorious troops from the distant provinces of Gaul and of Britain, to rend asunder the dominion of which this spot, in the midst of desert solitudes, had rendered itself the head.” Mr. Addison then goes on to state that the “village of Tadmor consists, altogether, of about a dozen or fifteen families, and there can be hardly more than twenty able-bodied males in the whole place. This little community possesses a few herds of goats and dromedaries, which, together with the poultry, form the chief wealth of the villagers. These poor people are not, however, sufficiently advanced in the desert to be without the reach of the Syrian government; they all pay a capitation tax to Ibrahim Pasha. The portion of cultivated land on this spot is very small; there are merely a few scanty gardens, which produce roots, vegetables, and a miserable supply of corn. There are one or two palm-trees along the banks of the stream, and a few shrubs of the thorny acacia.”

These ruins were, some years ago, visited by a lady who has made a great noise in Syria – Lady Hester Stanhope. During her residence there she gave a kind of fête to the Bedouins. “The great sheikh,” says Mr. Carne, in his letters from the East, “and some of his officers constantly reside at the ruins. Their habitations are fixed near the great temple; they are all well-disposed and civil in their manners, and their young women are remarkable above all the other tribes for their beauty. It was a lovely day, and the youth of both sexes, dressed in their gayest habiliments, were seated in rows on the fragments of the pillars, friezes, and other ruins with which the ground was covered. Her ladyship, in her Eastern dress, walked among them, addressed them with the utmost affability, and ordered a dollar to be given to each. As she stood with all that Arab array amidst the columns of the great Temple of the Sun, the sight was picturesque and imposing, and the Bedouins hailed her with the utmost enthusiasm ‘queen of Palmyra,’ ‘queen of the desert;’ and, in their enthusiasm, would have proceeded to confer more decided marks of sovereignty; but they were declined.”

This fête was afterwards described to Mr. Buckingham by an Arab, who had been present, in the following hyperbolical style: – “As soon as it was known in the desert that the princess intended to journey to Tadmor, all the tribes were in motion; war was changed to universal peace, and every sheik, or chief, was eager to have the honour of leading the escort. Councils and assemblies were held at Horis and at Hamak, at Sham, and at Thaleb, Damascus, and Aleppo; messengers were sent in every direction, and nothing was neglected that might serve to make the way full of pleasure. When money was talked of, every one rejected it with indignation, and exclaimed, ‘Shall we not serve the princess for honour?’ Every thing being settled, the party set out, preceded by horsemen in front, dromedaries of observation on the right and the left, and camels laden with provisions in the rear. As they passed along, the parched sands of the desert became verdant plains; the burning wells became crystal streams; rich carpets of grass welcomed them at every place where they stopped for repose, and the trees under which they pitched their tents, expanded to twice their size to cover them with shade. When they reached the broken city (the ruins), the princess was taken to the greatest of all the palaces (the Temple of the Sun), and there gold and jewels were bound round her temples, and all the people did homage to her as a queen, by bowing their heads to the dust. On that day Tadmor was richer than Damascus, and more peopled than Constantinople; and if the princess had only remained, it would soon have become the greatest of all the cities of the earth: for men were pouring into it from all quarters; horsemen and chiefs, merchants and munugemein (astrologers and learned men who consult the stars); the fame of her beauty and benevolence having reached to Bagdad and Isfahan, to Bokhara and Samarcand; the greatest men of the East being desirous of beholding it for themselves.” The Arab, who firmly believed all this, narrated the return from Palmyra in the same romantic strains; and ended by repeating his regret at the misfortune of not having been one of the happy multitude, assembled on that occasion; he having been then on some business with another tribe to the south of the Dead Sea⁷².

Lady Hester is now dead. The following account is taken from a paper published originally at Smyrna: “We announced in our last number the death of Lady Hester Stanhope. Our readers will no doubt be glad to have a brief sketch of the principal circumstances of that extraordinary woman’s life. It was at Djouni, in Syria, that Lady Hester died, after a long illness, at the age of sixty-four. That reader must be indifferent, who reverts not with interest to his recollections of a woman, who has expired on the borders of the desert, amidst the Druses and Turkomans, over whom that noble daughter of the Infidels once exercised so strange and so marvellous a sway. The destiny of Lady Stanhope presents one of those features of which not another instance could, perhaps, be found in the annals of the East. Only imagine forty thousand Arabs suddenly assembled upon the ruins of Palmyra, and these wandering, savage, and indomitable tribes surrounding, in silent astonishment and admiration, a foreign woman, and proclaiming her Sovereign of the Desert and Queen of Palmyra! Convey yourself in thought to the scene of this incredible triumph, and you will then conceive what woman that must have been, who imposed silence on Mussulman fanaticism, and created for herself, as it were, by magic, a sovereignty in the domains of Mohammed. ‘Lady Hester Stanhope,’ says M. de Lamartine, in his admirable work, ‘was a niece of Mr. Pitt. On the death of her uncle, she left England, and visited various parts of Europe. Young, handsome, and rich, she was everywhere received with the attention and interest due to her rank, fortune, mind, and beauty; but she constantly refused to unite her fate to that of her worthiest admirers; and, after spending some years in the principal capitals of Europe, embarked with a numerous suite for Constantinople. The real cause of this expatriation has never been known. Some have ascribed it to the death of a young English officer, who was killed at that period in Spain, and whom an eternal regret rendered for ever present in Lady Hester’s heart: others have imputed her voluntary banishment to a mere love of adventure in a young person of an enterprising and courageous character. However this might be, she departed, spent some years at Constantinople, and then sailed for Syria in an English vessel, which carried also the larger part of her fortune, as well as jewellery, trinkets, and presents of all sorts, of very considerable value.’ The vessel encountered a storm in the gulf of Macri, on the road to Caramania; the ship was wrecked, Lady Hester Stanhope’s property was all lost, and it was as much as she could do to save her own life. Nothing, however, could shake her resolution. She returned to England, gathered the remainder of her fortune, sailed again for Syria, and landed at Latakia, the ancient Laodicea. She had at first thought of fixing her abode at Broussa, at the foot of the Olympus; but Broussa is a commercial city, situate on the avenues to the Ottoman capital, and reckoning not less than sixty thousand inhabitants; and Lady Hester sought the independence and solitude of the desert. She therefore selected the wilderness of Mount Lebanon, whose extreme ramifications lose themselves in the sands. Ruined Palmyra – Zenobia’s ancient capital – suited her fancy. The noble exile took up her residence at Djouni, prepared for every vicissitude. ‘Europe,’ said she, ‘is a monotonous residence; its nations are unworthy of freedom, and endless revolution are their only prospects.’ She applied herself to the study of the Arabic language, and strove to obtain a thorough acquaintance with the character and manners of the Syrian people. One day, dressed in the costume of the Osmanlis, she set out for Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, and the desert; she advanced amidst a caravan loaded with wealth, tents, and presents for the Scheiks, and was soon surrounded by all the tribes, who knelt to her, and submitted to her supremacy. It was not solely by her magnificence, that Lady Hester had excited the admiration of the Arabs: her courage had been proved on more than one occasion; and she had always faced peril with a boldness and energy which the tribes well remembered. Lady Hester Stanhope knew also how to flatter the Mahomedan prejudices. She held no intercourse with Christians and Jews; she spent whole days in the grotto of a santon, who explained the Koran to her; and never appeared in public without that mien of majestic and grave inspiration, which was always unto oriental nations the characteristic of prophets. With her, however, this conduct was not so much the result of design, as of a decided proneness to every species of excitement and originality. Lady Hester Stanhope’s first abode was but a monastery. It was soon transformed into an oriental palace, with pavilions, orange-gardens and myrtles, over which spread the foliage of the cedar, such as it grows in the mountains of Lebanon. The traveller, to whom Lady Hester opened this sanctuary, would behold her clad in oriental garments. Her head was covered with a turban made of red and white cashmere. She wore a long tunic, with open loose sleeves; large Turkish trousers, the folds of which hung over yellow morocco boots, embroidered with silk. Her shoulders were covered with a sort of burnous, and a yataghan hung to her waist. Lady Hester Stanhope had a serious and imposing countenance; her noble and mild features had a majestic expression, which her high stature and the dignity of her movements enhanced. The day came when all this préstige, so expensively kept up, suddenly vanished. Lady Hester’s fortune rapidly declined; her income yearly decreased; in short, the substantial resources, which had, at one time, sustained the magic of her extraordinary domination, were daily forsaking her. The Queen of Palmyra then fell back into the rank of mere mortals, and she who had signed absolute firmans, enabling the traveller to visit in security the regions of Palmyra – she, whose authority the Sublime Porte had tacitly acknowledged – soon saw her people disown her omnipotency. She was left the title of queen, but it was but an empty name, a mere recollection; and again the monastery’s silence ruled over the solitude of Djouni. A queen, stripped of her glory of a day, Lady Hester Stanhope has expired, the sport of fate, at the moment the East is convulsed. She has expired in obscurity and loneliness, without even mingling her name with the great events of which it is now the theatre.”

All this, if no exaggeration had been employed, might have served to the excitation of a smile: but the matter did not rest there. Lady Hester, or the Princess, as she was styled, having given to the Sheik an absurd paper of authority, no one is permitted to visit Palmyra without paying a thousand piastres! “The consequence of which is,” says Mr. Carne, “several travellers have left Syria without seeing the finest ruins in the world⁷³.”

NO. XI. – PATRÆ

“Night overtook us,” says Mr. Williams, “before we reached Patras, anciently called Patræ. But such a night! the moon was in full splendour; and while we travelled among the mysterious scenes, we were often tempted to pause and ask what could be those shadowy towers, that were perpetually arresting our attention? Nothing could be more pleasing or more romantic, than the winding of our cavalry among the projecting rocks and dismal hollows, when first a gleam of light prevailed, and then a solemn darkness veiled and softened all in sweet composure. The glow-worms, peeping from the bushes, seemed like fairies’ eyes; fireflies glanced in thousands, like the sun’s bright rays stealing on rippling waters in ebon shade; and how divine the evening star appeared, tipping the dark chain of Mount Olonos! The blackbird, too, with its train of dear associations, awakened our peculiar interest. All seemed, by their look of delight to say, ‘Sing on, sweet bird! and tell us of our absent friends and beloved country!’”

Patræ was a town of Peloponnesus, anciently called Aroe.

Diana had a temple there, and a statue formed of ivory and gold, which was considered a masterpiece. Apollo also had a temple, in which was a statue of the god, raised by Icadius.

In the time of Pausanias, Patræ was also adorned with porticoes, a theatre, and an odéum; the last of which was superior to any in Greece, with one exception, viz. that of Herodes Atticus at Athens. In the lower part of the city was a temple of Bacchus, in which was an image preserved in a chest. There was also one of Ceres, with a pleasant grove and a prophetic fountain, which determined the events of illness. After supplicating the goddess with incense, the sick person is said to have appeared, living or dead, in a mirror suspended so as to touch the surface of the water⁷⁴.

Patræ was selected by Augustus as a place in which to settle some of those, who had fought with him at Actium. Some of the cities of Achaia were made tributary to the Patrenses, and they continued long to flourish after the decay of the neighbouring states.

They were rich in the monuments of art. Pausanias enumerates nineteen or twenty temples, besides statues, altars, and marble sepulchres, existing in his time in the city, the port, and the sacred groves.

Patras, though it has now recovered the destruction, was wholly destroyed by the Turks in 1770. We must, however, first state, that in 1447 it made the best defence against the Turks of any place in the Peloponnesus. In 1532 it was taken and ransacked by Doria. But of all its distresses the last was the most terrible; this was in 1770. It had lately been freed by the temporary success of Greek insurgents from the yoke of the Turks; but the appearance of the Athenians, who rushed through the passes of the isthmus to the assistance of the Mahometans, soon decided the fate of the place. An army of ten thousand, both horse and foot, entered the town through every avenue. It was not a contest, but a carnage: not a Greek capable of bearing arms was spared, and the houses were all burned to the ground⁷⁵.

In forty years, Patras recovered this calamity, and is now said to be a flourishing place; but Mr. Dodwell describes it as being composed, like all other Turkish cities, of dirty and narrow streets; with houses built of earth, baked in the sun; with eaves overhanging the streets.

The few remains, which are in Patras, are of Roman construction; and those neither grand, interesting, nor well preserved. In the castle, however, there are said to be several beautiful forms of female statues: and here we have to state an instance of barbarism, strikingly illustrative of the character of the more ignorant portion of the Turks. Some marble columns and mutilated statues having been found, a few years ago, in the garden of a Turk, he immediately broke them to pieces!

There are several large fissures in the walls of the castle, occasioned by an earthquake, about forty years ago; in which forty persons were killed in the town, and thirteen crushed by the falling of one of the turrets.

“Nothing can be,” says Mr. Hobhouse, “more pleasant than the immediate vicinity of this town; which is one blooming garden of orange and lemon plantations, of olive groves, and currant grounds. The temple and the statues, the theatre, the columns and the marble porch, have disappeared: but the valleys and the mountains, and some, not frequent, fragments, of more value than all the costly monuments of barbaric labour, – these still remain, and remind the traveller, that he treads the ground once trod by the heroes and sages of antiquity. To traverse the native country of those, whose deeds and whose wisdom have been proposed to all the polished nations of every succeeding age, as the models which they should endeavour to imitate, but must never hope to equal, with no other emotions than would arise in passing through regions never civilised, is unnatural; is impossible! No one would roam with the same indifference through the sad solitudes of Greece, and the savage wilds of America; nor is the expression of feelings, which it is the object and end of all liberal education to instil and encourage, to be derided as the unprofitable effusion of folly and affectation.”⁷⁶

NO. XII. – PELLA

It was a long time before the Greeks had any regard to Macedonia. The kings, living retired in woods and mountains, it seemed not to be considered as a part of Greece.

Pella was the capital of the kings of Macedon. There Philip lived and reigned, and here Alexander was born. After his death the kingdom of Macedon frequently changed masters. Philip Aridæus was succeeded by Cassander, who left three sons. Philip, the eldest, died presently after his father. The other two contended for the crown, without enjoying it; both dying soon after without issue.

Demetrius Poliorcetes, Pyrrhus, and Lysimachus, made themselves masters of all, or the greatest part of Macedonia, sometimes in conjunction, and at other times separately.

After the death of Lysimachus, Seleucus possessed himself of Macedonia, but did not long enjoy it.

Ptolemy Ceraunus having slain the preceding prince, seized the kingdom, and possessed it alone but a very short time; having lost his life in a battle with the Gauls, who had made an irruption into that country.

Sosthenes, who defeated the Gauls, reigned also but a short time.

Antigonus Gonatus, the son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, obtained peaceable possession of the kingdom of Macedonia, and transmitted these dominions to his descendants, after he had reigned thirty-four years.

He was succeeded by his son, Demetrius, who reigned ten years, and then died; leaving a son, named Philip, who was but two years old.

Antigonus Doson, reigned twelve years, in the quality of guardian to the young prince.

Philip, after the death of Antigonus, ascended the throne, at the age of fourteen years. After him, Perseus; who was defeated and taken prisoner by Paulus Æmilius; and Macedonia, in consequence of that victory, was added to the provinces of the Roman empire, B. C. 160.

For this success Paulus Æmilius was honoured with a triumph; and as a description of that ceremony will serve to diversify our pages in a very agreeable manner, we adopt the account afforded us by Plutarch. “The people erected scaffolds in the Forum and Circus, and all other parts of the city where they could best behold the pomp. The spectators were clad in white garments; all the temples were open and full of garlands and perfumes; the ways cleared and cleansed by a great many officers and tipstaffs, that drove away such as thronged the passage, or straggled up and down. This triumph lasted three days. On the first, which was scarce long enough for the sight, were to be seen the statues, pictures, and images, of an extraordinary bigness, which were taken from the enemy, drawn upon seven hundred and fifty chariots. On the second, was carried, in a great many wains, the fairest and the richest armour of the Macedonians, both of brass and steel, all newly furbished and glittering; which, although piled up with the greatest art and order, yet seemed to be tumbled on heaps carelessly and by chance; helmets were thrown on shields, coats of mail upon greaves, Cretan targets, and Thracian bucklers and quivers of arrows lay huddled among the horses’ bits; and through these appeared the points of naked swords, intermixed with long spears. All these arms were tied together in a way, that they knocked against one another as they were drawn along, and made a harsh and terrible noise; so that the very spoils of the conquered could not be beheld without dread. After these waggons loaden with armour, there followed three thousand men, who carried the silver that was coined, in seven hundred and fifty vessels, each of which weighed three talents, and was carried by four men. Others brought silver bowls, and goblets, and cups, all disposed in such order as to make the best show, and all valuable, as well for their bigness, as the thickness of their engraved work. On the third day, early in the morning, first came the trumpeters, who did not sound as they were wont in a procession or solemn entry; but such a charge as the Romans use when they encourage their soldiers to fight. Next followed young men, girt about with girdles curiously wrought, which led to the sacrifice of hundred and twenty stalled oxen, with their horns gilded, and their heads adorned with ribands and garlands; and with these were boys that carried platters of silver and gold. After this was brought the gold coin, which was divided into vessels that weighed three talents, like to those that contained the silver; they were in number fourscore wanting three. These were followed by those that brought the consecrated bowl, which Æmilius caused to be made, that weighed ten talents, and was all beset with precious stones. Then were exposed to view the cups of Antigonus and Seleucus, and such as were made after the fashion invented by Thericles, and all the gold plate that was used at Perseus’s table. Next to these came Perseus’s chariot, in which his armour was placed, and on that his diadem. And after a little intermission, the king’s children were led captives, and with them a train of nurses, masters, and governors, who all wept, and stretched forth their hands to the spectators, and taught the little infants to beg and entreat their compassion. There were two sons and a daughter, who, by reason of their tender age, were altogether insensible of the greatness of their misery; which insensibility of their condition rendered it much more deplorable; insomuch, that Perseus himself was scarce regarded as he went along, whilst pity had fixed the eyes of the Romans upon the infants, and many of them could not forbear tears; all beheld the sight with a mixture of sorrow and joy, until the children were past. After his children and their attendants, came Perseus himself, clad all in black, and wearing slippers, after the fashion of his country. He looked like one altogether astonished and deprived of reason, through the greatness of his misfortunes. Next followed a great company of his friends and familiars, whose countenances were disfigured with grief, and who testified to all that beheld them by their tears, and their continual looking upon Perseus, that it was his hard fortune they so much lamented, that they were regardless of their own. After these were carried four hundred crowns all made of gold, and sent from the cities by their respective ambassadors to Æmilius, as a reward due to his valour. Then he himself came seated on a chariot magnificently adorned (a man worthy to be beheld, even without these ensigns of power): he was clad in a garment of purple interwoven with gold, and held out a laurel branch in his right hand. All the army, in like manner, with boughs of laurel in their hands, and divided into bands and companies, followed the chariot of their commander; some singing odes (according to the usual custom) mingled with raillery; others, songs of triumph, and the praises of Æmilius’s deeds, who was admired and accounted happy by all men; yet unenvied by every one that was good.”

“The ancient capital of the kings of Macedon,” says Monsieur de Pouqueville, “does not announce itself in its desolation to the eye of the stranger, as at Athens and Corinth, by the display of the remains of its ancient splendour. Its vestiges are found on an eminence sloping to the south-west, and surrounded by marshes. In vain, however, does the traveller look for the walls of the city, for the citadel, for the dykes constructed to defend from inundation the temples, buildings, and the monuments of its grandeur. The barbarians from the North, the Romans, and the succession of ages, have destroyed even the ruins. The once powerful city of Pella is now sunk down into fragments of tombs, masses of brick and tile, and about threescore huts, inhabited by Bulgarians, with a tower garrisoned by about a dozen Albanians. Such are the present edifices, population, and military establishment of Pella, once the powerful capital of Alexander and Perseus! A low Mahommedan now commands, whip in hand, in the city where Alexander first saw the light; and the paternal seat of that monarch, whose dominions extended from the Adriatic to the Indus, was, some years ago, the property of Achmet, son of Ismael, Bey of Serres⁷⁷.”

NO. XIII. – PERGAMUS

This was a city of Great Mysia, in Asia Minor, the capital of the kingdom of Pergamus, which was founded by a eunuch, named Philatera, who had been a servant to Docima, a commander of the troops of Antigonus.

Pergamus was assaulted by Philip, king of Macedon, in his war against Attalus the First, who had taken part with the Romans. All his efforts, however, being unavailing, he turned his rage and fury against the gods; and, not satisfied with burning their temples, he demolished statues, broke to pieces their altars, and even pulled up the stones from their foundations, that not the least footsteps of them might remain.

At the death of Attalus, his son Eumenes the Second succeeded; and it was during his reign and under his inspiration, – if such an expression may be allowed – that the celebrated library was collected⁷⁸, which makes such a figure in literary history.

The kingdom ceased to exist at the death of Attalus the Third; since that prince left it to the Roman people.

As this event was very important to the city as well as kingdom of Pergamus, we may, with propriety, enter a little into the character of the prince, who made so extraordinary a bequeathment. Historians relate, that he was scarcely on the throne before he stained it with the blood of his nearest relatives. He caused almost all those, who had served his father and his uncle with extreme fidelity, to have their throats cut; under pretence that some of them had killed his mother, who died of a disease in a very advanced age, and others his wife, who died of an incurable distemper. He caused the destruction also of wives, children, and whole families. Having committed all these enormities, he appeared no more in the city, and ate no longer in public. He put on old clothes, let his beard grow, and did every thing which persons, accused of capital crimes, used to do in those days; as if he intended thereby to acknowledge the extent of his own atrocity. From hence he proceeded to other species of folly and iniquity. He renounced the cares of state, and retired into his garden, and applied to digging the ground himself, and sowing all sorts of poisonous as well as wholesome herbs; then poisoning the good with the juice of the bad, he sent them in that manner as presents to his friends. At length he took it into his head to practise the trade of a brass-founder; and formed the model of a monument of brass to be erected to his mother. As he was casting the metal for this purpose, one hot summer’s day, he was seized with a fever, which in a few days carried him off. The principal clause in his will was expressed in these terms: – “Let the people of Rome inherit all my fortunes.” This will having been carried to Rome, the city and kingdom of Pergamus, as we have already stated, passed into a Roman province.

Pergamus gave birth to Apollodorus, the preceptor of Augustus; and Galen, next to Hippocrates the greatest physician that ever adorned the annals of medical science. It is also remarkable for having been alluded to by Tiberius, in one of his hypocritical speeches to the Roman senate, as reported in Tacitus. “I know very well,” said he, “that many men will condemn me for suffering Asia to build me a temple, as Spain at present would do: but I will give you a reason for what I have done, and declare my resolution for the future. The divine Augustus, whose actions and words are so many inviolable laws to me, having consented that the people of Pergamus should dedicate a temple to him and the city of Rome, I thought I might follow so great an example; so much the rather, since the honour, intended me, was joined with the veneration paid to the senate. But as on the one hand it might have been too great a piece of severity to have denied it for once; so on the other, doubtless, it would be too great a vanity and folly, to suffer one’s self to be adored as a God, through all the provinces of the empire. Besides, it cannot but be a great diminution to the glory of Augustus, to communicate it indifferently to all the world. For my own part, I am mortal, and subject to human infirmities; I am contented with being a prince here, without being raised to the throne of a God. I protest to you, I desire this testimony may be given of me to posterity. It will be glory enough for me to be thought worthy of my ancestors; a vigilant prince, one who is insensible of fear, when the commonwealth is in danger. These are the temples and monuments which I desire to erect in your breasts: for works of marble and brass, raised to the glory of princes, are contemned by posterity as so many naked sepulchres, when their memory is condemned. I entreat heaven to give me a serenity of mind, and a spirit to discern and judge uprightly of the laws of God and man; and after my decease, I confide, my fellow-citizens and allies will preserve my memory with their blessings and praises.”

Mr. Turner found several ancient inscriptions at Pergamus. He ascended the ancient Acropolis, which is built on a mount of about two hundred feet height, overhanging the town: on the top are extensive remains of the walls both of the Roman and Venetian city. Part of the walls are built with large fluted columns, laid length-ways. Among the Roman ruins are several immense arched caves under ground, about sixty feet deep. At the top of the hill lay a large Corinthian capital, and half way down the hill a small marble column, on which is a Greek inscription, now illegible.

In a valley west of the Acropolis are considerable remains of a large Roman amphitheatre; near which is a gate with part of a wall. The arch of the gate is curiously inclined, being unequal; the only instance of such an irregularity Mr. Turner ever saw in an ancient building. There are also ruins of several Roman baths; in one of which was found a vase, which has excited a great deal of admiration. Mr. Turner thus describes it: – “It is of fine marble, and in good preservation, being only a little broken round the rim. The shape of it is a flattened globe; on the outside round the circumference of the centre are fifteen equestrian figures in high-relief; nine of these have their heads much broken, nine have their arms extended; the horses are all at full speed, and a race is probably the subject represented, as none of the figures bear arms. Five of the figures are clinging to their horses, and one appears to be falling. Nothing,” continues Mr. Turner, “can exceed the spirit of the execution; the very horses seem to breathe; above and below the figures a band, on which is engraved the pattern of a laurel leaf, surrounds the vase: a very correct engraving of which is given in the work of Choiseul-Gouffier. There are said to have been seven of these vases at Pergamus; six of which were taken to Constantinople.”

There are also in the neighbourhood of Bergamo, the present ruins of this city, six tumuli; three large and three small⁷⁹.

NO. XIV. – PERSEPOLIS

“ – I know
The wealth,” she cries, “of every urn,
In which unnumbered rubies burn,
Beneath the pillars of Chilminar.”

Moore; —Lalla Rookh.

This city is supposed to have been founded by the famous Jemsheed, from whom it is to this day called Tuklit-e-Jemsheed; – the throne of Jemsheed; a prince, to whom Persian authors attribute the invention of many useful arts⁸⁰; and to whom they refer the first great reform in the manners and usages of their countrymen. He, also, introduced the solar year; and ordered the first day of it, when the sun entered Aries, to be celebrated as a festival⁸¹.

An old Persian author has left the following description of Persepolis: – “Jemsheed built a fortified palace at the foot of a hill, which bounds the fine plain of Murdasht to the north-west. The platform, on which it was built, has three faces to the plain, and one to the mountain. It is formed of hard, black granite. The elevation from the plain is ninety feet; and every stone, used in this building, is from nine to twelve feet long, and broad in proportion. There are two great flights of stairs to this palace, so easy of ascent, that a man can ride up on horseback; and on the platform a palace has been erected, part of which still remains in its original state, and part is in ruins. The palace of Jemsheed is that, now called the Chesel-Setoon, or Forty Pillars. Each pillar is formed of a carved stone, is sixty feet high, and is ornamented in a manner so delicate, that it would seem to rival upon hard granite the sculpture of a carving upon the softest wood. There is no granite like that, of which these pillars are made, to be now found in Persia: and it is unknown from whence it is brought. Some most beautiful and extraordinary figures ornament this palace; and all the pillars, which once supported the roof (for that has fallen) are composed of three pieces of stone, joined in so exquisite a manner, as to make the beholder believe, that the whole shaft is one piece. There are several figures of Jemsheed in the sculpture; in one he has an urn in his hand, in which he burns benjamin, while he stands adoring the sun; in another, he is represented as seizing the mane of a lion with one hand, while he stabs him with another.”

The remains of this city stands in one of the finest plains of Persia; being eighteen or nineteen leagues in length, and in some places two, in some four, and in others six leagues in breadth. It is watered by the great river Araxes, and by a multitude of rivers beside. Within the compass of this plain there are between one thousand and one thousand five hundred villages, without reckoning those in the mountains, all adorned with pleasant gardens, and planted with trees. The entrance of this plain, on the west side, has received as much grandeur from nature, as the city it covered could do from industry or art.

Some authors say, that to attempt any guess of the period when the city first rose from the plain, would be useless, and that the only means, now remaining, of forming any satisfactory conjectures, in regard to its origin, can only reach to the probable era of the different remaining ruins. When in Persia, however, Mr. Francklin met with a short account of the building this palace, in MS., being part of a work, called Rouzut al Sefa, or the Garden of Purity; of which he gives this as a translation: – “It is related by historians, that King Jemsheed removed the seat of government, which was formerly in the province of Sejestaun, to Fars; and that in the neighbourhood of Shirauz, having taken in a spot of ground, of twelve furlongs in length (forty-eight English miles), he there erected such a palace, that in the seven kingdoms of the world there was nothing that could equal it. The remains of that palace, and many of the pillars of it, are visible to this day; and he caused the palace to be called Chehul Minar, or Forty Pillars. Moreover, when the sun, quitting the sign Pisces in the heavens, had entered Aries, Jemsheed, having assembled all the princes, nobles, and great men of his empire, at the foot of his imperial throne, did on that day institute a grand and solemn festival; and this day was henceforth called Noo Roze, or first day of the new year (when the foundation of Persepolis was laid), at which period he commanded, from all parts of the empire, the attendance of the peasants, husbandmen, soldiers, and others, in order to prosecute the design; requesting that all, with joyful hearts and willing hands, should lend their assistance in completing the work. This numerous assembly obeyed the command of their monarch, and the building was finished with all signs of mirth and festivity.”

To this account the Persians add, that Queen Homaie, who flourished about eight hundred years after Jemsheed, added a thousand columns.

Diodorus gives some account of the workmen, that were employed in building this palace. “Cambyses, the son of Cyrus,” says he, “conquered Egypt in the third year of the seventy-third olympiad, when he pillaged the country and burnt the temples, the treasures of which the Persians carried off into Asia; and they, also, led away with them the workmen and architects of Egypt, whom they caused to build the famous palace of Persepolis, and of several other cities.” This account appears the more probable, since, as M. le Comte de Caylus is justly of opinion, they cannot be attributed to the Persians before Cyrus; since Herodotus describes the Persians of that age as a people of great simplicity; having neither temples nor altars, but worshipping Jupiter on the summits of mountains. The account, here given, is sufficient to account for the Egyptian appearance of Persepolis. There are appearances of five different buildings united in one; and each, apparently, of a different age, after the manner of the Egyptians.

Though there are doubts as to the origin of Persepolis, there are none as to the circumstance of its being destroyed by Alexander.

As the conqueror drew near the city⁸², he perceived a large body of men, who presented a most lamentable picture. These were about four thousand Greeks, greatly advanced in years, who, having been taken prisoners of war, had suffered all the torments which Persian tyranny could invent. The hands of some had been cut off, the feet of others; and others again had lost their noses and ears; after which, having impressed by fire barbarous characters on their faces, the Persians had the inhumanity to keep them as so many laughing-stocks, with which they sported perpetually. They appeared like so many shadows rather than men. Alexander could not refrain from tears at this sight; and as they unanimously besought him to commiserate their condition, he bade them, with the utmost tenderness, not to despond, and assured them that they should again see their country. This, however, the Greeks did not desire; being unwilling to be seen by their former companions in the dreadful state in which they were. They prayed the king, therefore, to let them remain where they were, but to relieve their awful condition. This Alexander did; but he was so enraged at what he had seen, that he set the city on fire soon after. The other account is, that the conqueror called his generals together, and represented to them that no city in the world had been more fatal to the Greeks than Persepolis, the ancient residence of the Persian monarchs, and capital of their empire. For that it was from thence all those mighty armies poured, which had overflowed Greece; and whence Darius, and afterwards Xerxes, had carried the fire-brand of the most accursed war which had laid waste the best part of Europe; and therefore it was incumbent on them to revenge the manes of their ancestors.

Animated by this, the soldiers force their way into the city, put all the men to the sword, and rifle and carry away every man’s goods and estate; amongst which was abundance of rich and costly furniture and ornaments of all sorts. There were hurried away, here and there, vast quantities of silver, and no less of gold, great numbers of rich garments, some of purple, and others embroidered with gold; all of which, says Diodorus, became a plentiful prey to the ravenous soldiers. For though every place was full of rich spoil, yet the covetousness of the Macedonians was insatiable. They were even so eager in plundering, that they fought one another with drawn swords; and many, who were conceived to have got a larger share than the rest, were killed in the quarrel. Some things, which were of extraordinary value, they divided with their swords, and each took a share. Others, in a rage, cut off the hands of such as laid hold of a thing that was in dispute. They first ravished the women as they were in their jewels and rich attire, and then sold them for slaves. The riches are said to have amounted to no less than eighteen millions sterling!

Such is the account left us by Diodorus. He then goes on to describe the destruction of the temple or palace, burned down by Alexander. “Alexander,” says he, “made a great feast for the entertainment of his friends in commemoration of his victory, and offered magnificent sacrifices to the gods. At this feast were entertained women, who prostituted their bodies for hire; when the cups went so high to drunkenness and debauchery, that many were drunk and mad. Among the rest there was a courtesan, named Thais, an Athenian, then mistress to Ptolemy, afterwards king of Egypt, who said in a gay tone of voice, ‘That it would be a matter of inexpressible joy to her, were she permitted, masked as she then was, and in order to end the festival nobly, to burn the magnificent palace of Xerxes, who had burned Athens; and so set it on fire with her own hand, in order that it might be said in all parts of the world, that the women, who had followed Alexander in his expedition to Asia, had taken much better revenge on the Persians, for the many calamities they had brought upon the Grecians, than all the generals who had fought for them both by sea and land.’

“This spreading abroad, and coming to the ears of the young men, presently one cries out, ‘Come on; bring firebrands!’ and so incites the rest to fire the citadel, to revenge that impiety the Persians had committed in destroying the temples of the Grecians. At this, others with joy set up a shout; but said that so brave an exploit belonged only to Alexander himself to perform. The king, stirred up at these words, embraced the proposition; upon which, as many as were present left their cups and leaped upon the table, and said that they would now celebrate a victorious festival to Bacchus. Thereupon, multitudes of firebrands were presently got together; and all the women that played on musical instruments, which were at the feast, were called for; and then the king, with songs, pipes, and flutes, led the way to this expedition, contrived and managed by this courtesan, Thais, who, next after the king, threw the first firebrand into the palace. This precedent was presently followed by the rest. The fire once raised, there was no stopping it; but Alexander soon repented what was doing, and gave orders for extinguishing it; but this being too late, the palace was burned, and remains now nearly in the same state it was left at the conclusion of the fire.”

According to Arrian, Alexander burned the palace of the Persian king much against the will of Parmenio, who exhorted him to leave it untouched. To which Alexander answered, that he was resolved to revenge the ancient injuries, Greece had received from the Persians; who, when they marched into Greece, burned its temples, and committed many other barbarous devastations.

This, we think, is one reason why the building burned must have been a temple, and not a palace. The Persians had burned the temples of Greece, therefore Alexander burned the temple of the Persians. Besides, as the feast was held in the palace, it is not very likely that the master of the feast should have burned the place, in which he was not only then feasting, but in which he was to sleep on the very night of the conflagration; and that it was not destroyed is evident from the circumstance, recorded by Strabo and Arrian – that Alexander inhabited the royal palace at Persepolis after his return from India. Added to which, it is certain that there is, at this time, no appearance or marks of fire on any part of the ruins.

In respect to these ruins, it has been well observed, that magnificent columns, portals, and other architectural decorations, mark this spot as the site of a splendid “palace;” while the style of the sculptures and the inscriptions, many of them in the single-headed character, found only at this place, Nineveh, Babylon, Susa, and Ván, proves them to be of a very high antiquity. Mr. Kinneir, however, says they are generally admitted to be the remains of the “palace,” destroyed by Alexander; and the striking resemblance of the building, as it exists, to the account given of Persepolis by Diodorus, is, in his opinion, sufficient to remove any doubt, that may exist upon the subject. We confess that such is not our impression.

Those who regard the ruins as being the remains of a Persian temple, insist that the sculptured subjects, as well as the style of architecture, resemble, in many particulars, those of Egypt: among which may be mentioned the figures, divided by trees, the sphinxes, the vases and chains, the domes and architraves, the subterranean passages in the tombs, the sarcophagi and urns, and the well, twenty-five feet deep and fifteen square. The sculpture at Persepolis was also painted mostly in blue, a favourite colour in Egypt; but sometimes in black and in yellow. For these remarks we are indebted to Mr. Buckingham.

According to Arrian, it was the castle of Persepolis which Alexander burned. In Mr. Buckingham’s opinion, however, the ruins now seen correspond neither with those of a palace, nor of a castle; they were, therefore, according to him, not those of the edifice burned by Alexander at all; for on all these remains, as we have before stated, no mark of fire is to be traced, which could not be the case if this had been the principal agent used in its destruction.

The opinion, that these ruins are the remains of the palace, is not on the authority of all history, but on the assertion merely of Quintus, Curtius and Diodorus. The whole story as to the burning, is said to have been copied from a Greek writer, named Clitarchus⁸³.

Though there are no remains of a city now at Persepolis, nor in any part of the plain in which it is situated; certain it is, that the city was not destroyed by Alexander; for it was a very important place for many centuries after.

Curtius, therefore, is guilty of an error in saying that the city was so far from being rebuilt, that unless the river Araxes ran near it, there are no signs to guess where it stood; for neither Arrian nor Strabo, nor even Diodorus, whom Curtius commonly copies, acquaint us with any thing but the burning of the palace.

The first book of Maccabees says that there was a rich temple at Persepolis; and, the second, that Antiochus Epiphanes determined to pillage it. Alexander, therefore, could not have destroyed it; for it is highly improbable, from the history of those times, that so laboured and magnificent a work should have been rebuilt and restored in the short period between Alexander and the Syrian king; viz. – 160 years. That prince formed the design of pillaging both “a temple,” and the city.

Though Persepolis long survived the palace of Jemsheed, its inhabitants are said to have regarded with unextinguishable hatred the people by whom they were conquered; and, as if inspired by those fragments of former glory, with which they were surrounded, they maintained a character for pride and courage, that was not entirely subdued, till several centuries after the Arabians first overran Persia.

Its subsequent history has been summed up by Mr. Fraser. “It was among the earliest conquests of Ardeshir Babegan; Shepoor II. made it his residence; Yesdigird I. held his court there; and Hoormuz II., who reigned at the close of the sixth century, passed two months every year in it. In the succeeding age, however, it ceased to be a royal residence; for Khoosroo Purveez bestowed the government on one of his favourites; and it was here that the last of the Sassanian kings lay concealed, when called to the throne, A. D. 632. Twelve years afterwards, it capitulated to the Mohammedans; but the people, having slain their foreign governor, were all put to the sword. The city was ultimately destroyed by Sumcaneah-u-Dowlan, and the fanatical Arabs, A. D. 982. Such,” concludes Mr. Fraser, “is the sketch of the latter days of Istakhar⁸⁴, (the only name by which the city is recognised by the native Persian historians); but the question, who was its founder? and who raised the mighty fabrics, of which the ruins still astonish the traveller? yet remain unanswered.”

The authors who have described these ruins are, Garcias de Silva Figueroa, Pietra de la Valle, Sir John Chardin, Le Brun, Francklin, Niebuhr, Morier, Buckingham, Porter, Ouseley, and Fraser.

It has been truly said, that we cannot proceed a step in Persia, without encountering some monument of the cruelty of conquerors and of human vicissitudes. These ruins have been variously described; insomuch that, had travellers not agreed in respect to the latitude and longitude, one would be tempted to suspect, that they had visited different ruins. Our account will therefore be desultory: for to give a full and regular one would, without drawings, be of little available use.

“It is very difficult to give any detailed account of the ruins of this celebrated place,” says Mr. Buckingham. “There is no temple, as at Thebes, at Palmyra, or at Balbec, sufficiently predominant over all other surrounding objects to attract the chief attention, and furnish of itself sufficient matter for description and observation. Here, all is broken and detached fragments, extremely numerous, and each worthy of attention; but so scattered and disjointed, as to give no perfect idea of the whole. Its principal feature is, that it presents an assemblage of tall, slender, and isolated pillars, and separate door-ways and sanctuaries, spread over a large platform, elevated, like a fortification, from the level of the surrounding plain.”

“The works of different travellers, describing these ruins,” says Sir William Ouseley, “furnish many instances of extraordinary variation. But this discordance is not peculiar to those, who have written accounts of Persepolis. We find that, concerning the same visible and tangible objects, two, three, and even four, travellers in other countries have disagreed; – all men of considerable ingenuity, and none intending to deceive.” Sir William then refers to a passage in Sir Thomas Herbert’s Travels. “Forasmuch as the remaining figures, or images, are many and different, and so many, as in two days I was there it was impossible I could take the full of what I am assured an expert limner may very well spend twice two months in, ere he can make a fancy draught; for, to say the truth, this is a work much fitter for the pencil than the pen; the rather for that I observe how that travellers, taking a view of some rare piece together, from the variety of their fancy, they usually differ in those observations: so that when they think their notes are exact, they shall pretermit something that a third will light upon.” These observations were made by Sir Thomas among the ruins of the city, of which we now are treating.

“Nothing,” says Mr. Fraser, “can be more striking, than the appearance of those ruins on approaching them from the south-west. Placed at the base of a rugged mountain, on a terrace of mason-work that might vie with the structures of Egypt, it overlooks an immense plain, inclosed on all sides by distant but dark cliffs, and watered by the Kour Ab, which once supplied a thousand aqueducts. But the water-courses are dried up; the plain is a morass or a wilderness; for the great city, which once poured its population over the wide expanse of Merdusht, has disappeared, and the grey columns rise in solitary grandeur, to remind us, that mighty deeds were done in the days of old.”

The last account of this place we have by an Eastern writer, is that given by Mirza Jan, in the account he gives of a journey he made from Shirauz to Isfahan. “Beyond the village of Kenarch, about half a parasang, is a mountain, and at the foot of it an extraordinary place, wherein are columns and marbles, sculptured with strange devices and inscriptions, so that most persons imagine this edifice to have been constructed before the creation of man.” This is very curious; since the sculptures themselves give positive evidence of his existence.

The following account of these ruins is taken from Mr. Francklin. “They are about two days’ journey from Shiraz, on a rising ground, in a plain, surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains. They occupy a circumference of one thousand four hundred square yards. The front is six hundred paces from north to south, and three hundred and ninety from east to west, and the height of the foundation from forty to fifty feet.

“The columns are ascended by a grand staircase of blue stone, about fifty feet high, the sides embellished with two immense sphinxes, dressed out with bead-work. At a small distance from these portals you ascend another flight of steps leading to the grand hall of columns. The sides of these stairs are charged with reliefs of figures holding vessels in their hands, camels, triumphal cars, horses, oxen, and rams. At the head of the stair is a relief of a lion seizing a bull. This stair leads to the great hall of forty or fifty pillars, in nine rows, of six each; of which fifteen remain entire, from seventy to eighty feet high; the diameter at the base twelve feet, and distance between the columns twenty-two. Their pedestals are curiously wrought, and little injured, the shafts fluted to the top, and the capitals adorned with a profusion of fret-work. East of this, are remains of a square building, entered by a door of granite; most of the doors and windows standing of black marble, highly polished. On the sides of the doors, at entering, are bas-reliefs of two figures, representing a man stabbing a goat; a common device all over the palace. Over another door of the same apartment are two men, and a domestic behind them, with an umbrella. At the south-west entrance of this apartment are two large stone pillars, carved with four figures in long garments, holding spears ten feet long. Exclusive of the ancient inscriptions, in unknown characters, interspersed over these ruins, there are others, accurately described by Niebuhr. Behind the hall of the pillars, and close under the mountains, are remains of a very large building, with two principal entrances from north-east, and south-west; the wall divided into several partitions, ornamented with sculpture, and over its twelve doors the relief of the lion and bull, as before: and besides the usual figures, one of a man in long garments, with a cap turret-formed, seated on a pillar, holding in his hand a small vessel, and wearing a girdle round his waist, projecting beyond his clothes, and under him several lions. Behind this ruin, a considerable way to the north, up the mountain Rehumut, are remains of two buildings, of three sides, cut out of the rock, forty feet high, ascended to by steps, now destroyed. Two of the sides are loaded with carvings, as of some religious ceremony, including the figure last mentioned. Former travellers have supposed these tombs to be of the kings of Persia; the natives call it Mujilis Jemsheed, or the Assembly of king Jemsheed, who resorted hither with his nobles. Under these reliefs several openings lead to a dark subterranean passage, of six feet by four, into the rock. At the foot of this mountain, to the south, are the remains of windows, like those in other parts of the palace; and, a little westward from it, a stone staircase, leading to a magnificent square court, with pediments, and corners of pillars, and on those ancient inscriptions. In several parts of the palace are stone aqueducts. These venerable ruins have suffered from time, weather, and earthquakes; and are half buried in sand, washed down from the mountains. Persian writers ascribe it to King Jemsheed; and the addition of one thousand columns more, to Queen Homaie, eight hundred years after; but there is no epoch assigned.”

This account is from Mr. Francklin; we now turn to Mr. Morier. “Tavernier and Des Ferrières-Sauvebœuf, are the only persons who have spoken slightingly of these ruins; but there is no small reason to believe, that the latter never saw the ruins he speaks of; and that the former merely wrote from the dubious information of a capuchin, who resided for some years at Isfahan.”

Besides the inscriptions, above alluded to, there are others in Arabic, Persian, and Greek. Dr. Hyde observes, that the inscriptions are very rude and clumsy; and that some, if not all, are in praise of Alexander; and therefore, they must be later than that conqueror.

The Persepolitan capitals convey the idea of rich silks and feathers having been tied round the upper part of tall wooden posts; and rich silks, feathers, and precious stones, have always been the materials with which Eastern monarchs form their most gorgeous decorations.

These ruins bear incontrovertible evidence of antiquity; and although in some things they resemble Egyptian, and in others Indian edifices, they, especially in the palace, possess leading features, sufficiently distinct to entitle them to be considered as of a separate school. Yet, being, amongst numerous palaces, the only vestiges of lofty stone columns and numerous sculptures, and being traced immediately subsequent to the Egyptian expedition under Cambyses, they afford strong grounds for believing, that Thebaid influence, by example, or workmen, or both, led to these works, so unlike what had formerly been practised in Persia. That the style was not spread over the empire, may be accounted for from its immediate subjugation by the Greeks. In latter times the use of the Gothic arches, and Turkish domes, highly ornamented, have been, throughout all Persia, extensively introduced in their palaces, mosques, and tombs. The hand of the Musselman has likewise reached the remotest quarters of India⁸⁵.

The materials, of which the palace is composed, are chiefly hard blue stone; but the doors and windows are of black marble, and so beautifully polished, that they reflect objects like a mirror. This high polish is agreeably alluded to in the account, given by Mr. Murray, in his historical account of travels in Asia, where he mentions that those ruins were visited by Garcias de Sylva in 1621. “The ambassador came to the spot called Cilminar, celebrated for the mighty ruins which cover its site – the remains of the ancient Persepolis. They were diligently surveyed by our author, who describes them with an enthusiasm, which perhaps betrays him into some degree of exaggeration. He dwells on the superb range of columns, particularly those called the Forty Minarets; the magnificent stairs by which they are ascended; the vast interior square, four hundred and thirty feet by three hundred and ten, and the huge pieces of marble, without any apparent juncture. The sculptures were innumerable, and are conceived by him to represent the actions of a race of men prior to any now known, even to the ancient Babylonians and Persians. Yet, though ascending to this vast antiquity, they are so entire, that, with the exception of a few fragments broken off, they might seem to have been recently finished. In comparing these with the monuments of other nations, he observes, that the pyramids are mere artificial mountains; while the temples of Greece are in ruins; here only art and grandeur are united in pristine perfection. The high polish of the marble was amusingly shown by a mastiff, who, seeing his own figure reflected on the walls, was worked up to fury, which was always increased by the view of the corresponding gestures in the reflected image; till the scene being repeated whenever they came, they were at length obliged to chain and send him off.”

“In some places,” says Mr. Fraser, “the number of sculptures is so great, that they bewilder the eye. Those figures, which are disposed in groups to suit the compartments, are variously habited and employed. Some resemble royal guards and attendants, clothed in long robes, with brogue-like buskins, and fluted flat-topped caps, bearing bows and quivers, shields and spears. Others are placed in long rows, and appear to represent a procession of many nations, being differently dressed and appointed. They bear gifts and offerings, and lead animals of various sorts. Animals stand on a pedestal, which elevates them five feet. Their heads are so mutilated, that it is impossible to say what they were meant to represent; their necks are decorated with collars of roses; short curled hair covers the chest, back, and ribs; and the workmanship is singularly correct and delicate.

“Almost every one in this procession holds in his hand a figure like the lotos; a flower full of meaning to the ancients. That the Persians offered horses to the sun, and oxen to the moon, is fully shown by this procession.”

“Though, at first sight,” says Sir Robert Porter, “I acknowledge that a general similitude to the Egyptian contour strikes the mind; yet the impression gradually wears away when the details are examined; the finishing of the parts, and the grace and truth of the bas-reliefs, every where proclaiming the refined taste and master chisels of Greece. When comparing the colossal proportions of the structure, and its gigantic sculptures, with the delicacy, beauty, and perfection of the execution of its ornaments, I might say, with the poet, ‘Here the Loves play on the bosom of Hercules.’”

Sir Robert Porter supposes that these works of art were designed to perpetuate the memory of the grand religious procession of Cyrus the Great, described by Xenophon; or, probably, that of Darius, at the festival of the Noo Roz, or vernal equinox, receiving presents from the numerous nations of his vast empire.

“The numerous basso-relievos,” says a celebrated French geographer, “are highly valuable, as illustrating the ancient costumes and manners of the Persians. Those carved on the walls of the staircase are numerous, exhibiting trains of Persian subjects from the different parts of the kingdom, bringing presents to the sovereign, led forward in small parties by officers of the court, acting as masters of the ceremonies. In other parts are figures of the king on his throne; and over him a symbolical representation of him in the form of a genius, or celestial type of the earthly potentate; conformable to the views inculcated by the ancient Persian religion. Guards of different descriptions are also delineated; and animals, partly exaggerated and symbolical, and partly fair representations of nature, contribute to the effect of lively and extended ornament. Battles, single combats, and other incidents in the Persian history, are here, as well as in the other Persian relics of antiquity, represented sometimes by symbols, and sometimes according to nature.”

Mr. Morier says, that though Le Brun and Chardin have given only one line of figures on the right of the staircase, he thought it was evident that there must have been the same number on the left as there are on the right. He, therefore, hired some labourers from the surrounding villages to dig; when, to his great delight, a second row of figures was discovered, highly preserved, the details of whose faces, hair, dresses, arms, and general character, seemed but as the work of yesterday. There is this distinction, however, between the two rows: – the faces of all the figures to the right of the staircase are mutilated; those of the newly-discovered ones are quite perfect; and this shows that they must have been covered before the invasion of the Saracens: for to that people is attributed the mutilation of all the figures.

Le Brun counted one thousand three hundred figures of men and animals, the half of which were as large as life, without including those on the tombs; and he counted the fragments of no less than two hundred and five columns. Destruction, however, is going on very rapidly. In one part of the remains there were twenty-five pillars standing, where now there are only thirteen. Thus,

Примечание 1⁸⁶

Mr. Morier says, that on comparing Le Brun’s, Chardin’s, and Niebuhr’s drawings with the sculptures, he found them in general correct in outline, but imperfect in details of dress, arms, &c.; and that although the figures are in themselves ill-proportioned, inelegant, and deficient in anatomical drawing, they are exceedingly interesting in general character, and have not been done justice to in the works of these travellers. They, moreover, furnish the best models of what were the nations, that invaded Greece with Xerxes, and that were subdued by Alexander.

The Hall of Pillars appears to have been detached from the rest of the palace, and to have had a communication with the other parts by hollow galleries of stone. It is situated on an eminence, commanding an extensive view of the plain of Merdusht. It is strikingly grand, and conveys to the beholder the idea of a hall of audience of a powerful and warlike monarch.

The Palace of Forty Pillars (called Shehel Setoon) was the favourite residence of the latter Sophi kings. The front is entirely open to the garden, and it is sustained by a double range of columns, upwards of forty feet high, each column shooting up from the united backs of four lions of white marble. The exhaustless profusion of the splendid materials, of which this palace is internally formed, which reflect their own golden or crystal lights on each other, along with all the variegated colours of the garden, give the appearance of an entire surface, formed of polished silver and mother-of-pearl set with precious stones; a scene well fitted for an Eastern poet’s dream, or some magic vision in the tales of an Arabian Night.

This hall, travellers suppose to be the precise part, which formed the banqueting-hall where Alexander displayed his triumph; the place where the kings of Persia received the homage of their subjects, displayed their magnificence, and issued their beneficent orders; also the private palace which was appropriated to the domestic intercourse of the members of the royal family.

Sir Robert Porter says that he gazed at the ruins with wonder and delight. “Besides the admiration which the general elegance of their form, and the exquisite workmanship of their parts excited,” says he, “I never was made so sensible of the impression of perfect symmetry, comprising also in itself that of perfect beauty.”

Mr. Morier says, that on one of the highest columns is the remains of the sphinx, so common in all the ornaments of Persepolis; that he could distinguish on the summit of every one a something quite unconnected with the capitals; so that the high columns have, strictly speaking, no capitals whatever, being each a long shaft to the very summit on which the sphinx rests. The capitals, he continues, of the lower columns are of a complicated order, composed of many pieces. There are also three distinct species of base.

Deslandes imagined, that these columns never supported a roof, but idols: on which Porter says, “I am not aware of a precedent in any idolatrous country, for such a wilderness of gods as we should have found assembled here in effigy; and, least of all, could we expect to find such extravagant proofs of polytheism in a palace, that appears to have owed its origin to the immediate ancestors of Cyrus, the simple worshippers of Mithra, or the sun; and the proudest decorations of which may be dated from Darius, the follower of the philosophic Zoroaster, whose image, the god of his idolatry, is nothing grosser than the element of fire. To suppose these pillars to have been the supports of commemorating statues to the honour of the heroes of Persia, seems equally untenable; for it is not in absolute monarchies, as in republics, or in commonwealths, where kings form only one great member of the body politic, that the eminent warriors and worthies of the land have such monuments erected to them. In Persia we find the bas-reliefs of its kings and their attendants on the walls of its palaces; in Rome we find the statues of Brutus, and Cato, and Cicero, under the ruins of the forum.”

In regard to the magnificent colonnade, which occupies the terrace, “the imagination,” says Mr. Fraser, “cannot picture a sight more imposing than those vast, solitary, mutilated pillars, which, founded in an age beyond the reach of tradition, have witnessed the lapse of countless generations, and seen dynasties and empires rise, flourish, and decay, while they still rear their grey heads unchanged.”

“On ascending the platform, on which the palace of Chehelminar once stood,” says Porter, “nothing can be more striking than the view of its ruins: so vast and magnificent, so fallen, mutilated and silent; the court of Cyrus, and the scene of his bounties; the pavilion of Alexander’s triumph, and, alas! the awful memorial of the wantonness of his power. But every object, when I saw it, was beautiful as desolate; amidst the pleasing memories of the past, awakening poignant regret, that such noble works of ingenuity should be left to the desert alone; that the pile of indefatigable labour should be destined, from the vicissitudes of revolution, and the caprice, ignorance, or fanaticism of succeeding times, to be left in total neglect; or, when noticed, doomed to the predatory mallet, and every other attack of unreflecting destruction.”

One of the most remarkable features of these ruins are the beds of aqueducts which are cut into the solid rock. The great aqueduct is discovered among a confused heap of stones, almost adjoining to the ruined staircase. In some places it is so narrow, that a man is obliged to crawl through; in others it enlarges, so that he can stand upright in it.

Sir William Ouseley says, that he did not perceive among these monuments of antiquity, which the Takht exhibits: 1, any object appearing to be a vestige of the Arsacidan kings; 2, nor any vestige of the Sassanian dynasty, except two inscriptions; 3, nor any representation of a crooked sword; 4, nor any human figure with a full face; 5, nor any human figure mounted on horseback; 6, nor any figure of a woman; 7, nor any sculpture representing ships, or alluding to naval or marine affairs; 8, nor any arches; 9, nor any human figure sitting cross-legged, or resting on the knees and heels, according to modern usage in Persia; 10, nor any human figure in a state of nudity; 11, nor any vestiges either of wood or of brick; 12, nor any remains of gilding; 13, nor any insulated statue, or sculptured figure, separated from the general mass of marble, and showing in full relief the entire form of any object. Nor did he see any figure, that has ever actually been an object of idolatrous veneration. “The reader will easily believe,” says Sir William, “this catalogue of negative remarks might have been considerably augmented, when he considers the great extent of these stupendous ruins; the seeming anomalies of their plan; the extraordinary style of their architecture; the labyrinths or narrow passages, which have been excavated with much art in the adjacent mountains, and of which no traveller has yet ascertained either the termination or the mysterious design; the multiplicity of ornamental devices in the ruins; and, above all, of the human figures which their sculptures exhibit.

“That I have not exaggerated the wonders of Jemsheed’s throne,” continues this accomplished traveller and scholar, “will be evident, on a reference to the accounts, given by most respectable persons of various countries, who, in different ages, have visited its ruins. Not only youthful travellers, glowing with lively imaginations; but those of sober judgment, matured by the experience of many years, seem, as they approach the venerable monuments, to be inspired by the genius of Eastern romance; and their respective languages scarcely furnish epithets capable of expressing with adequate energy the astonishment and admiration, excited by such a stupendous object.” The learning, which Sir William has expended upon Persepolis and other cities of the East, is astonishing.

In regard to a portion of a platform, another traveller says: – “To me it seemed to tell its own story; lying like the buried body of the last Darius under the ruins of his capital, and speaking with a voice from the grave; crying, in the words of Euripides over the like desolation; ‘Oh woe, woe, woe! my country lost! and thou, boast of my noble ancestors, how art thou shrunk; – how art thou vanished!’”

There are no appearances now either of a city, or a citadel, in any direction, about Persepolis. Three quarters of a mile from Persepolis is the tomb of the Persian hero, Rustum; – four chambers hollowed out in the rock, adorned with the altar of fire, the sun, and a mystic figure. Under the sculpture of the second chamber is a gigantic equestrian figure, very perfect, with others kneeling before him, and seeming to seize his hand. On one side of this is an inscription in ancient characters, different from those at Persepolis.

A little to the north, at the foot of the rock, are two more figures of horsemen contending for a ring, and under the horses’ feet two human heads, besides other attendants. Both these horses are called Rustum, whose tomb is shown near the foot of the rock, – a square building, of blue stone, twenty feet high, with windows and niches.

In part of the rock to the east is a mutilated equestrian figure, with a horn on the left side of his forehead, called Iskunder zu el Kemeen, or Alexander, Lord of horns⁸⁷.

In regard to the excavations, Mr. Kinneir is disposed to believe, that they could have been applied to no other use than as receptacles for the dead. The city continued to rank among the first cities of the empire, until the Mahomedan conquest, and was the burial place of many of the Sassanian kings.

The body of Yesdigird, the last of that powerful race, was transported from the distant province of Khorassan, to be interred at Persepolis, or rather, perhaps, in the cavities of Nuckshi Rustum.

“Our first, and, indeed, lasting impressions,” says Mr. Morier, “were astonishment at the immensity, and admiration at the beauties, of the ruins. Although there was nothing in the architecture of the buildings, or in the sculptures and reliefs on the rocks, which could bear a critical comparison with the delicate proportions and perfect statuary of the Greeks; yet, without trying Persepolis by a standard to which it never was amenable, we yielded at once to emotions the most lively and the most enraptured⁸⁸

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1

Dodwell.

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2

Barthelemy.

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3

Dodwell.

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4

Barthelemy; Rollin; Dodwell; Clarke.

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5

Knight.

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6

Chandler.

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7

Clarke.

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8

Clarke.

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9

Strabo; Pausanias; Rollin; Wheler; Barthelemy; Chandler; Turner; Clarke.

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10

Gillies.

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11

Acts xx. ver. 13. And we went before to ship, and sailed unto Assos, there intending to take in Paul: for so had he appointed, minding himself to go afoot.

14. And when he met with us at Assos, we took him in, and came to Mitylene.

15. And we sailed thence, and came the next day over against Chios; and the next day we arrived at Samos, and tarried at Trogyllium; and the next day we came to Miletus.

16. For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.

17. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church.

18. And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons.

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12

He was the first that accurately calculated eclipses of the sun; he discovered the solstices; he divided the heavens into five zones, and recommended the division of the year into three hundred and sixty-five days.

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13

The inventor of sun-dials and the gnomon. This philosopher had nevertheless many curious opinions; amongst which may be mentioned, that air was the parent of every created being; and that the sun, moon, and stars, had been made from the earth.

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14

He taught that men were born of earth and water, mixed together by the heat of the sun.

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15

An historian.

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16

A musician.

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17

Ionian Antiquities.

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18

Herodotus; Strabo; Pausanias; Quintus Curtius; Prideaux; Chandler; Stuart; Barthelemy; Gillies.

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19

This was written in 1806, and published in 1819.

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20

Pausanias; Dodwell; La Martine.

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21

Barthelemy; Dodwell; Rees; Brewster.

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22

See Herod. i. c. 184; Diodor. Sic. ii.; Pompon. Mela, i. c. 3; Justin. i. c. 1; Val. Max. ix. c. 3.

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23

The character of Sardanapalus has been treated more gently by a modern poet. “The Sardanapalus of Lord Byron is pretty nearly such a person as the Sardanapalus of history may be supposed to have been, – young, thoughtless, spoiled by flattery and unbounded self-indulgence; but, with a temper naturally amiable, and abilities of a superior order, he affects to undervalue the sanguinary renown of his ancestors, as an excuse for inattention to the most necessary duties of his rank; and flatters himself, while he is indulging his own sloth, that he is making his people happy. Yet, even in his fondness for pleasure, there lurks a love of contradiction. Of the whole picture, selfishness is the prevailing feature; – selfishness admirably drawn, indeed; apologised for by every palliating circumstance of education and habit, and clothed in the brightest colours of which it is susceptible, from youth, talents, and placidity. But it is selfishness still; and we should have been tempted to quarrel with the art which made vice and frivolity thus amiable, if Lord Byron had not, at the same time, pointed out with much skill the bitterness and weariness of spirit which inevitably wait on such a character; and if he had not given a fine contrast to the picture, in the accompanying portraits of Salamenes and Myrrha.” – Heber.

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24

Atherstone’s “Fall of Nineveh.”

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25

Ælian calls him Thilgamus.

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26

2 Kings.

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27

Adrammelech and Sharezer.

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28

2 Kings, xix. ver. 37.

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29

Tobit, xiv. ver. 5, 13

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30

Nahum, chap. iii.

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31

Zephaniah, chap. ii.

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32

Soon after the great fire of London, the rector of St. Michael, Queenhithe, preached a sermon before the Lord Mayor and corporation of London, in which he instituted a parallel between the cities of London and Nineveh, to show that unless the inhabitants of the former repented of their many public and private vices, and reformed their lives and manners, as did the Ninevites on the preaching of Jonah, they might justly be expected to become the objects of the signal vengeance of Heaven: putting them in mind of the many dreadful calamities that have, from time to time, befallen the English nation in general, and the great City of London in particular; and of the too great reason there was to apprehend some yet more signal vengeance from the hands of Omnipotence, since former judgments had not proved examples sufficient to warn and amend a very wicked people.

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33

Diodorus says, that Nineveh stood on the Euphrates: but this is contrary to all evidence.

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34

One of these is in the British Museum.

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35

Daughter of Sir James Mackintosh, and wife of Mr. Rich.

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36

Herodotus; Diodorus Siculus; Ælian; Prideaux; Rollin; Stackhouse; Gibbon; Rees; Brewster; Kinneir; Morier; Rich.

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37

Strabo; Plutarch; Brydone; Swinburne; Jose.

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38

The computation of time by Olympiads, which began about four hundred years after the destruction of Troy, was used until the reign of Theodosius the Great; when a new mode of reckoning, by indictions, or from the victory of Augustus at Actium, was introduced; the Olympic games, in the general assembly, were abolished; and the image, made by Phidias, was removed to Constantinople. – Chandler.

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39

Gen. xxxii. 24.

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40

Πᾶν κράτος.

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41

There is a fine specimen in the Townley gallery, at the British Museum.

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42

Chandler.

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43

Chandler.

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44

Clarke; Pausanias; Plutarch; Rollin; Chandler; Barthelemy; Dodwell.

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45

“This name indicates,” says Mr. Swinburne, “that they pursued, or wished to be thought to pursue, a line of conduct in commercial transactions, which it would be happy for mankind, all maritime powers would adopt.”

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46

Pholas dactylus.

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47

Eustace.

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48

Plin. xxx. c. 3.

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49

Pliny; Swinburne; Eustace; Wilkinson.

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50

The persons who visited Palmyra in 1678, found in the neighbourhood “a garden, full of palm-trees;” but when Mr. Wood was there, not a single one remained. “The name of Palmyra,” says Mr. Addison, “is supposed by some to have been derived from the word Palma, indicative of the number of palm-trees that grew here; but that name was given by the Greeks, and, although Palma signifies palm-tree in the Latin, yet in the Greek tongue it has a very different signification. Neither does Tadmor signify palm-tree in the Syrian language, nor in the Arabic; nor does Thadamoura, as the place is called by Josephus, signify palm-tree in the Hebrew. Neither do palms thrive in Syria, as the climate is too severe for them in the winter.”

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51

1 Kings, ix. 18. 2 Chron. viii. 4.

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52

It is a well known and very true observation, that is made by Ammianus Marcellinus (lib. xiv.), that the Greek and Roman names of places never took among the natives of Syria; which is the reason why most places retain their first and original names at this day. – Whiston.

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53

Wood.

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54

Ch. ix. ver. 18.

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55

Ch. x. v. 14

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56

He was of mean parentage, according to Orosius. Zonaras calls him “a man of Palmyra;” and Agathias speaks of him as a person entirely unknown, till he made his name illustrious by his actions. Sextus Rufus, however, calls him by an epithet implying that he was a senator.

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57

Though history nowhere gives the first name of Zenobia, we learn from coins, that it was Septimia.

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58

She is thus described: – Her complexion was a dark brown; she had black sparkling eyes, of uncommon fire; her countenance was divinely sprightly; and her person graceful and genteel beyond imagination; her teeth were white as pearls, and her voice clear and strong. If we add to this an uncommon strength, and consider her excessive military fatigues; for she used no carriage, generally rode, and often marched on foot three or four miles with her army; and if we, at the same time, suppose her haranguing her troops, which she used to do in her helmet, and often with her arms bare, it will give us an idea of that severe character of masculine beauty, which puts one more in mind of Minerva than of Venus.

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59

There are several meanings to this word: – Balista implying a cross-bow, a sling, or an engine to shoot darts or stones.

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60

“Her manly understanding,” says Gibbon, “was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed, in equal perfection, the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up, for her own use, an epitome of oriental history, and familiarly compared the beauties of Homer and Plato, under the tuition of the sublime Longinus.”

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61

Anon.

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62

“The emperor afterwards presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or Tivoli, about twenty miles from the capital; where, in happy tranquillity, she fed the greatness of her soul with the noble images of Homer, and the exalted precepts of Plato; supported the adversity of her fortunes with fortitude and resignation; and learned that the anxieties, attendant on ambition, are happily exchanged for the enjoyments of ease, and the comforts of philosophy. The Syrian queen sank into a Roman matron; her daughters married into noble families; and her race was not yet extinct in the fifth century.” – Gibbon.

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63

Addison.

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64

Yet Bruce says: – “Palmyra is nowhere covered with sand or rubbish as in other ruins. The desert that surrounds it is rather gravel than sand, and is, therefore, not easily moved. Her mountains are perfectly bare, and produce nothing.”

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65

This Emir lived upon rapine; being followed by a considerable number of men, who not only hated labour, but disliked equally to live under any settled government.

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66

Philosophical Transactions.

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67

This was the custom also in the days of Ezekiel. See ch. xxiii. 40.

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68

In Mr. Wood’s well-known, though exceedingly scarce work, the ruins are represented in fifty-seven copper-plates, sixteen inches by twelve inches, printed on imperial paper; they are finely executed, the drawing is correct and masterly, and the engraving highly finished. The Palmyrene and Greek inscriptions on the funeral monuments, and other buildings, are copied; and besides picturesque views of the ruins, from several points of sight, the plans are generally laid down, and the several parts of the columns, doors, windows, pediments, ceilings and bas-reliefs, are delineated, with a scale by which they may be measured and compared.

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69

“In this plain,” says Mr. Halifax, “you see a large valley of salt, affording great quantities thereof, and lying about an hour’s distance from the city: and this, more probably, is the valley of salt, mentioned in 2 Sam. 8-13, where David smote the Syrians, and slew one hundred and eighty thousand men; than another, which lies but four hours from Aleppo, and has sometimes passed for it.”

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70

[70] “Istakar,” says Abulfeda, quoted by Sir William Ouseley, “is one of the most ancient cities in Persia, and was formerly the royal residence: it contains vestiges of buildings so stupendous, that, like Tadmor, and Balbec, they are said to be the work of supernatural beings.”

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71

A city in Persia.

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72

Buckingham.

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73

Diodorus; Strabo; Josephus; Appian; Zosimus; Procopius; Benjamin of Tudela; Halifax; Halley; Wood; Prideaux; Rollin; Gibbon; Bruce; Volney; Brewster; Burckhardt; Addison.

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74

Chandler.

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75

Hobhouse.

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76

Pausanias; Chandler; Rees; Hobhouse; Dodwell; Williams.

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77

Plutarch; Rees; Pouqueville.

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78

This library consisted of two hundred thousand volumes.

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79

Tacitus; Plutarch; Choiseul-Gouffier; Rees; Turner.

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80

Sir John Malcolm has preserved an account of Jemsheed, from Moullab Ackber’s MSS., which may serve to diversify our page. “Jemsheed was the first who discovered wine. He was immoderately fond of grapes, and desired to preserve some; which were placed in a large vessel, and lodged in a vault for future use. When the vessel was opened, the grapes had fermented. Their juice, in this state, was so acid, that the king believed it must be poisonous. He had some vessels filled with it, and poison written upon each: these were placed in his bed-room. It happened that one of his favourite ladies was affected with nervous head-aches. The pain distracted her so much, that she desired death; and observing a vessel with the word poison written upon it, she took it and swallowed its contents. The wine, for such it had become, overpowered the lady, who fell into a sound sleep, and awoke much refreshed. Delighted with the remedy, she repeated the dose so often, that the monarch’s poison was all drunk. He soon discovered this, and forced the lady to confess what she had done. A quantity of wine was made; and Jemsheed, and all his court, drank of the new beverage, which, from the circumstance that led to its discovery, is to this day known in Persia by the name of zeher-e-khoosh, or the delightful poison.”

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81

It is called Nouroze. Some of the sculptures of the dilapidated palace are supposed to represent the processions at this festival.

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82

Rollin.

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83

Kæmpfer, Hyde, Niebuhr, and St. Croix, regard the ruins as those of a palace: – Della Valle, Chardin, D’Hancarville, and others, as those of a temple. This is a question, however, which many writers regard as being impossible of solution, till an alphabet shall have been discovered of the arrow-headed inscriptions.

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84

At the distance of about five miles is a conspicuous hill, on the top of which, and visible to the eye from Persepolis, are the remains of a fortress. This hill is now called Istakhar, and is quite distinct from Persepolis. Of this hill Le Brun has given a drawing; and the original must strike every traveller the moment he enters the palace of Merdusht; as it has all the appearance of having been much fashioned by the hand of man. – Morier.

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85

Civil Architecture.

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86

Fraser.

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87

In allusion to the horns of Jupiter Ammon.

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88

Diodorus; Plutarch; Arrian; Quintus Curtius; Pietro de la Valle; Chardin; Le Brun; Francklin, Encylop. Metropol.; Rees; Brewster; Kinneir; Morier; Porter; Malcolm; Buckingham; Ouseley; Fraser.

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