Ruins of Ancient Cities Part 16

NO. x.x.x. CTESIPHON.

The Parthian monarchs delighted in the pastoral life of their Scythian ancestors; and the royal camp was frequently pitched in the plain of Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at the distance of only three miles from Seleucia. It was, then, no other than a village. By the influx of innumerable attendants on luxury and despotism, who resorted to the court, this village insensibly swelled into a large city; and there the Parthian kings, acting by Seleucia as the Greeks, who built that place, had done by Babylon, built a town, in order to dispeople and impoverish Seleucia. Many of the materials, however, were taken from Babylon itself; so that from the time the anathema was p.r.o.nounced against that city, "it seems," says Rollin, "as if those very persons, that ought to have protected her, were become her enemies; as if they had all thought it their duty to reduce her to a state of solitude, by indirect means, though without using any violence; that it might the more manifestly appear to be the hand of G.o.d, rather than the hand of man, that brought about her destruction."

This city was for some time a.s.sailed by Julian[206], who fixed his camp near the ruins of Seleucia, and secured himself by a ditch and rampart, against the sallies and enterprising garrison of Coche. In this fruitful and pleasant country the Romans were supplied with water and forage; and several forts, which might have embarra.s.sed the motions of the army, submitted, after some resistance, to the efforts of their valour. The fleet pa.s.sed from the Euphrates in an artificial diversion of the river, which forms a copious and navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance _below_ the great city. Had they followed this royal ca.n.a.l, which bore the name of Nahar-Malcha[207], the immediate situation of Coche would have separated the fleet and army of Julian; and the vast attempt of steering against the current of the Tigris, and forcing their way through the midst of a hostile capital, must have been attended with the total destruction of the Roman army. As Julian had minutely studied the operations of Trajan in the same country, he soon recollected that his warlike predecessor had dug a new and navigable ca.n.a.l, which conveyed the waters into the Tigris, at some distance above the river. From the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges of this ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design or accident. He, therefore, prepared a deep channel for the reception of the Euphrates: the flood of waters rushed into this new bed; and the Roman fleet steered their triumphant course into the Tigris. He soon after pa.s.sed, with his whole army, over the river: sending up a military shout, the Romans advanced in measured steps, to the animating notes of military music; launched their javelins, and rushed forwards with drawn swords, to deprive the barbarians, by a closer onset, of the advantage of their missile weapons. The action lasted twelve hours: the enemy at last gave way. They were pursued to the gates of Ctesiphon, and the conquerors, says the historian from whom we have borrowed this account, might have entered the dismayed city, had not their general desired them to desist from the attempt; since, if it did not prove successful, it must prove fatal. The spoil was ample: large quant.i.ties of gold and silver, splendid arms and trappings, and beds, and tables of ma.s.sy silver. The victor distributed, as the reward of valour, some honourable gifts civic and mural, and naval crowns: and then considered what new measures to pursue: for, as we have already stated, his troops had not ventured to attempt entering the city. He called a council of war; but seeing that the town was strongly defended by the river, lofty walls[208], and impa.s.sable mora.s.ses, he came to the determination of not besieging it; holding it a fruitless and pernicious undertaking. This occurred A.D. 363.

In this city Chosroes, king of Persia, built a palace; supposed to have been once the most magnificent structure in the East.

In process of time Seleucia and Ctesiphon became united, and identified under the name of _Al Modain_, or the two cities. This union is attributed to the judgment of Adas.h.i.+r Babigan (the father of the Sa.s.sanian line). It afterwards continued a favourite capital with most of his dynasty, till the race perished in the person of Yezdijerd; and Al Modain was rendered a heap of ruins, by the fanatic Arabs, in the beginning of the seventh century.

At that period (A.D. 637), those walls, which had resisted the battering rams of the Romans, yielded to the darts of the Saracens. Said, the lieutenant of Omar, pa.s.sed the Tigris without opposition; the capital was taken by a.s.sault; and the disorderly resistance of the people gave a keener edge to the sabre of the Moslems, who shouted in religious transport, "This is the white palace of Chosroes: this is the province of the apostle of G.o.d."

"The spoils," says Abulfeda, "surpa.s.sed the estimate of fancy, or numbers;" and Elmacin defines the untold and almost infinite ma.s.s by the fabulous computation of three thousands of thousands of thousands of pieces of gold[209].

One of the apartments of the palace was decorated with a carpet of silk, 60 cubits in length, and as many in breadth; a paradise, or garden, was depicted on the ground; the flowers, fruits, and shrubs, were imitated by the figures of the gold embroidery, and the colours of the precious stones; and the ample square was encircled by a verdant and variegated border. The conqueror (Omar) divided the prize among his brethren of Medina. The picture was destroyed; but such was the value of the material, that the share of Ali was sold for 20,000 drachms. The sack was followed by the desertion and gradual decay of the city. In little more than a century after this it was finally supplanted by Bagdad under the Caliph Almanzor.

"The imperial legions," says Porter, "of Rome and Constantinople, with many a barbaric phalanx besides, made successive dilapidation on the walls of Seleucia and Ctesiphon; but it was reserved for Omar and his military fanatics to complete the final overthrow. That victorious caliph founded the city of Kufa on the western sh.o.r.e of the Euphrates; whilst the defeat, which the Persians sustained from one of his best generals in the battle of Cadesia, led to the storming of Al-Maidan, and an indiscriminate ma.s.sacre of all its Guebre inhabitants. In after times the caliph Almanzor, taking a dislike to Kufa, removed the seat of his government to Bagdad; the materials for the erection of which he brought from the battered walls of the Greek and Parthian city; so as Babylon was ravaged and carried away for the building of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, in the same manner did they moulder into ruin before the rising foundations of Bagdad." Little more remains of Seleucia but the ground on which it stood; showing, by its unequal surface, the low moundy traces of its former inhabitants. Small as these vestiges may seem, they are daily wasting away, and soon nothing would be left to mark the site of Seleucia, were it not for the apparently imperishable ca.n.a.l of Nebuchadnezzar, the Nahar Malcha, whose capacious bosom, n.o.ble in ruins, open to the Tigris, north of where the city stood."

What remains of the palace of Chosroes is thus described by the same hand. "Having pa.s.sed the Diala, a river which flows into the Tigris, the lofty palace of Chosroes, at Modain, upon the site of the ancient Ctesiphon, became visible to us; looking exceedingly large through the refracting atmosphere of the southern horizon, above the even line of which it towered as the most conspicuous object any where to be seen around us. It looked from hence much larger than Westminster Abbey, when seen from a similar distance; and in its general outline it resembled that building very much, excepting only in its having no towers. The great cathedral of the Crusaders, still standing on the ancient Orthosia, on the coast of Syria, is a perfect model of it in general appearance; as that building is seen when approaching from the southward, although there is no one feature of resemblance between those edifices in detail."

On the northern bank of the Diala, Mr. Buckingham saw nothing but some gra.s.s huts, inhabited by a few families, who earned their living by transporting travellers across the river; and to the westward, near the Tigris, a few scattered tents of Arab shepherds. On the south bank a few date-trees were seen; but, besides these, no other signs of fertility or cultivation appeared.

When Mr. Buckingham reached the mounds of Ctesiphon, he found them to be of a moderate height, of a light colour, and strewed over with fragments of those invariable remarks of former population, broken pottery. The outer surface of the mounds made them appear as mere heaps of earth, long exposed to the atmosphere; but he was a.s.sured by several well acquainted with the true features of the place, that on digging into the mounds, a masonry of unburnt bricks was found, with layers of reed between them, as in the ruins at Akkerhoof and the mounds of Meklooba at Babylon. The extent of the semicircle formed by these heaps, appears to be nearly two miles. The area of the city, however, had but few mounds throughout its whole extent, and those were small and isolated; the s.p.a.ce was chiefly covered with thick heath, sending forth, as in the days of Xenophon, a highly aromatic odour, which formed a cover for partridges, hares, and gazelles, of each of which the traveller saw considerable numbers.

After traversing a s.p.a.ce within the walls, strewed with fragments of burnt bricks and pottery, he came to the tomb of Selman Pauk. "This Selman Pauk[210]," says Mr. Buckingham, "was a Persian barber, who, from the fire-wors.h.i.+p of his ancestors, became a convert to Islam, under the persuasive eloquence of the great prophet of Modain himself; and, after a life of fidelity to the cause he had embraced, was buried here in his native city of Modain. The memory of this beloved companion of the great head of their faith is held in great respect by all the Mahometans of the country; for, besides the annual feast of the barbers of Bagdad, who in the month of April visit his tomb as that of a patron saint, there are others who come to it on pilgrimage at all seasons of the year."

The large ruin, which forms the princ.i.p.al attraction of this place, is situated about seven hundred paces to the south of this tomb. It is called by the natives Tauk Kesra (the Arch of Kesra). It is composed of two wings and one large central hall, extending all the depth of the building. Its front is nearly perfect; being two hundred and sixty feet in length, and upwards of one hundred feet in height. Of this front the great arched hall occupies the centre; its entrance being of an equal height and breadth with the hall itself. The arch is thus about ninety feet in breadth, and rising above the general line of the front, is at least one hundred and twenty feet high, while its depth is at least equal to its height. "The wings leading out on each side of the central arch," continues Mr. Buckingham, "to extend to the front of the building, are now merely thick walls; but these had originally apartments behind them, as may be seen from undoubted marks that remain, as well as two side doors leading from them into the great central hall." The walls which form these wings in the line of the front were built on the inclined slope, being in thickness about twenty feet at the base; but only ten at the summit. The masonry is altogether of burnt bricks, of the size, form, and composition of those seen in the ruins of Babylon; but none of them have any writing or impression of any kind.

The cement is white lime, and the layers are much thicker than is seen in any of the burnt brick edifices at Babylon; approaching nearer to the style of the Greek and Roman masonry found among the ruins of Alexandria, where the layers of lime are almost as thick as the bricks themselves. At Babylon the cement is scarcely perceptible. The symmetry of the work bears considerable resemblance, however, both to the Birs and the fine fragments of brick-masonry of the age of the Caliphs, still remaining at Bagdad.

The wings, though not perfectly uniform, are similar in their general construction; "but the great extent of the whole front," says our accomplished traveller, "with the broad and lofty arch of its centre, and the profusion of recesses and pilasters on each side, must have produced an imposing appearance, when the edifice was perfect; more particularly if the front was once coated, as tradition states it to have been, with white marble; a material of too much value to remain long in its place after the desertion of the city." The arches of the building are described to be all of a Roman form, and the architecture of the Roman style, though with less purity of taste; the pilasters having neither capital nor pedestal, and a pyramidal termination is given to some of the long narrow niches of the front.

There is a circ.u.mstance, in regard to the position of this pile, very remarkable. The front of it, though immediately facing the Tigris, lies due east by compa.s.s; the stream winding here so exceedingly, that this edifice, though standing on the _west_ of that portion of the river flowing before it, and facing the _east_, is yet on the _eastern_ side of the Tigris, in its general course. Another curiosity of the same kind is exhibited; that in regard to the sailing of boats, the stream being so serpentine, that those which are going _up_ by it to Bagdad are seen steering south-south-west through one reach, and north-west through another above it. Nor ought we to close here. Sir R. K. Porter furnishes a beautiful anecdote. "The history of Persia, from the Royut-ul-Suffa,"

says he, "gives an interesting anecdote of this palace. A Roman amba.s.sador, who had been sent to Chosroes with rich presents, was admiring the n.o.ble prospect from the window of the royal palace, when he remarked a rough piece of ground; and making inquiry why it was not rendered uniform with the rest, the person to whom he spoke replied, 'It is the property of an old woman, who, though often requested to sell it to the king, has constantly refused; and our monarch is more willing to have his prospect spoiled, than to perfect it by an act of violence.'

'That rough spot,' cried the Roman, 'consecrated by justice, now appears to me more beautiful than all the surrounding scene'."[211]

NO. x.x.xI.--DELPHOS.

Casting the eye over the site of ancient Delphos[212], one cannot imagine what has become of the walls of the numerous buildings, which are mentioned in the history of its former magnificence. With the exception of a few terraces, nothing now appears. We do not even see any swellings or risings in the ground, indicating the graves of the temple.

All, therefore, is mystery; and the Greeks may truly say,--"Where stood the walls of our fathers? Scarce their mossy tombs remain!" But

Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot, And thou, the Muses' seat, art now their grave, Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot, Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave, And glides with gla.s.sy foot o'er yon melodious wave.

Delphos is now sunk into a village,--a village of wretchedness,--known by the name of Castri.

Delphos was built in the form of a kind of amphitheatre, and was divided into three parts; one rising, as it were, above the other. It was universally believed by the ancients to be situated in the middle of the earth; in consequence of which it was called the "navel of the world."

It stood under Parna.s.sus. It was not defended by walls, but by precipices, which environed it on all sides. It had temples dedicated to Latona, Diana, and Minerva Providence; also one dedicated to Apollo.

This edifice was built, for the most part, of a very beautiful stone; but the frontispiece was of Parian marble, and the vestibule was decorated with paintings. On the walls were moral sentences. In the interior was a statue of the G.o.d, and such a mult.i.tude of precious things, that it is impossible to describe them. We must refer to Plutarch, Strabo, Pausanias, and other ancient writers; and more particularly to Barthelemy's "Travels of Anacharsis," since he has collected all the princ.i.p.al circ.u.mstances in regard to it. Our business is to state the condition to which it is reduced. Before we do this, however, we must admit something of what has been written of this celebrated place.

Delphos was an ancient city of Phocis, in Achaia. It stood upon the declivity, and about the middle of the mountain Parna.s.sus, built upon a small extent of even ground, and surrounded by precipices, which fortified it without the aid of art. Diodorus says, that there was a cavity upon Parna.s.sus, whence an exhalation arose, which made the goats skip about, and intoxicated the brain. A shepherd having approached it, out of a desire to know the causes of so extraordinary an effect, was immediately seized with violent agitations of the body, and p.r.o.nounced words which indicated prophecy. Others made the same experiment, and it was soon rumoured throughout the neighbouring countries. The cavity was no longer approached without reverence. The exhalation was concluded to have something divine in it. A priestess was appointed for the reception of its inspirations, and a tripod was placed upon a vent, from whence she gave oracles. The city of Delphos rose insensibly round about the cave, where a temple was erected, which at length became very magnificent. The reputation of this oracle very much exceeded that of all others.

The temple being burned about the fifty-eighth Olympiad, the Amphyctions took upon themselves the care of rebuilding it. They agreed with the architect, for three hundred talents. The cities of Greece were to furnish that sum. The Delphians were taxed a fourth part of it, and made gatherings in all parts, even in foreign nations, for that purpose.

Gyges, king of Lydia, and Croesus, one of his successors, enriched the temple of Delphos with an incredible number of presents. Many other princes, cities, and private persons, by their example, in a kind of emulation of each other, had heaped up in it tripods, vessels, tables, s.h.i.+elds, crowns, chariots, and statues of gold and silver of all sizes, equally infinite in number and value. The presents of gold which Croesus alone made to this temple amounted, according to Herodotus, to upwards of 254 talents (about 35,500_l._ sterling); and perhaps those of silver to as much. Most of those presents were in being in the time of Herodotus. Diodorus Siculus, adding those of other princes to them, makes the amount 10,000 talents (about 1,300,000_l_).

It is not less surprising than true[213], that one of the most celebrated edifices in the world has been so entirely destroyed, that sufficient traces are scarcely left by which the traveller can form even a conjecture as to its position.

During the Sacred war, the people of Phocis seized from it 10,000 talents to maintain their armies against their powerful opponents. Sylla plundered it; and Nero carried away no less than five hundred statues of bra.s.s, partly of the G.o.ds, and partly of the most ill.u.s.trious heroes. It had been plundered no less than eleven times before.

It is not known when this celebrated oracle ceased. Lucian says that answers were given in his time: but most of the Grecian oracles were annihilated when Constantine relinquished the errors of polytheism.

Indeed Constantine the Great proved a more fatal enemy to Apollo and Delphos, than either Sylla or Nero: he removed the sacred tripods to adorn the hippodrome of his own city. Afterwards Julian sent Oribesius to restore the temple, but he was admonished by an oracle to represent to the emperor the deplorable condition of the place. "Tell him, the well-built court is fallen to the ground. Phoebus has not a cottage; nor the prophetic laurel; nor the speaking fountain (Ca.s.sotis); but even the beautiful water is extinct."

The temple was situated in a very romantic situation; rendered still more striking by the innumerable echoes, which multiplied every sound, and increased the veneration of superst.i.tious visitants. But even its form is unknown; though painters, for the most part, have delineated it as circular, amongst whom may be mentioned Claude Lorrain, and Gaspar Poussin.

The Apollo Belvidere is supposed to be a copy from the statue in this temple.

The Castalian spring, however, still exists, and equally clear as in ancient times. It is ornamented with ivy, and overshadowed by a large fig-tree, the roots of which have penetrated the fissures of the rock.

At the front is a majestic plane-tree.

The remains of the town wall are a little to the east of the Castalian spring; but no part of it is left but the interior ma.s.s, which consists of an exceedingly hard composition of small stones and mortar.

When Pausanias visited Delphos, there were four temples and a gymnasium in the vicinity of the eastern gate; and several ruins and fragments may now be seen: some fine blocks of marble, some with inscriptions, a marble triglyph, and other Doric remains. There are none, however, of the hippodrome; in which ten chariots are said to have been able to start at the same moment.

The temple has vanished like a dream, leaving not a trace behind; insomuch, that Mr. Dodwell's opinion is, that the site of this far-famed edifice must be sought for under the humble cottages of Castri, as the whole village probably stands within its ancient peribolos. In some places, however, are blocks of considerable magnitude; and some ancient foundations, supposed to be those of the Lesche, which contained the paintings of Polygnotus; and near the Aga's house are several remains of some fluted marble columns, of the Doric order, and of large dimensions.

Some inscriptions, too, have been observed. One in marble is in honour of the Emperor Hadrian: "_The council of the Amphictyons, under the superintendence of the priest Plutarch, from Delphi, commemorate the Emperor_." Another: "_The council of Amphictyons and Achaians, in honour of Polycratea, high priestess of the Achaian Council, and daughter of Polycrates and Diogeneia_." Another states that "_The father and mother of Amarius Nepos, honoured by the Senate of Corinth with rewards, due to him as senator and overseer of the Forum, put their son under the protection of the Pythian Apollo_."

The remains of the gymnasium are princ.i.p.ally behind the monastery. The foundations were sustained by an immense bulwark of hewn stone. There is also some part of a stadium. The marble posts remain. Its length is 660 feet. "I was surprised," says Mr. Dodwell, "to find few fragments of marble among the ruins of Delphos. The town was small; but it was a concentration of great opulence and splendour. What can have become of the materials which adorned its public edifices? Several curiosities are no doubt buried below the village: though the soil is in general so thin and so rocky, that great ma.s.ses cannot be concealed beneath the superficies." They have, no doubt, crumbled away. The fate, however, of Delphos has been greatly aggravated of late years; for in consequence of some dispute between the agents of Ali Pacha and the inhabitants of Castri, the Pacha laid the village under contribution to pay him the sum of 15,000 piastres. This they were unable to do; in consequence of which everything was taken from them; and this serves to explain the ruined state of the place. "In its present condition," says Dr. Clarke, "there is not in all Lapland a more wretched village than Castri[214]."

NO. x.x.xII.--ECBATANA.

This city, which Heraclius says was as large as Athens, was founded by one of the most ill.u.s.trious princes that ever adorned the earth--Dejoces, King of the Medes. Not that we mean to vindicate or approve all that he did; but, "taking him for all in all," history has but few characters that can be placed in compet.i.tion with him.

It is not our intention to write the history of this celebrated prince anew, his story being almost unanimously allowed: we have only to copy.

We shall, therefore, select the account, compiled by Rollin, from the testimony of Herodotus; ours being an abstract.

The Medes were a people divided into tribes. They dwelt almost entirely in villages; but Dejoces, finding with how great an inconvenience such a mode of life was attended, erected the state into a monarchy. The methods he took to accomplish this, exhibited the consummate wisdom with which his mind was endowed. When he formed the design, he laboured to make the good qualities that had been observed in him more conspicuous than ever; and he succeeded so well, that the inhabitants of the district in which he lived, made him their judge. His conduct fully answered the expectation of those who elected him. He brought the a.s.sociation into a regular mode of life; and this being observed by a mult.i.tude of other villages, they soon began to make him arbitrator for them, as he had been for the first. "When he found himself thus advanced," says the historian, "he judged it a proper time to set his last engines to work for compa.s.sing his point. He, therefore, retired from business, pretending to be over-fatigued with the mult.i.tude of people that resorted to him from all quarters; and would not exercise the office of judge any longer, notwithstanding all the importunity of such as wished well to the public tranquillity. When any person addressed themselves to him, he told them, that his own domestic affairs would not allow him to attend to those of other people."

The consequence of this withdrawal was, that the various communities relapsed into a worse state than they had been before; and the evil increased so rapidly, from day to day, that the Medes felt themselves constrained to meet, in order to endeavour to find some remedy for it.

This was what Dejoces had foreseen. He sent emissaries, therefore, to the a.s.sembly, with instructions in what manner to act. When the turn came for those persons to speak, they declared their opinion, that unless the face of the republic was entirely changed, the whole country would be entirely uninhabitable. "The only means," said they, "left for us is, to elect a king. Having elected a sovereign, with authority to restrain violence, and make laws, every one can prosecute his own affairs in peace and security." This opinion was seconded by the consent of the whole a.s.sembly. All that remained then was to find out a proper person. This did not require much time. Dejoces was the man to whom all eyes were instantly turned. He was, therefore, immediately elected king with the consent of all present. "There is," says the author from whom we borrow, "nothing n.o.bler or greater, than to see a private person, eminent for his merit and virtue, and fitted by his excellent talents for the highest employments, and yet, through inclination and modesty, preferring a life of obscurity and retirement; thus to see such a man sincerely refuse the offer made to him of reigning over a whole nation, and at last consent to undergo the toil of government upon no other motive than that of being useful to his fellow citizens. Such a governor was Numa at Rome, and such have been some other governors, whom the people have constrained to accept the supreme power. But," continues he in a strain of great wisdom, "to put on the mask of modesty and virtue, in order to satisfy one's ambition, as Dejoces did; to affect to appear outwardly what a man is not inwardly; to refuse for a time, and then accept with a seeming repugnancy what a man earnestly desires, and what he has been labouring by secret, underhand, practices to obtain; this double dealing has so much meanness in it, that it goes a great way to lessen our opinion of the person, be his talents never so great or extraordinary."

The method by which Dejoces gained his ambition to be king, greatly disenchants us of his merits. But having attained it, he acted in a manner few men have been found to adopt, even when they have arrived at the throne by the most legitimate of methods. He set himself to civilise and polish his subjects; men who, having lived perpetually in villages, almost without laws and without polity, had contracted rude manners and savage dispositions.