OF THE - AUBURN: ALDEN, BEARDSLEY & CO, 1852. GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. IN THEIR GLORY AND IN THEIE DESOLATION, EMBRACING CITIES OF EUROPE, ASIA, AFRICA AND AMERICA. S0itjr fl JSistnrtf nf Smpnrtnttt OF THEIR TIME. BY JOHN ROST, LL.D. AUTHOR OF PERILOUS ADVENTURES OP TRAVELLERS, ETC., ETC. AUBURN: A L D E N, BEARD S LEY & u O U C H E S T E R : WANZ.ER, BEARDSLEY .& CO. .3 H Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by JOHN FKOST, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PHILADELPHIA I STEREOTYPED BY GEORGE CHARLES. PREFACE. The idea of this work was suggested by Buckley's Great Cities of the Ancient World, and to his pages I am indebted for a considerable portion of what relates to ancient cities. The limits of the work have occasioned my noticing com- paratively few of the modern cities. Those of our own country have generally escaped any long periods of desolation, and I have therefore noticed but three, the great commercial emporiums of the north and the south. Indeed, the great moral feature of the work, the compari- son of cities in their glory, and in a state of utter and com- plete desolation, is best conveyed by a consideration of the great cities of antiquity. Still, the comparative prosperity and decline or misfortune of modern cities is worthy of notice. London, the modern metropolis of the world, has not escaped the desolation of fire and pestilence, and Paris, Vienna, Madrid, and New York have each been in possession of a foreign enemy. Utility is the object which I endeavour always to keep in view; and the kind reception which my humble efforts in the departments of history and biography have experienced from the public, assure me that this principle is approved. I trust that the " Great Cities of the World" will be re- garded with the same degree of favour which has distin- guished my other publications in the same department of literature. (3) CONTENTS. nm INTRODUCTION, .5 BABYLON, ..... NINEVEH, 43 THEBES, MEMPHIS AND HELIOPOLIS 68 PERSEPOLIS, .. 79 DAMASCUS, 91 PALMYRA, .... BAALBEK OR BAALGAD, . . Ill TYRE, 123 PETRA, 137 THE ROCK-HEWN CITIES OP INDIA, 154 * PEKING, > 167 JERUSALEM, ......... 191 SMYRNA . . 222 EPHESUS, ........... 228 SARDIS, 236 THYATYRA, 246 ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA, ...... 250 ATHENS, 331 CORINTH, . . .383 ELIS, 398 ROME, 402 CONSTANTINOPLE, . . . . . . . . 426 VENICE, 433 VIENNA, 454 ST. PETERSBURGH, , 462 MADRID, .... 472 I PARIS, x 480 LONDON, 486 QUEBEC, . 496 NEW YORK, 501 NEW ORLEANS, 617 MEXICO, 629 INTRODUCTION. great cities of the world have an interest pe culiarlv their, own. They mark the progress of man- kind in arts, commerce, and civilization, and they form a sort of index to the rise and fall of natioudl greatness. In examining their condition in different epochs of history, we learn lessons of wisdom and experience, and pass over a field of observation replete with subjects of study and reflection. I have entered upon the subject in this volume with considerable advantage by having before me the work (5) 6 INTRODUCTION. of Mr. Buckley on the Great Cities of the Ancient World, from which I shall frequently quote. His introduction is suited to my present purpose, and I readily adopt the following remarks of his in this connexion. The reader must not expect to find in the following pages an elaborate and circumstantial history of the world, or even of those portions of it which form the titles of the respective chapters. Had I attempted to detail the physical influences and political events which have raised up cities in the midst of deserts, and, in turn, left deserts where cities once stood ; had I told the separate story of each individual among mankind, who had appeared as their founder, revolutionist, or destroyer ; had I, in a word, attempted to distil the vast contents of the writings and monuments of antiquity into the present small vessel, I must have signally failed in the attempt. Such a history of the cities of the ancient world must have been too closely mixed up with that of the vast countries of which they were but the centres ; the points from whence so many mighty areas of civilization expanded, and the hearts, as it were, that fed and stimulated the life of the surrounding nations, and with whose expiring glory the renoAvn of those nations gradually sank into oblivion. I would rather hope that the plan I have adopted may lead the reader from a contemplation of the salient points of a limited history, to the sub imcr sjmly of the vast and entire scheme of historical \\ ..:. . . '.. would rather wish him to look upon thcsr K u ;u-s us outlines to be filled up by the gradual maturing of his own thoughts and readings in historic lore. The great INTRODUCTION. 7 fault of too many of our histories, is, that they are circumstantial and accurate, yet lifeless and unpicturesque. While the minutest questions of chronology are reduced to, at all events, a specious appearance of system ; while identity or distinction in the case of persons bearing the same name is insisted upon with exemplary precision ; and while every authority, ancient or modern, is sifted, questioned, and proved, history still remains a bare detail of facts and persons, treated as if separable, and viewed with the taste of an anatomist, who loses his admiration of the majestic ocean in his microscopic examination of the minutest infusoria with which its inmost recesses are peopled. It was the knowledge of this defect that led the great reformer of ancient history, Niebuhr, to adopt the more comprehensive style of narrative in his " Lectures on Roman History." Feeling, doubtless, that the noble work in which he had already set forth and defended his ingenious theories, was far more learned than popular, he was too wise to persist in an uninstructive system ; and his lectures, handed down to us by the praiseworthy diligence of his pupils, have almost superseded his " History" in their influence upon the studies of youth. Dr. Arnold, who, without adding much to our stock of knowledge, was a judicious and tasteful adapter of the labours of other scholars, rendered the same system yet more popular by his greater elegance of language ; and the smallest acquaintance with German historical works so many of them now familiarized to ourselves by translation will furnish a fair staff of goodly imitators of an 8 INTRODUCTION. excellent principle. It is in humble imitation of such examples, that I have sought to give a broad outline of the histories of the most interesting cities of the world, to point to their doings and sufferings, as the workings of the mechanism of humanity, ever pressing forward, but by complicated and uncertain movements, to the realization of the eternal design, and to connect man's works with man's nature, not to admire them as isolated specimens of foregone ingenuity. When we view the sand-buried monuments of Egyptian magnificence on their own site, or study the fragments which, thousands of miles away from the places they adorned for ages, form the greatest ornaments of our own museums ; when we read of the convulsions of nature, and the wars of men, which have produced vast and sudden ruin, or when we examine the minute polypus which has wrought as sure, but more tardy destruction in Calabria, than its deadly predecessor the earthquake, we feel that even the "worm and the moth" have their niche in the temple of history. What the headlong swoop of armed forces has spared, that the minutest things of earth have claimed for their own, and the same almost invisible agency that has partitioned the depths of the ocean with coral reefs, has eaten away the well-chiselled marbles that once bore witness to the pride of man's greatness. Did we seek to write history with perfect accuracy, how humiliating its details, how minute its subdivisions ! * But in defence of our plan of choosing the history of cities rather than countries, it may be well to observe thai the most natural feelings of men lead INTRODUCTION. them to regard towns and cities as the proper objects of their attention. Few foreigners would wish to commence their knowledge of England on Salisbury Plain. The prestige of a supposed Druidical foundation would scarcely bring the most enthusiastic antiquarian direct to the cromlechs of Wales. London is as naturally and inseparably associated with general ideas of England as Rome with Latium Thebes with ancient Egypt. To the student of the physical world every corner of this wide earth teems with manifold interest, and makes him almost seek for a wider. Our purpose moves in a less extended sphere ; it is to trace man where man has worked and thought best, to read his history in the greatest standing memorials of its progress, and to make stones tell the sad story of those who laid them. We will hover around the ruins of the cities which are our melancholy and silent guides to the men of old we will endeavour in idea to restore them, and to people them with the busy thousands who once strove and failed, loved and hated, even as the men of our own times. Another advantage, which such a plan of narrative presents, is that its data are more satisfactory its principles better ascertained than the varying and uncertain history of nations. Towns and cities are the stand-points of history. Great as may be the prevalence of mythical associations which surrounds every ancient city, the fragments of ancient buildings stamp even tradition with a certain amount of reality. Although every temple is but the silent chronicle of some lifeless superstition a stone-graven story of man v -getfulness of his God yet in the magnitude 10 INTRODUCTION. of the dimensions, the exquisite finish of the details of such buildings, we trace the vestiges of human power, and marvel at the wondrous works performed in an age where physical force derived little aid from mechanics, when machinery was most rude and elementary, and when every newly raised structure seemed a fresh triumph over stubborn materials and imperfect resources. Nor let us forget that it is in the ruins of ancient cities that we find the pictured chronicles of the habits and customs of the early world. On the facades of the temples at Edfou or Salsette, on the slabs which line the exhumed palaces of Nimroud, we behold our forefathers occupied in all the arts of war and peace ; and from these rude, but spirited efforts of the chisel, we learn the dress, the arms, the sports, the domestic and political life of those who, though not forgotten, are now unrepresented among the catalogue of nations. It will, perhaps, be matter of complaint that a detached notice of each city has been preferred to a systematic and progressive history, arranged with a more strict reference to chronology. To this objection I can only oppose the intent of the book. I offer not a history, but a series of historical sketches. I do not mention all the cities of the world, but those which are the best representatives of human progress ; in a word, I do not seek to supersede the reading of larger and more learned works, but to give the student some zest for, and some regulated principle of reading whereby he may the better enjoy and profit by the manifold learning and industry of the great writers of man's history. To enumerate the authorities that have supplied the INTRODUCTION. 11 materials for the following pages, would be tedious and unprofitable, especially as they are in general indicated. It seemed useless to crowd the margins with references in support of the facts mentioned such particulars being common property. In .respect to theories or opinions, I have endeavoured to be accurate in referring them to their lawful owners, making, however, a fair allowance for the coincidences common in such investigations. It remains for me to express a hope that this little volume may make some few persons more fond of history, and that the hard-worked teacher may find that severest difficulty in juvenile study, circumstantial dryness, somewhat softened by the plan I have pursued. If my younger readers will look upon the " Cities ot the World" rather as a reading book than a school book, my best wishes will be fulfilled. GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. BABYLON. HATEVER may have been the energy and intelligence of Nim- rod, the Romulus of the East- ern world, and great as may have been the results brought about by the crafty and reso- lute policy, Babel must have been an infant city in compari- son with the Babylon of a later period. Belus is, by common consent, the prince to whom much of the mag- nificence of this city owed its origin, and although the 2 (13) 14 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. Bible furnishes us with no information as to his imme- diate successors, pagan history affords a sufficiently plausible account of their share in the work of improve- ment. Among such narratives, it is not unusual to find a woman occupying a conspicuous position ; and the Semiramis of Babylon is, to our own idea, as prob- able a character as Catherine of Russia or Elizabeth of England. It has become fashionable to explain away facts, and to reduce real personages to ideal represen- tatives of principles or developments in society. Semi- ramis has been of the number whose very existence has thus been called in question. But while we may admire the ingenuity that can thus convert history into fiction, we must deprecate the danger of reducing fairly established truths to plausible fictions, of reasoning facts into theories, and substituting rationalistic asser- tion for historical statement. The greatest objection to such theory is its easy proneness to abuse. The same principle that, in the hands of Niebuhr, has struck sparks of truth into the patchwork-shreds of early Ro- man history, has, in the crude ramblings of Strauss, elicited infidelity from the voice of Truth itself. But, while there seems to be little reason for de- priving Semiramis of her historical existence, we are, no doubt, extremely deficient in information that can be relied on. Those who would judge of the character of Queen Elizabeth from the panegyrics, dedications, and epigrams of her time, or who would believe all the traditions attached to the memory of Lucrezia Borgia, would perhaps feel satisfied with the loose narrative of public greatness and private crime, through which the memory of Semiramis has reached our times. More BABYLON. 15 philosophical readers will rather consider these narra- tives as springing from opposite views of the same character, and as therefore equally prone to exaggera- tion, although in different directions. Incest, murder, and treachery on the one hand, intellectual vigour, un- bounded liberality, and public spirit on the other, form the contradictory features of the picture held up to our view. Nevertheless, Semiramis divides the honour with Belus of being the founder of, at all events, the new Babylon, and it is of this city in its days of glory that we will now attempt a description. Before detailing the account given by the ancient traveller and eye-witness, Herodotus, we may observe that the flatness of the surrounding country greatly favours its probability. Its massive walls, unlike those forming the colossal rampart of China, had to traverse no devious hill ranges, to depress themselves into no valleys. Hence the geometrical regularity, which is so seldom found even in the most modern towns and cities, becomes not only easy, but natural. Further- more, if the Babylonians, as there is good reason to suppose, had really made some progress in astronomy, the restoration of the Tower of Babel under its new form of the Temple of Belus was a probable step, espe- cially as, commanding a survey of the surrounding coun- try, it might have readily indicated the approach of an invading enemy. Babylon formed an exact square, each of the sides being one hundred and twenty furlongs (fifteen miles) in length, and its whole circuit four hundred and eighty furlongs, or twenty leagues. Its walls were eighty-seven feet in thickness, so that several chariots could run 16 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. abreast along their summit, and they were reared to the height of three hundred and fifty feet. The vast ditch which encompassed the walls had furnished the materials for the large bricks of which it was com- posed, and which also formed the lining of the ditch. The layers of brick were cemented with bitumen, abun- dantly supplied by the pits in the neighborhood. Twenty- five gates of brass on each of the four sides, formed the approaches to a corresponding number of streets intersecting one another at right angles, each street being fifteen miles in length and a hundred and fifty feet in width. To complete the internal arrangements, four other streets, with houses only on one side, the ramparts being on the other, were added, each being two hundred feet in length. By this precise regularity of arrangement, Babylon was divided into six hundred and seventy-six squares, each square being two miles and a quarter in circuit. The houses were very lofty, being carried to the height of three or four stories; but the width of the streets, and the open courts and gardens within hollow squares, must have produced a perfect ventilation and a healthy openness that form a strange contrast to the cramped, irregular, and unhealthy streets in some of the most refined and civilized of modern cities, even in our own country. It is probable that the streets nearest the walls were de- voted to mercantile affairs and to the preservation of stores, while those nearer the centre formed the resi- dences of the higher classes. The Euphrates inter- sected the city from north to south, and over it was erected a magnificent bridge, about a furlong in length, and sixty feet in width. At its extremities were two 17 palaces^ the old palace on the eastern side of the river, the new one on the western. Near the old palace stood the temple of Belus, We will listen to the description of the Father of History.* " In the middle of the city, is the temple of the god Belus, with brazen gates remaining up to my own time, quadrangular, and occupying a space of two furlongs, In the middle of the sacred precinct stands a solid tower, a furlong both in depth and width ; upon this tower another is erected, and another Upon thi&, to the number of eight towers. An ascent to them has been formed on the outside, in a spiral staircase running round all the towers. As one reaches about half way, resting-places and seats are provided. In the last tower is a large shrine, and within the temple lies a large bed well appointed, and near it stands a golden table ; but there is no image within ; nor does any one remain there by night but a native female, one whom the god has chosen in preference to all others, as say the Chaldseans, who are the priests of the god. And these same men assert what I can by no means believe, namely, that the god himself frequents the temple, and reposes on the couch. And there belongs to the temple in Babylon another shrine lower down, where there stands a large golden image of the god, and near it is placed a large golden table, and the pedestal and the throne are of gold ; and, as the Chaldeans assert, these things were made for eight hundred talents of gold. And outside the shrine is a golden altar ; and there is also another great altar where o. Tarings of sheep aro Herodotus, i. 181. 2* 18 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLIX sacrificed, for it is not lawful to sacrifice victims upon the golden altar, but sucklings only; but upon the greater altar the Chaldseans offer every year a thousand talents worth of frankincense at the time when they celebrate the festival of the god. And there was at that time a golden statue in the temple twelve cubits in height ; but I did not see it, and speak merely from the report of the Chaldseans." The whole of the temple was enriched with the offer- ings of private devotees, consisting of massive golden censers, statues, cups, and sacred vessels, of a weight and value scarcely to be imagined. There is little doubt that the external form of this tower, with the stones gradually tapering in width, gave it the appearance of a pyramidal edifice. Such structures are common in India, the finest specimen being the great pagoda at Tanjore, dedicated to the god Siva. It is about two hundred feet in height, and, like the temple of Belus, stands within an area enclosed by high walls, and contains a chamber that receives no light but from lamps. Such buildings have also been discovered in Mexico. Strength of form and conve- nience in building such structures forming their own scaffolding by their ascending platforms are obvious reasons for the adoption of the pyramidal style in the infancy of architecture, the rude state of implements, and the rough simplicity of mechanical appliances. Let us now turn to another wonder of Babylon, her palace and hanging gardens, which claimed a place among the wonders of the ancient world. But we must first briefly advert to the character and career of Ne- BABYLON. 19 buchadnezzar, the most magnificent of Babylon's kings, to whom they owed their origin. I am not going to enter into the chronological diffi- culties of the intermediate history, but shall content myself with observing that Nebuchadnezzar had been associated in the Chaldsean empire with his father, Na- bopolassar, and that his first appearance in history is as a conqueror. Having recovered Carchemish, which had been wrested t from the empire by Pharaoh Necho about B. c. 607, he turned his arms against the Phoe- nicians and the Jews, carrying Jehoiachim, king of Judah, into captivity, but subsequently leaving him in Judaea, stipulating, however, for the payment of a heavy tribute. The details of the subsequent revolts of the Jews, terminating in the death of the unfor- tunate Zedekiah, will be reserved for our remarks on Jerusalem. It is to be doubted whether Nebuchadnezzar was not actuated by policy in his lenity towards Jehoiachim, rather than by humanity, and we may fairly suppose that, like the Roman emperors at a subsequent period, he had perceived the irritable and uncertain disposition of the Jews, and preferred a conciliating compromise to an attempt to rule them as a conquered nation. His design was, however, frustrated, and it was not until B. c. 588, that Jerusalem, wholly conquered, gave no further .trouble. Scripture furnishes us with many interesting particu- lars of the life of this prince. That he was a scourge of the wicked in the hands of the Lord, the fate of Tyre sufficiently teaches. With unlimited resources, both of troops and treasure, loaded with the spoils of 20 GREAT CITIES Otf THE WORLD. conquered nations, and with a valour and determination heightened and matured by constant experience, Nebu- chadnezzar entered on the government of Babylon. How far he 4nay have entertained right notions con- cerning his God ; how far God may have been with him ; whether this " vessel of wrath " had had his heart soft- ened and his pride rebuked by a consciousness of the .truth, we cannot clearly judge. But we have good reason for supposing that he was not a mere heathen, that his mind was at times awakened to the truth, and that he may have been an object of God's final mercy, as well as an instrument of his anger. Of the melan- choly story of his blindness of heart, his deadly pride, and defection from God, we shall soon have occasion to speak. Nebuchadnezzar, having finished the work of con- quest, turned his attention to aggrandizing the magni- ficence of this marvellous city. Repairs and decorations throughout the old portions of the city, and new public buildings of wonderful extent and beauty, gave Nebu- chadnezzar a claim to be considered a second founder of "the lady of kingdoms." The hanging gardens which adorned the new palace contained an area of four hundred square feet, and \vere composed of several large terraces, the uppermost of which stood on a level with the summit of the city walls. The ascent from one terrace to another was by staircases ten feet in width. This vast mass was supported by large arches, built one upon another, externally strengthened by a wall twenty-two feet in thickness, covered with stones, rushes, bitumen, wiul plates of lead, to prevent leaking. On the highest BABYLON. 21 terrace was an aqueduct, supplied with water from the river by a pump, from whence the whole gardens were watered. Tradition assigns this splendid work to the affectionate complaisance of Nebuchadnezzar for his wife Amytis, the daughter of Astyages, who retained a yearning for the mountains and forests of Media. Quintus Curtius, a picturesque though careless writer, assures us that these gardens presented, at a distance, the appearance of a forest growing on its native mountains. The effect, in a country so flat as Babylon, and so deficient in rich scenery, must have been magnificent. Although these hanging gardens are not mentioned in Scripture, there is, nevertheless, pathetic reference in the Psalms, to the gardens which seem to have lined the banks of the Euphrates. Here were the "willows" on which the captive children, who had so oft forgotten their God, but who clung with sad remembrance to their Jerusalem, " hung their harps," and to which " valley of willows" the captive Moabites were transported. The language of the Psalmist would lead us to believe that, besides the Euphrates, Babylon was irrigated by a considerable number of streams and rivulets, which probably gave an additional coolness and beauty to the open courts and gardens, that filled the open squares throughout the city. With reason, then, might the inspired prophets vie with each other in eulogising Babylon as " the great," u the praise of the whole earth," "the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency." With reason might profane authors revel in descriptions of its might and its magnificence. Yet was it with Babylon, as with 22 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. ancient Rome. It fell a prey to the foe, when its greatness seemed consummated. The glorious, suc- cessful, and luxurious reign of Nebuchadnezzar was the hectic flush, the dazzling glare, which heralded the decay that was corroding its inward frame ; it was the blaze of the fire that was to give place to blackened ruins and smouldering ashes. Vice, dissipation, and extravagance in every form, were the characteristics of the Babylonians in subse- quent times ; and although we may suppose their degradation to have been arrested during the life of Nebuchadnezzar, though his valour and determination may' have curbed the progress of evil, yet it is highly probable that the progress of crime, the natural conse- quence of idolatry, had already set in, and was rapidly doing its work. Furthermore, it has ever been the policy of conquerors to amuse their people, rendered restless by a previous life of excitement and plunder, by the more seductive, but less revolutionary, allure- ments of pleasure and pageantry. The supposition that some such motives stimulated the conduct of Nebuchadnezzar, derives additional corroboration from the fact that the population brought to Babylon were a mixed people, chiefly composed of captives of all nations. Among such a people, there must have been certain desperate characters, to whom the smallest hope of success would have acted as a satisfactory reason for revolt ; and the surest way to deaden the sensibility of men to their dependent condition, would be to make that condition as agreeable as possible, by appealing to man's worst passions and strongest propensities. BABYLON. 23 But the king himself had well nigh fallen a victim to the vanity, which is so often the deadly curse of earthly greatness. Musing on the magnificence he had reared around him, pondering on the multitudes that bowed to him as lord and master, and, perhaps, in the same benighted spirit as David of old, number- ing to himself the amount of his treasures, the king spake and said " Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty ?" Terrible was the rebuke which fell upon the ear of the terrified king. Scarcely had he uttered the vaunting exclamation, " while the word was in his mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, king Nebuchad- nezzar, to thee it is spoken ; the kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field : they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." Whether, by this terrific denunciation, Nebuchad- nezzar was really degraded to the condition threatened, or whether its effect was to impress his mind with a hypochondric self-delusion, under which he seemed to have lost the attributes of rational humanity, must not be hastily decided. Morbid melancholy has often accompanied the private moments of the greatest conquerors and the sternest politicians ; and minds the most energetic, and judgments the most profound, Lave been made the toys of a wandering fancy, revelling in man's power of self-deception. But the 24 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD.. scripture narrative is fearfully distinct in its narrative as a fact. " The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar : and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till -his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws." Besides, the moral lesson to a sinning and idolatrous nation would have been lost, if a mere seclusion-seeking monomania or lycanthropy had been the only infliction. How much mare vividly would the sensual Babylonians have been impressed with God's power, more terribly awed by its effects, if they beheld him, to whom they had addressed every mark of oriental adulation and reverence, grovelling amidst the beasts of the field, bereft alike of the power of the king and the dignity of the man ! At the expiration of the time foretold, Nebuchad- nezzar awoke to a consciousness of dawning reason, and with a gladdened and grateful heart broke forth into thanks for the mercy shewn by Him, " whose works are truth, and his ways judgment : and those that walk in pride he is able to abase." There is every reason to suppose that this fearful lesson took effect, at least with the thinking class of men, and that the court' for some time set the example of the worship of the true God. But this repentance was but short lived. A gigantic image was erected in the plains of Dura, and the whole people recalled to the practice of idolatry. The noble resistance of the three Jewish captives, and their miraculous deliverance from the flames to which they had been condemned, are circumstances too well known to need recapitulation* BABYLON, . 25 Modern writers seem to concur in placing the death of Nebuchadnezzar in the same year as this last defec- tion from the oft-offended Almighty. I must, however ? express my opinion that Prideaux is more correct in following the simple narrative of Daniel, and in making the death of Nebuchadnezzar follow his restoration from madness. His decease is generally placed about B. C. 562. With Nebuchadnezzar the glory of Babylon departed. His son Evil-Merodach was a vicious and profligate prince, but displayed much kindness and liberality towards the conquered king of Judah, Jehoiachin. His brief reign of two years was only distinguished by unbridled indulgence of evil passions, extravagance, and indolent mismanagement ; and a conspiracy of his own relations involved himself and his luckless favourite in untimely destruction. But it was not until the reign of Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, Belshazzar, that Babylon began to experience the sad reverses with which the prophets had long since threatened her, and of which we shall make fuller mention when we view her in her ruined and desolate condition. Irreligion and immorality had increased tenfold ; and when the king, in a moment of frenzied pride, brought out the sacred vessels of the temple of the Jews, to be polluted by the lips of idol- worshippers and licentious concubines, the miraculous handwriting on the wall proclaimed that the cup of wrath was filled up, and that the days of the wicked prince were numbered. There is little doubt that the death of Belshazzar followed almost immediately. During the time that had 3 26 GEEAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. elapsed in sending for the wise men, and subsequently for Daniel, to interpret the mysterious writing, Cyrus had entered the city, and penetrated to the very interior of the palace. Belshazzar had held out against the enemy, and had retained the empire for seventeen years ; but this was to be attributed, not to his own bravery or wisdom, but to the able conduct of the queen-mother, Nitocris. So celebrated was this woman for her energy and foresight, that " Herodotus speaks of her as if she had been sovereign, and attributes to her all those works about Babylon, which other authors ascribe to her son." The great lake, however, and the canal, which this queen had completed, proved fatal to the city ; foi Cyrus, having drained tho Euphrates by means of the receptacle thus afforded for the superfluous waters, was enabled to enter Baby- lon. And in after-days, by the breaking down of the banks at the head of the canal, the river was turned that way ; and as no care had been taken . to reduce it to its former channel by repairing the breach, all the country on that side was overflown and inundated by it. The plan we pursue prevents our entering into details of the many discrepancies and variations in the accounts of the taking of Babylon, and the death of Belshazzar. But there is one grand centre where all narratives meet in wonderful harmony, in the fulfilment of prophecy. Every circumstance of the ruin of this " hammer of the whole earth," is set forth in a minute and vivid portraiture in the burdens of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Its siege by an army of Medes, Elamites, and Arme- nians ; the seizure of the fords of the river ; the BABYLON. 27 confusion that prevailed throughout the city, and the disheartening fear that paralyzed the stoutest hearts, are all detailed as though passing before the eyes of the inspired heralds of the divine wrath. Like the Troy of the poets, ib was to be taken when drunkenness and riot had plunged its chieftains into that sleep, from which they were to awake only to a consciousness more horrible than the "bitterness of death" through which they had passed. Nature itself seemed to be turned from her wonted course; and the river, which had watered the gardens of her glory, was to retire from its proper limits, and open a dry pathway for the destroyer. "With Babylon it was to be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. " It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation : neither shall the Arabian pitch tents there ; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there : but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant places, and her time is near to come, and hei days shall not be prolonged." Such is a brief sketch of Babylon in its greatness ; such were the vices that brought about, and such the predictions that announced, its ruin. Like Rome, it fell through its own magnitude, its forgetfulness of the proper nobility of man, and its deadly pride. No longer an empire, it became a tributary province of the new power of the Persians. Unavailing revolts against the Persian yoke brought down fresh judg- 28 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. ments, and Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes gradually stripped it of its walls, its towers, and its palaces. Alexander took it from the Persians and entered it in triumph, made it the scene of luxurious revels, and the metropolis of his Eastern empire ; but could not avert its predestined downfall. Strabo, writing in the reign of Augustus, declares that Babylon had then become so desolate, that it might be called a vast .desert. In the time of Pausanias, fragments of the walls alone bore witness of its former existence ; and subsequently, a miserable village occupies the site of this proudest city of the earth. It remains for us to give some idea of Babylon in its present condition, or rather to notice some of the ruins supposed to bear witness to her downfall. We must first, however, observe, that the actual site of Babylon is very uncertain, and that there is con- siderable reason to believe that it has changed with the fortunes of its people. To Austin Henry Layard, the enthusiastic and enlightened scholar, and his well- directed researches, amidst all the disadvantages opposed by a tasteless and feeble-minded government, we owe almost all our real knowledge on the subject, and for his descriptions we may fairly claim a hearing, before we notice any previous descriptions. After noticing the variety in the forms of cuneiform writing found in the various ruins, Layard proceeds as follows : " The inscriptions in the Babylonian charac- ter, from the ruins near Hillah, can be shown to belong to the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and consequently to a period subsequent to the fall of the Assyrian Empire. The name of that monarch is found upon them all. BABYLON. 31 Amongst the ruins of Niffer, to the south of Hillah, Major Rawlinson has discovered other inscriptions with a new royal name ; but it is uncertain to what period they belong. That eminent antiquary, who was, I believe, the first to identify the name of Nebuchad- nezzar on the bricks and tablets from the ruins so long believed to be those of the scriptural Babylon, inclines to the opinion that Niffer nay represent its true site, whilst the mounds around Illliah are the remains of a more recent city of the same name. Jj[or is this supposition of the existence of two Babylons inconsis- tent with history and Eastern customs. Nebuchad- nezzar declares that Tie built the city. After the successful revolt of the Babylonians, and the fall of Nineveh, it is not improbable that Nebuchadnezzar, on founding a new empire, which was to rival the Assyrian in power and extent, should have desired to build a capital worthy of it. During the Assyrian supremacy, the ancient capital of the Chaldeans may have partly fallen into ruins ; and it was perfectly in accordance with the customs and prejudices of an Eastern people to choose for rebuilding it a new site not far removed from the old. Babylon affords more than one instance of this very custom. The successor of Alexander the Great in the empire of the East, seeking for a capital, did not rebuild Babylon, which had again fallen into decay. He chose a site near it on the banks of the Tigris, founded a new city, calling it Seleucia, after his own name, and partly constructing it of materials taken from Babylon. Subsequently, when another change of dynasty took place, the Par- thian succeeding to the Greek, the city was again 82 GREAT CITIES Otf THE WORLD. removed, and Ctesiphon rose on the opposite side of the river. After the Persians came the Arabs, who, desiring to found a capital for their new empire, chose a different site ; still, however, remaining in the vicinity of the old. Changing the locality more than once, they at length built the celebrated city of Baghdad, which actually represents the ancient Babylon." The words of Layard cannot fail to carry authority with them, supported as they are by the constant prac- tice of eastern nations. But till more is known of these very ruins till a clearer line of demarcation can be discovered between the histories of these neighbour- ing nations, in their independent or their tributary state, we cannot readily depend upon analogy as our guide. The histories of Babylon and Nineveh are so curiously interwoven with each other that it is difficult to say where the one ends and the other begins. Fur- thermore, our surveys of Babylon are far less perfect than those which Botta and Layard have carried out at Khorsabad, Mosul, and Nimroud. \Noth in^r but an equal amount of investigation can justify any tiling like a parallel view of their history and antiquities. "With- out, therefore, denying the truth of this great anti- quarian's statements, we will content ourselves with Rich's description of the great mounds of ruins which occupy the surrounding neighbourhood. In reading these particulars, I would wish the reader to observe three things : first, that whatever doubts may cxi>t as to the precise era of the buildings whose frnanicnr.- are thus disentombed, there is no doubt th;it the Babylon of the Scriptures is to be sought for among them; secondly, that although the l>irs Nimroiid has BABYLON. even by recent scholars, been regarded as occupying the site of the ancient temple of Belus, or the more ancient tower of Babel, Layard's scepticism on the subject is, at least, entitled to investigation; and, thirdly, that the remains of walls found in these dis- tricts '"do not enclose the space attributed to either Babylon or Nineveh, but form quadrangular enclosures of more moderate dimensions, which appear to have been attached to the royal dwellings, or were, perhaps, intended as places of refuge in case of a siege." Bich, many years the Besident of the East India Company at Baghdad, was a man " whose enterprise, industry, extensive and varied learning, and rare influence over the inhabitants of the country, acquired as much by character as position, eminently qualified for the task." AVe may add that a deep sense of the marvellous operations of the Almighty, working out his judgments in accordance with his forewarnings, through the voices of prophets, gives a weight and solemnity to the tone of Bich's speculations, which cannot too much excite our admiration. We present our readers with the following extracts : /" The ruins of Babylon may be said almost to com- mence from Mohawil, a very indifferent khan, close to which is a large canal, with a bridge over it; the whole country between it and Ilillah exhibiting, at intervals, traces of building, in which are discoverable burnt and unburnt bricks and bitumen. Three mounds, in parti- cular, attract attention from their magnitude. The district called by the natives El-Aredh Babel extends on both sides of the Euphrates. The ruins of the eastern quarter of Babylon, commence about two miles 36 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. above Hillah, and consist of two large masses or mounds, cennected.with, and lying north and south of each other; and several smaller ones which cross the plain at dif- ferent intervals. At the northern termination of the plain is Pietro della Valle's ruin ; from the south-east (to which it evidently once joined, being only obliterated there by two canals) proceeds a narrow ridge or mound of earth, wearing the appearance of having been a boun- dary wall. This ridge forms a kind of circular enclosure, and joins the south-east point of the most southerly of the two grand masses. The whole area, enclosed by the boundary on the east and south, and the river on the west, is two miles and six hundred yards from east to west as much from Pietro della Valle's ruin to the southern part of the boundary, or two miles and one thousand yards to the most southernly mound of all. The first grand mass of ruins south, is one thousand one hundred yards in length, and eight hundred in the greatest breadth. The most elevated part may be about fifty or sixty feet above the level of the plain ; and it has been dug into for the purpose of obtaining bricks. On the north, is a valley of five hundred and fifty yards in length, the area of which is covered with tussocks of rank grass, and crossed by a line of ruins of very little elevation. To this succeeds the second grand heap of ruins, the shape of which is nearly a square of seven hundred yards length and breadth. This is the place where Beauchamp had previously made his observa- tion ; and it certainly is the most interesting part of the ruins of Babylon. Every vestige discoverable in it declares it to have been composed of buildings far superior to all the rest which have left traces in the BABYLON. 87 eastern quarter : the bricks are of the finest descrip- tion, and, notwithstanding this is the grand storehouse of them, and that the greatest supplies have been, and are now constantly drawn from it, they appear still to be abundant. In all these excavations walls of burnt brick, laid in lime-mortar of a very good quality, are seen ; and in addition to the substances generally strewed on the surfaces of all these mounds, we here find frag- ments of alabaster vessels, fine earthenware, marble, and great quantities of Tarnished tiles, the glazing and colouring of which are surprisingly fresh. In a hollow, near the southern part, I found a sepulchral urn of earthenware, which had been broken in digging, and near it lay some human bones, which pulverized with the touch. " To be more particular in my description of this mound : not more than two hundred yards from its northern extremity is a ravine, hollowed out by those who dig for bricks, in length about a hundred yards, and thirty feet wide by forty or fifty feet deep. On one side of it, a few yards of wall remain standing, the face of which is very clear and perfect, and it appears to have been the front of some building. The opposite side is so confused a mass of rubbish, that it should seem the ravine had been worked through a solid build- ing. Under the foundations of the southern end, an opening is made, which discovers a subterranean pass- age, floored and walled with large bricks laid in bitu- men, and covered over with pieces of sandstone a yard thick, and several yards long, on which the whole weight rests, being so great as to have given a consider- able degree of obliquity to the side walls of the passage. 4 38 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. It is half full of brackish water (probably rain-water impregnated with nitre in filtering through the ruins, which are all very productive of it ;) and the workmen say that some way on, it is high enough for a horse- man to pass upright : as much as I saw of it, it was near seven feet in height, and its course to the south. This is described by Beauchamp, who most unaccount- ably imagines it must have been part of the city wall. The superstructure over the passage is cemented with bitumen ; other parts of the ravine are cemented with mortar, and the bricks have all writing upon them. The northern end of the ravine appears to have been, crossed by an extremely thick wall of yellowish brick, cemented by a brilliant white mortar, which has been broken through in hollowing it out ; and a little to the north of it, I discovered what Beauchamp saw imper- fectly, and understood from the natives to be an idol. I was told the same, and that it was discovered by an old Arab in digging ; but that, not knowing what to do with it, he covered it up again. On sending for the old man, I set a number of men to work, who after a day's hard labour, laid open enough of the statue to show that it was a lion of colossal dimensions, standing upon a pedestal of a coarse kind of gray granite, and of rude workmanship ; in the mouth was a circular aperture, into which a man might introduce his fist. A little to the west of the ravine, is the next remarkable object, called by the natives the Kasr, or Palace, by which ap- pellation I shall designate the whole mass. It is a very remarkable ruin, which being uncovered, and in part de- tached from the rubbish, is visible for a considerable dis- tance, but so surprisingly fresh in its appearance, that BABYLON. 39 it was only after a minute inspection, that I was satis- fied of its being in reality a Babylonian remain. It con- sists of several walls and piers, which face the cardinal points, eight feet in thickness, in some places strength- ened by pilasters and buttresses, built of fine burnt brick still perfectly clean and sharp, laid in lime ce- ment of such a tenacity, that those whose business it is, have given up working, on account of the extreme difficulty of extracting them whole. The tops of these walls are broken, and many have been much higher. On the outside they have in some places been cleared nearly to the foundations, but the internal spaces formed by them are yet filled with rubbish ; in some parts almost to their summits. One part of the walls has been split into three parts, and overthrown as if by an earthquake ; some detached walls of the same kind, standing at different distances, show what remains to have been only a small part of the original fabric, in- deed, it appears that the passage in the ravine, together with the wall which crosses its upper end, was con- nected with it. There are some hollows underneath, in which several persons have lost their lives ; so that no one will now venture into them, and their en- trances have become choked up with rubbish. Near this ruin is a heap of rubbish, the sides of which are curiously streaked by the alternation of its materials, the chief part of which, it is probable, was unburnt brick, of which I found a small quantity in the neighbor- hood; but no reeds were discoverable in the inter- stices. There are two paths near this ruin, made by the workmen who carry down their bricks to the river side, whence they are transported by boats to Hil- 40 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOIMJX lah, and a little to the north-north-east of it is the famous tree, which the natives call Athale, and main- tain to have been flourishing in ancient Babylon, from the destruction of which they say God purposely pre- served it, that it might aiford Ali a convenient place to tie up his horse after the battle of Hillah ! It stands- on a kind of ridge, and nothing more than one side of its trunk remains (by which it appears to have beeen of considerable girth ;) yet the branches at the top are still perfectly verdant, and gently waving in the wind r produce a melancholy rustling sound. It is an ever- green, something resembling the lignum vitse, and of a kind, I believe, not common in this part of the country,, though I am told there is a tree of the same descrip- tion at Bassora. All the people of the country assert that it is extremely dangerous to approach this mound after nightfall, on account of the multitude of evi\ spirits by which it is haunted. " A mile to the noth of the Kasr, and nine hundred and fifty yards from the river bank, is the last ruin of this series, described by Pietro della Valle. The natives call it Mukallibe (or, according to the vulgar Arab pro- nunciation of these parts, Mujclibe, meaning c over- turned.') It is of an oblong shape, irregular in its. height, and the measurement of its sides, which face the cardinal points ; the northern side being two hun- dred yards in length, the southern two hundred and nineteen ; the eastern one hundred and eighty-two,. and the western one hundred and thirty-six ; the eleva- tion of the south-east or highest angle, one hundred and forty-one feet. Near the summit west, appears a low wall, built of uuburnt bricks, mixed up with chopped BABYLON. 41 straw or reeds, and cemented with clay mortar of great thickness, having between each layer, a layer of reeds. All are worn into furrows by the weather ; in some places of great depth. The summit is x covered with h-:.:ips of rubbish; whole bricks with inscriptions on them are here and there discovered ; the whole is covered with innumerable fragments of pottery, brick, bitumen, pebbles, vitrefied brick, or scoria, and even shells, bits of glass and mother-of-pearl. There are many dens of wild beasts in various parts, in one of which I found the bones of sheep, and other animals, and perceived a strong smell like that of a lion. I also found quantities of porcupine quills, and in most cavi- ties are numbers of bats and owls. It is a curious coincidence that I here first heard the oriental account of satyrs. I had always imagined the belief of their existence was confined to the west ; but a Choader who was with me when I examined this ruin, mentioned by accident, that in this desert an animal is found resem- bling a man from the head to the waist, but having the thighs and legs of a sheep or goat ; he said also, that the Arabs hunt it with dogs, and eat the lower parts, abstaining from the upper, on account of their resem- blance to those of the human species. 'But the wild beast of the desert shall be there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.' Isa. xiii. 21." We must now bid farewell to the ruins of Babylon, lamenting that our historical information respecting the days of her greatness is so limited. But, varying as are the narratives that set forth the valiant deeds and mag- nificent works of the Titan-like race of Nimrod, the 4* 42 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD curse of idolatry imprints its iron footsteps on every spot that bears witness to their efforts. Sabaisur had perverted their minds, vanity and cruelty had com- pleted the work that an idolatrous casting off of God had begun ; and in the doubtful obscurity which shrouds the remains of this doomed city, we read a gloomy sa- tire on the helplessness of Man when he has forgotten his Maker. ARAB ENCAMPMENT. HEAD OF A COLOSSAL FIGURE OP AN ASSYRIAN EUNUCH. NINEVEH. EFORE I present my reader with a sketch of the great discoveries which have al- ready associated the name of Layard with these pages, I shall first call attention to the scriptural notices whence our earliest know- ledge of Nineveh is derived. Ninus, the first king of Nineveh, is repeatedly con- founded by pagan historians with Nimrod, and even with Noah himself. It is possible that the hypothesis which makes Nimrod the founder, treasured as it is, in the superstitious remembrance of the Arabs to this (43) 44 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. day, is of the same probability as that which assigns the foundation of Babylon to Belus; while Ninus appears in the same light as Nebuchadnezzar, as the prince to whom the primitive city owed its chief power and magnificence. As Babylon was the capital of the Chaldean, so was Nineveh of the Assyrian empire. And as Nineveh rivalled Babylon in splendour and renown, so did it vie with it in wickedness, emulate its contempt of God, provoke the same fearful judgment, and leave its buried ruins as memorials of its crime and punishment. As I write the history of Nineveh as a city, and not in its relation to the Assyrian empire, I may be excused entering into the chronological difficulties with which, like that of the other half mythical founders of great cities, the history of Ninus is beset.* At whatever era we fix his reign, and whether we regard him as founder of a new, or establisher of an old empire, we recognise in the effects of his influence the same stern despotism, the same lust after conquest, and the same uncontrollable determination, which is the invariable characteristic of those who work great changes in the history of man. Of the kings who succeeded him in the Assyrian empire we know little, as far as Nineveh is concerned. * The following dates, however, given by Clinton, and adopted hy Layard, p. 217, will doubtless be useful to the reader: YEARS n. c. Ninus 2182 Assyrian Monarchy 1306 years before the Empire . . .675 ... 1912 During the Empire, 24 kings 526 ... 1237 (Sardanapalus, B. c. 876.) After the Empire, 6 kings 105 ... 711 1306 Capture of Nineveh 606 KINEVEH. 45 But the works which recent discoveries have brought to light, are sufficient to show that the improvement and increase of Ninevite greatness was brought about by different sovereigns at periods more or less distant.* In the time of the prophet Jonah, it had attained a magnitude which is aptly illustrated by the quaint description of the prophet : " Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey." Its dimensions according to pagan authority, were a hundred and fifty furlongs on the two longest sides, and ninety on the opposite, the square being four hundred and eighty furlongs, or sixty miles. In respect to its population, the language in Scripture leaves us in doubt although the " more than six score thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left hand," seem most naturally to refer to the chil- dren only,f presupposing, according to a common calcu- lation, an average population of six hundred thousand inhabitants. It must however, be recollected that the dimensions of an eastern city are by no means a guide to determining the amount of its population. ( Lar^e open spaces, pleasure grounds, and gardens, arc con- stantly found within the walls^ while the seclusion in '* See Layard, v. ii. p. 226, and elsewhere. He considers tluii: thre were at least two distinct Assyrian dynasties; "the first commencing \viih Xinus, and ending with the Sardanapalus of Ilistorj 7 , and the ?s. B. (J. i. 2, " civitati persuasis, ut de finibus suis cum omnibus copiis (miy&iiftA, as in t. xiii. 16) exirent." 46 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. which the female sex are kept, renders a separate dwelling necessary for each family. This "great city," as it is repeatedly styled by the prophet, had in his days risen to a pitch cf luxury and wickedness, which had " come up before God." But the mercy shewn in the sending of Jonah, and the ready reception with which that prophet met, are facts that seem to prove a greater predisposition to repent- ance, and a less hardened proneness to idolatry, than the haughty Babylonians had displayed. A solemn fast was proclaimed, and the humbled Ninevites sought their peace with God prostrate in sackcloth and ashes. "And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way ; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them ; and he did it not." But, although the Divine vengeance was delayed, and although the people for a time hearkened to the prophet who had been sent to awaken them from their slumber of sinfulncss, the besetting sin of idolatry, with its accompanying host of evil pleasures, licentiousness, and contempt of the true God, again gained ground. To what extent their first defeat under Arbaces and Belesis may have humbled their haughtiness, we cannot tell. But that the second siege under Cyaxares, king of Persia and Media, and Nabopolassar, king of Baby- lon, proved the decisive blow to all their greatness, is the concurrent statement of history. So decisive was the ruin, that " although the earlier prophets fre- quently allude to the great city, and to its wealth and power before its fall, the latter never mention its name, except in allusion to the heap of ruins to the desolation NINEVEH. 47 which was spread over the site of a once great city, as a special instance of the Divine vengeance." When Xenophon, about 400 B. c., passed by the spot in his retreat with the ten thousand Greeks, so utterly ruined was Nineveh, that he knew not that the mounds of earth and rubbish he saw and described covered the once-renowned city; and his predecessor, Herodotus, knew as little of the existence even of its ruins. At a later period, the witty Lncian bears witness to the absence of any vestiges of the doomed city. To give any Mco, of the wealth and power which the Ninevites must have possessed, I must refer my readers to the sculptures, which the untired, though ill-sup- ported zeal of Layard has brought to light. In these the habits, arts and sciences, costumes, and life of the Ninevites, whether in peace or in war, stand vividly before us. Rough and primitive as is the school of art to which they belong, they carry the unquestionable marks of a high progress of civilization, and a know- ledge not only of the necessary arts of life, but of its refinements and cultivation. The luxuriant costumes, the proud processions, the ceremonious cortege of the eastern monarchs, all find their place in the sculptures of Nimroud. By their colossal dimensions we are enabled to estimate the length of the halls and galleries whose walls they lined. The immense winged bulls and lions with their human visages, resembling the anomalous figures discovered at Persepolis, or the forms ictaed in |p3 extatic visions of Eze- picta *stare kiel formed thestarely entrances to the apartments, and aptly symbolized the might of the monarchs who passed and repassed, day after day, with all the para- 48 GREAT CITIES OF TfiE WORLD, WINOED LIOX PROM THE RUINS OF NINEVEH. phernalia of oriental splendour. Vast sphinxes, as in the temples, and along the colonnades of Egypt, and hawk-headed human figures, served to typify the supre- macy of royalty, and added a grotesque variety to the solemn stateliness of the other groups. Oijwds of smooth-chinned eunuchs, of servants laden with I NINEVEH. 51 Among the many details of the ordinary matters of common life with which these fragments have made us acquainted, we find representations of the pulley, arranged in the same manner as our own, and the ope- ration of moving a block of stone on a cart drawn by men. The beautifully flowing robes, edged with fringes and tassels, and elaborately embroidered, confirm our ideas of the proverbial magnificence of the "Assyrian garments," and prove that the Ninevites rivalled their neighbours in taste for dress, both in the costliness of the materials, and the delicacy of the workmanship. Necklaces, armlets, bracelets, and ear-rings of various design, are profusely displayed, and even the arms are richly decorated. The umbrella or parasol, and the chair of state, the usual accompaniment^ of oriental royalty, both closely resemble those of modern times. The minute and neat trimming and arrangement of beard, and the dyed eyebrows, bear witness to the voluptuous indolence and personal vanity of this people in their moments of relaxation ; while the accurate details of armour, and of the operations of warfare, present a life-like picture of the bravery and rough energy which had raised them to the greatess they so ill knew how to preserve. I cannot better close this description of Nineveh in its greatness, than by a quotation from Layard's pic- turesque recapitulation of the disinterred remains. " We descend into the principal trench, by a flight of steps rudely cut into the earth, near the western face of the mound, and at a depth of about twenty feet, we suddenly find ourselves between a pair of colossal lions, winged and human-headed, forming a portal. Before 52 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. these wonderful forms, Ezekiel, Jonah, and others of the prophets stood, and Sennacherib bowed ; even the patriarch Abraham himself may possibly have bowed. " Leaving behind us a small chamber, in which the sculptures are distinguished by a want of finish in the execution ; and considerable rudeness in the design of the ornaments, we issue from between the winged lions, and enter the remnants of the principal halL On both sides of us are sculptured gigantic winged figures ; some with the heads of eagles, others entirely human, and carrying mysterious symbols in their hands. To the left is another portal, also formed by winged lions. One of them has, however, fallen across the entrance, and there is just room to creep beneath it. Beyond this portal is a winged figure, and two slabs with bas- reliefs ; but they have been so much injured, that we can scarcely trace the subject upon them. Further on, there are no traces of wall, although a. deep trench has been opened. The opposite side of the hall has also disappeared, and we only see a high wall of earth. On examining it attentively, we can detect the marks of masonry ; and we soon find that it is a solid structure, built of bricks of unbaked clay, now of the same colour as the surrounding soil, and scarcely to be distinguished from it. " The slabs of alabaster, fallen from their original position, have, however, been raised : and we tread in the midst of a maze of small bas-reliefs, representing chariots, horsemen, battles, and sieges. Perhaps the workmen are about to raise a slab for the first time ; and we watch with eager curiosity what new event of NINEVEH. 53 Assyrian history, or what unknown custom or religious ceremony, may be illustrated by the sculpture beneath. " Having walked about one hundred feet amongst these scattered monuments of ancient history and art, we reach another doorway forrne.d by gigantic winged bulls in yellow limestone. One is still entire, but its companion is fallen, and is broken into several pieces the great human head is at our feet. " We pass on without turning into the part of the building to which this portal leads. Beyond it we see another winged figure, holding a graceful flower in its hand, and apparently presenting it as an offering to the winged bull. Adjoining this sculpture we find eight fine bas-reliefs. There is the king, hunting and tri- umphing over the lion and the wild bull ; and the siege of the castle, with the battering ram. We have now reached the end of the hall, and find before us an ela- borate and beautiful sculpture, representing two kings, standing beneath the emblem of the supreme deity, and attended by winged figures. Between them is the sacred tree. . In front of this bas-relief is the great stone platform, upon which, in days of old, may have been placed the thrones of the Assyrian monarch, when he received his captive enemies, or his courtiers. " To the left of us is a fourth outlet from the hall, formed by another pair of lions. We issue from be- tween them, and find ourselves on the edge of a deep ravine, to the north of which rises, high above us. the lofty pyramid. Figures of captives bearing objects of tribute ; ear-rings, bracelets, and monkeys, in ay be seen on walls near this ravine ; and two enormous bulls, 5* 54 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. and two winged figures above fourteen feet high, are lying on its very edge. "As the ravine bounds the ruins on this side, we must return to the yellow bulls. Passing through the entrance formed by them, we enter a large chamber surrounded by eagle-neaded figures : at one end of it is a doorway, guarded by two priests or divinities, and in the centre another portal with winged bulls. Which- ever way we turn, we find ourselves in the midst of a nest of rooms ; and without an acquaintance with the intricacies of the place, we should soon lose ourselves in this labyrinth. The accumulated rubbish being gene- rally left in the centre of the chambers, the whole exca- vation consists of a number of narrow passages, panel- led on one side with slabs of alabaster ; and shut in on the other by a high wall of earth, half-buried in which may here and there be seen a broken vase, or a brick painted with brilliant colours. We may wander through these galleries for an hour or two, examining the mar- vellous sculptures, or the numerous inscriptions that surround us. Here, we meet long rows of kings, at- tended by their eunuchs and priests ; there, lines of winged figures, carrying fir-cones and religious emblems, and seemingly in adoration before the mystic tree. Other entrances, formed by winged lions and bulls, lead us into new chambers. In every one of them are fresh objects of curiosity and surprise. At length, wearied, we issued from the buried edifice by a trench on the opposite side to that by which we L u I find ourselves again upon the naked pl.it;'.> n\. Vu: look around in vain for any traces of the wonderful remains we have just seen, and are half inclined to NINEVEH, 55 believe that we have dreamed a dream, or have listened to some tale of Eastern romance." The present condition of Nineveh is a marvellous illustration of the fulfilment of prophecy. Shapeless mounds, defying, by their want of anything like a definite form, the description of the traveller, cover the ruins of those vast palaces, in which the Assyrian rnonarchs once revelled in the luxurious impiety of oriental despotism. But whilst we read the narratives which research developes from an almost unknown character whilst we contemplate the disentombed sculptures which seem to rise up as mute apparitions of the past, we are deeply impressed with the sad con- viction, that " now is Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness ; and flocks lie down in the midst of her; all the beasts of the nations, both the cormorant and the bittern lodge in the upper lintels of it ; their voice rings in the windows, and desolation is in the threshold." THEBES. nPHE sublime great ness of the dimensions, and the elaborate magnificfuce of tlio decorations, which to tliis d.-iy render ancient Thebes the admiration of tra- vellers, sufficiently attest iis claims to he regarded as the centre and mother city of the once-glorious kingdom of Egypt. Whatever may have been the magnificence of the temples at Nine- veh, their diminsions, as far as we can at present ascer- tain, fell far short of the gigantic structures at Luxor or Karnak. Moreover, the ruins of Thebes tell us more of real history, and their laii^-'ige is as yet better understood. Manetho, a writer who has }v,\;erved to us a curious mixture of truth and falsehood. li--i> furnished us with (56) THEBES. 59 tlie names of the cities in which the kings who preceded Sesostris reigned. These are Elephantine, Thebes, or the great Diospolis, (this afterwards called Abydos,) Heracleopolis, and Memphis. But amid the uncertain traditions which hover over the ruins of Egyptian great, ness, it is, perhaps, better to seek for some stand-point of at least probably ascertained history, than to entangle ourselves in inextricable researches after a mythical founder ; and we shall, therefore, begin our historical notices of Thebes with Sesostris. Like Semiramis, Theseus, and the still less historic Hercules, Sesostris has formed a favourite hero in whom fiction and history should join issue. While it seems absurd to deny his personal reality, while we have ample reason and authority for identifying him with Rameses the Great, whose name appears conspi- cuously on the mighty structures of Luxor and Karnak, we cannot but feel assured that much exaggeration, much romance, has been blended with the narrative which details the adventures of this great conqueror. The advancement of the arts of life, forms, as usual, the conclusion of his earth's mission, and Sesostris, having returned as the haughty victor over vast territo- ries, leaving everywhere the monuments of his all sub- duing perseverance, probably employed the captives who swelled his train in works of public utility and magnificence. If we bear in mind, the bondage of the Israelites " in brick and in mortar," we can have little doubt that the same policy which led Nebuchadnezzar to transport large numbers of captives to the rising Babylon, also influenced the crafty and calculating Sesostris ; and many of the structures which now awe 60 GREAT CITIES OF THE us by their wondrous proportions, and conjure up visions of a city of Giants, owed their existence to the wear and tear of human life, recklessly spent by the conqueror who employed the vanquished in rearing monuments to attest their own downfall. Herodotus assigns to Sesostris the systematic and equal division of the Egyptian territory, and a system of taxation which considerately made allowance for the occasional encroachments of the Nile, and the conse- quent injury or decrease to which private estates were liable, as well as the formation of canals throughout the country, and lofty mounds or dykes to prevent damage to the cities during the annual rising of the river. While such a statement is perfectly agreeable to the character of Sesostris, and the exigencies of his territory, they still present a blending of the character of a Numa with that of a Napoleon, a consideration for private rights, strangely united with an eagerness for acquisition, which perhaps distinguishes Sesostris, even in our imperfect conception of his character and motives, from the other half-romantic conquerors of the huin.'n race. Chronologists are tolerably agreed in fixing the epoch of Sesostris to about 1500 B. c., upwards of a century earlier than the date assigned him by Herodotus. To this glorious period, it is probable that the noblest works of Egyptian art, the temples, the statues, the obelisks of Thebes belong, and that the "hundred- gated" city existed in l!> :- iupc--? <(' if< ii. : ;;-'-t .:! splendour, from }i)'M;t li.Mj B. . till :.. '.'_-. l.j..p! c invasion of Sabai-o. rtfioi.-t : -f : > i ; . c. It is during this peiiot.:. hat v,-u u-i-..>i uoultui- TUEBES. 61 plate Thebes in its magnificence. So rich are we in the representations of Egyptian greatness which abound in this district, that vast volumes have been filled with the bare outlines of gigantic ruins and whole folios dedicated to the equally sketchy details of a single temple. Modern travellers, of a very recent date, agree in describing the distant prospect of the ruins of Thebes as poor and ineffective ; nay, even when comparatively near, they furnish no adequate idea of the gloomy sublimity which breaks upon the view as we approach the propylon of the temple of Luxor. This magnifi- cent gateway, composed of two pyramidal propybea, is two hundred feet in width, and fifty-seven feet above the present level of the soil. In front stood two obe- lisks, in red granite, each eighty feet in height, and from eight to nine feet wide at the base. Between these obelisks and the propylon are two colossal statues, also of red granite, and, although buried in the ground up to the chest, measuring twenty-one and twenty-two feet to the top of the mitre. From some difference in the costume, it is supposed that one' represented a male, the other a female figure. Through the propylon, we pass into a court about 232 feet long, by 174, round which are remains of a double row of columns in various stages of decay. This court is full of earth and rubbish, chiefly owing to its present inhabitants, the Arabs, having placed part of their village within the enclosure. Passing through other pyramidal propylasa, we come to a double row of seven columns, 11 J feet in diameter. Here the axis of the temple slightly changes ; and we meet with a fur- 6 62 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. ther change of the line, on entering the portico, which is composed of thirty-two pillars arranged in parallel rows. From this irregularity it has heen inferred, with some prohability, that the whole structure was not raised at once, but was the work of successive ages. It has been, however, also supposed that the reason for this irregularity was, that the northern front might be more nearly opposite to the temple of Karnak. The propylaea of this noble edifice are filled with sculptures, representing the triumph of some ancient monarch of Egypt over an Asiatic enemy: an event which appears to have been a* favourite subject with the sculptors of Egypt. The absence of the adytum or sanctuary, as well as the different subjects of the reliefs or intaglios, which occupy the walls of this build- ing, representing battles, hunting scenes, and similar matters, has led Heron to consider the edifice at Luxor to have been a palace, or rather a public build- ing for some civil purpose. Although the temples and civil buildings of Thebes have many common features, yet the sculptures found on the former are exclusively of a religious and symbolical character. Perhaps the position of the edifice, which might seem a fitting entrance to the state offices of the royal city, may give additional support to this ingenious and probable conjecture. But it is the remains of Karnak which alike defy comparison and description. Ch^mpollion has enthu- siastically observed, that " the imagination, which in Europe rises far above our porticos, sinks abashed at the foot of the one hundred and forty columns of the hypostole hall of Karnak." THEBES. 63 As Karnak is pre-eminently connected with the worship of Ammon, and is, moreover, best calculated to convey some idea of the splendour of Thebes, of "populous No, that was situate among the rivers that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea" a somewhat circumstantial description will, it is hoped, be accept- able. About one mile and a quarter lower down the river, and at about 2,500 feet from its banks, are these mighty ruins, the chief portion occupying an artificial elevation, surrounded by a wall of unburnt bricks, about 5,300 yards in circuit. Within these walls are the remains of several buildings, the largest of which is contained within the enclosure, which was of suffi- cient extent to hold also a large tank, cased with stone, and with steps leading down to it. The chief or west- ern front is turned towards the Nile, with which it was connected by an alley of colossal ram-headed sphinxes. At the termination of this magnificent avenue, there was probably a flight of steps leading down to the river. "Here," observes Professor Long, "the devotee would land, who came from a distance to the shrine of Ammon, and, with amazement and a feeling of religious awe, would he slowly walk along between the majestic and tranquil sphinxes to the still more magnificent propyla of the building. This colossal entrance is about 360 feet long, and 198 feet high, but without sculptures ; the great door in the middle is sixty-four feet in height. Passing through this door-way, he would enter a large court, occupied by a range of 64 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. pillars on the north and south sides, and a double of tall pillars running down the middle. The pillars in the middle of the entrance-court terminate opposite to two colossal statues in front of a second propylon, through which, after ascending a flight of twenty-seven steps, he would come to a large hall which has had a flat stone roof. This is the great hypostole hall of Karnak, which is supported by one hundred and thirty- four colossal pillars, there being sixteen columns run- ning across the breadth of the building, in nine parallel rows, which, however, as we shall presently notice, offer some irregularities. "The hypostole hall has a double row of larger pillars, twelve in number, running down the centre. Owing to the projection of a doorway or entrance from the court which succeeds the hypostole hall, there are two pillars cut off on each side from the rows of smaller pillars which are next to the larger ones. This reduces the whole number to one hundred and thirty-four, which would be one hundred and forty-four, if all the pillars were of the same size, and if there were no irregularity in the two rows nearest the centre rows on each side. The width of this magnificent hall is about 338 feet, and the length or breadth 170J feet. It is remarkable that the great courts and chambers in some of the oldest Egyptian builings, such as Medinet-Abou and the tomb of Osymandyas, have their width greater than their length : the entrance, in fact, is in the centre of the longest side. The area of this prodigious hall is 57,629 square feet, on which stand the hundred and thirty-four columns, the largest near eleven feet in diameter, once supporting a roof of THEBES. - 65 slabs of stoire. Words are inadequate to express the grandeur of conception exhibited in this design, u The two rows of columns down the middle are Larger than the rest, and were designed to support the highest parts of the roof, in the vertical sides of which small window-lights are cut. Both the pillars, walls^ and propyla of this magnificent colonnade are com- pletely covered with sculptured forms of deities." We must not, however, forget, that although there is evidence that among these monunents we must seek for the oldest and most genuine specimens of Egyptian art, they do not by any means appertain to one period of Egyptian greatness. Some parts of the temple at Luxor and of the larger building at Karnak bear traces of having been partly constructed out of the materials of a former building. This is evident from blocks of stone being found occasionally placed with the hieroglyphics inverted, and the ruins at Nineveh present similar indi- cations. Although we find the names of Philip, Alex- ander, and Bernice, represented in hieroglyphical cha- racters, arid enclosed in the usual elliptical rings, we have no right to limit the antiquity of these buildings to the era of the Macedonian occupation of Egypt (B. c. 525.) Such was Thebes. Occupying a site one hundred and forty furlongs in circumference, sending forth, according to the quaint calculations of the father of Greek poetry, its twice ten ihousand armed ...aariots, yet did the curse of idolatry pu-r-rf? it, and No-Amnion became the burden of the prophui, and the unhappy subject of divine judgments. Some time before Nine- s'" 66 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORL1X veh fell, Nahum liad threatened her with the fate of No-Ammon, and bewailed the fall of the city of an hundred gates. As Thebes in ancient times had preserved her power independently of the invasions of the shepherd kings, and as she had subsequently risen to the highest pitch of greatness and prosperity, so was her fall consum- mated by the slow but certain destructiveness of man. Conquered by the Ethiopians, the Egyptians fell into disorder, and were but indifferently re-united under the reign of Psammethicus. The Persian conquest, in B. C. 526, under the guidance of the childish and cruel Cambyses, was naturally fraught with evil consequences to works of art, although Pliny has preserved a story to the effect that Cambyses was so struck with admira- tion at one of the obelisks, that he ordered the flames to be quenched when they reached its base. The great population of Thebes lived chiefly in wooden huts, and the vast flames rising from so large a mass of combus- tible materials would crack and displace the stones even of the greatest buildings. Fire ever does for man's works what the sword does more quickly for man himself. Under the Ptolemies, little was done to restore or embellish Thebes, and in the reign of Ptolemy Lathyrus (B. c. 86) this city rebelled, and, after a three years siege was captured and pillaged by its offended master. But from the first blow struck by the Ethiopian Sabaco, Thebes had gradually declined. Egypt had continually kept assuming a dependent position, and this her mighty stronghold, the admiration of the world, gave up her ancient honours, and was left bare and defenceless THEBES. 67 by her degenerating inhabitants. Under the Romans it lost the last remnants of wealth and power. The present appearance of the ruined district, bear- ing melancholy witness to the destructiveness of man and the perishable feebleness of his greatest works, is well described by a modern writer.* " The whole of this great extent is more or less strewed with ruins, broken columns, and avenues of sphinxes, colossal figures, obelisks, pyramidal gateways, porticoes, blocks of polished granite, and stones of extraordinary magni- tude; while above them, 'in all the nakedness of deso- lation,' the colossal skeletons of giants' temples are standing in the unwatered sands, in solitude and silence. They are neither grey nor blackened ; there is no lichen, no moss, no rank grass or mantling ivy to robe them and conceal their deformities. Like the bones of man, they seem 4 to whiten under the sun of the desert.' The sand of Africa has been their most fearful enemy; blown upon them for more than three thousand years, it has buried the largest monuments, and, in some instances, almost entire temples." * Stephens' Incidents of Travels, p. 33. MODERN EGYPTIANS. MEMPHIS AND HELIOPOLIS. BOUT ten miles south of Jizeli, where stand the great pyra- mids, the village of Metra- hermy, half concealed in a thicket of palm trees, on the western side of the river, marks the site of the once mighty city of Memphis, the Noph of the Scriptures. It has heen so much exposed to plunder from the successive conquerors of the country, who have used it as a stone-quarry, that its very (68) MEMPHIS AND HELIOPOLIS. 69 site has been doubted. Various remains of the great temple of Phtha, and of other sacred buildings, are loosely scattered over an extensive space ; the most interesting being some fine red granite blocks, of great size; forming portions of colossal statues long since broken to pieces. As Thebes was the capital city of Egypt during its historical period, so was Memphis for a long time its rival both as a regal city, and a seat of commerce. It also appears to have been the capital city of that portion of Egypt in or near which the Israelites were settled. As this is nearly the earliest occasion in which Egypt bears a prominent part in sacred history, a brief view of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's hypothesis cannot fail to be interesting. It must be recollected, however, that no attempt is here made to substantiate or reconcile statements which labour under difficulties, the combined result of imperfect documents and extravagant chro- nology. The Amosis, or Ames, who was the leader of the eighteenth or Theban Dynasty, Wilkinson supposes to have been the king under whom the oppression of the Israelites commenced. Under the old Memphite dynasty, the Jews, " who had come into Egypt on occasion of a famine, finding the great superiority of the land of Egypt, both for obtaining the necessaries of life and for feeding their flocks, may have asked and obtained a grant of land from the Egyptian monarch, on condition of certain services being performed by them and their descendants." But on the accession of the Theban family under Amosis, who was probably the "new king who knew not Joseph," it wou*d be rea- 70 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. sonable to suppose that, coming from the distant pro- vince of Thebes, the Hebrews would be strangers to him, and that he was likely to look upon them with the same distrust and contempt with which the Egyptians usually treated foreigners. Hence, the grant being rescinded, but the service still required, the Jews were reduced to a state of bondage ; and as despotism sel- dom respects the rights of those it injures, additional labour was imposed upon this unresisting people. And Pharaoh's pretended fear, lest, in the event of war, they might make common cause with the enemy, was a sufficient pretext with his own people for oppressing the Jews, at the same time that it had the effect of exciting their prejudices against them. Thus they were treated like the captives taken in war, and were forced to undergo the gratuitous labor of erecting public grana- ries, and other buildings for the Egyptian monarch. After the death of this and the succeeding prince, and during the reign of Thothmes I., Moses, the future regenerator of Hebrew liberty, made a first effort to resist the oppression under which his countrymen had groaned, and was compelled to take flight in order to avoid the consequences of his boldness. At the death of this king's successor, no longer dreading the wrath of the authorities, and stimulated by a heaven-sup- ported patriotism, he returned to Egypt, and, after displaying an unexampled series of God's judgments against the callous idolatry of the heathen oppressors, he led the Israelites " out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." If this prince were really the Pharaoh under whom the Israelites left Egypt, he was, according to the MEMPHIS AND HELIOPOLIS. 73 evidence of monuments, one of the most talented and prosperous monarchs previous to the supposed Augus- tan era of Sesostris. But these facts, according to the theory we mention, are wholly inconsistent with the supposition that he was drowned with his army in the Ked Sea whilst in pursuit of the Israelites. On the contrary, his greatest works appear to have been sub* sequent to the Exodus. Whether, however, this view of the matter can be thought a safe one, must be decided by persons more conversant with original records than I can pretend to be ; but there seems little doubt that Memphis and Thebes may have, under various vicissitudes and politi- cal changes, divided the honour of sending an absolute ruler. The supposition that two kings, of different local dynasties, reigned together at certain periods of Egyptian history, has already been noticed. In concluding this digression, we cannot fail to be struck by the coincidence between the facts of Mem- phis having been the grand seat of persecution against the Israelites, and the heavy weight of desolate afflic- tion which, long since foretold, fell upon the doomed city of Noph. Most agreeable was it to the Almighty's care for his own, most suited to his avenging justice, that the scene of his chosen people's humiliation should become the most signal evidence of his triumph over their enemies. Great as were his judgments against Thebes, her ruins still bear far greater marks of former magnificence than the shattered and irregular remnants of the temple which had exhausted the wealth and taste of a long succession of proud Memphite monarchs. Before concluding our notices of Egyptian cities we T 74 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. will direct the reader's attention to the great temple of Apollinopolis Magua, (Edfou,) on the left branch of the Nile, between Syene and Esneh, which, before the French expedition to Egypt under Napoleon, was almost unknown. It is a magnificent work of art, and interesting not only as presenting a fair average of the sacred structures of Egypt, but because of its supposed resemblance to the temple of Solomon. It is described as follows in the "Egyptian Antiquities :" " The entrance is composed of two pyramidal moles, sometimes called propylaea by modern writers, each front of which is about 104 feet long, and 37 feet wide at the base ; the moles are about 114 feet high. These dimensions diminish gradually from the base to the summit, where the horizontal section is 84 feet by 20. The walls of the moles are sculptured with immense figures, in the best style of Egyptian art ; and between the moles is the grand entrance* This entrance con- ducts to a court (which may be partly seen in the view) surrounded ly pillars. On each of the larger sides there is a row of twelve pillars which are placed at some distance from the side walls ; and as the space between the tops of the pillars and the wall is roofed over, a covered portico is formed, which leads on each side to the doors of the staircases which are in the pyramidal moles. These staircases furnish access to the chambers of the propylsea. There is also a row of four pillars, including the corner one, on each side of the doorway as we enter the court, similarly covered over. From the base of these pillars to the top of the stone covering is about 37 feet, 6 inches. From the entrance of the court to the porch of the temple itself MEMPHIS AND HELIOPOLlS. 77 there is a gradual ascent by a kind of steps, so that the portico is about 56 feet above the lowest level of the court. This is common in many other temples, and appears to have been done for the purpose of giving elevation to the facade. In the temple at Edfon, the portico consists of eighteen pillars, six in a row; the intercolumniations of the central pillars forming the doorway, being, as usual, the largest. The intercolum- niations of the front row of pil]ars are built up to half their height. After passing through this porch there is a doorway leading to the sekos or cells, which, in the Egyptian temples is ahvays divided into several apart- ments. The entrance passage has on each side a long chamber, and conducts into a large hypostole hall, sup- ported by twelve pillars. It has a flat roof, composed of thick slabs of stone, resting on large stone beams which cross from each pillar to the next in the same row. After leaving this chamber we come to another long and narrow one, from which there are two small entrances to the side galleries, wherein we see flights of steps leading upwards to the roof of the sekos. Still farther we see another small chamber, with an apartment on each side of it, probably for the use of the priests. From this last-mentioned chamber we enter the holy recess itself, (the sanctuary,) an oblong room about 38 feet by 17, in which the figure of the deity was placed. . . . From the chamber which is im- mediately in front of the adytum, we see two galleries run down on each side of it, and leading to a doorway, by which the priests might walk into a large but per- fectly retired space all round the sanctuary, or might ascend to the roof by a flight of steps, to enjoy the 7S CHEAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. pure air and light on the terraced roof; for below they had no light at all, except it might be from small aper- tures, through which the Fellahs, who now live on the roof, discharge all their dirt into the temple. It will be observed, that from the covered gallery, on each side of the large open area, there is a path continued all round the temple, between the outer and inner wall. Probably the vulgar were allowed to use this walk, as a thick wall was between them and the apartments devoted to the priests and the worship of the deity ; for none but the priests, and probably the kings, were admitted into the inner apartments, much less into the adytum, which contained the representation of the deity. Now it would be difficult to establish a detailed analogy between this temple and that of Solomon, from the want of distinct information concerning the latter; but we think that the general resemblance which we have suggested will be the more confirmed, the more carefully a comparison is made." PERSEPOLIS. " AN exalted God is Aurarnazda, Who created this earth and yonder heaven, Who created the races of men, and who Brought forth to light their mighti; Who made Darius a ruler An alone-reigning kin; over vnT.iv>-, An alone-ruling cci-iaiuu 1 r over thousands. "I am Br.rlaa, Kir^ exalted, King of K'^s, King of all nation-enclosing territories, King of this exalted earth, near and far, Son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, Son of an Arian, myself an Arian, distributor of honours ! " Darius the King lets this sound forth : By the grace of Auramazda, I these Following regions have conquered, Besides the Persian country. I am To be revcied of them ; to me they have portioned forth tribute ; Every command of mine have they fulfilled ; and my law Was respected of them : " Media, Susiana, Parthia, Aria, Bactria, Sogdiana, Chorasmia, Sarangia, Arachotia, Sattagydia, Gandaria, Scindia, the Imaus-dwelling Sacae, the Sacae, Drinkers' in of the founts of Tigris, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Mythraya, (JEgyptia,) Armenia, Cappadocia, Sparta, Ionia, the over-sea-residing Sacae, The Skhudrii (?Scyths,) the lonians of Tauros, the Budians, The Khuschiyae, the Madiyae, the Chalcidians. ' Darius the King lets this sound afar: When Auramazda Beheld this earth (79) 80 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. Afar from what was Right, as a king it pleased him To constitute me. I am King By the grace of Auramazda : I have ordered them again to healthiness. What I directed them to do, that Did they as it seemed good unto me ; Whatever entered into my mind, Commanded I those nations to perform; Those nations reigned over by Darius. ***** " If you hold carefully the sculpture It brings you comfort, If you wilfully damage it, Heirlessness shall be your part, Afar off from the Persians. * * Passed away shall be the inheritance, Afar off shall dwindle the Persians ! Up Persians, and castigate sinfulness ! " This is sounded afar of Darius The king : What I have completed is by the grace of Auramazda, May thou protect me and my work, And my nations and these territories! This I Entreat of Auramazda ! May Auramazda reign ! " Man ! pursue uniformly the ordinances of Aurnma/da ; Holy precepts ! Let him be thy enlightener ! Relinquish not the straight way! Sin not ! Avoid to destroy !' : Such are the strains in which the Persians of old celebrated the glories of their nation under the reign of Darius Hystaspes. This triumphal Psean, which, like the Odes of the Theban Pindar, blends haughty and exulting praises of the conqueror with quaint moral saws and precepts, forms a fitting introduction to our notice of the ruined city of Persepolis. It must, how- ever, be observed, that these ruins, although, by the PERSEPOLIS. 81 height of their columns compared with the thinness of their proportions, they may seem to approximate to tho slim delicacy of the Corinthian style of Grecian art, still their claims to a higli school of art are less esta- blished than those of their Assyrian and Egyptian pro- totypes. Vaux, one of the most distinct and compre- hensive writers on the subject, well points out the two distinct schools of art indicated by the monuments of ancient Persia, as those executed previous to the period of Alexander the Great, and those which are due to the monarchs of the Sassanian house. Of the former class, those of Persepolis have the best claim to our attention, as well from their own magnificence, as from the complete information with which the frequent visits of travellers have furnished us. If the reader expect to find many known historical facts connected with the history of the " Forty Pillars," as these ruins are popularly called, he will be even more disappointed than in the case of the Babylonian and Assyrian remains. It nowhere appears in history in the character of a royal residence, although, as our description will presently show, their burial place has been discovered among the caves of its neighbouring mountains. Cyrus-, the regenerator of oriental power and civilization, as well as his descendants, resided alternately at Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana, and chronological reasons seem to render it unlikely that Cyrus could have spent much time at, or added to the splendour of Persepolis. To Darius, son of Hystaspes, and Xerxes, recent investigations seem to assign them beyond much reason for doubt. Assuming, then, that Persepolis owed its chief magni- 82 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. ficence to the liberality of the former of those two kings, a brief glance at the political influence and condition of the Persians under him will perhaps form the best Introduction, to our notice of Persepolis in its fallen condition. Herodotus has dwelt with much apparent accuracy upon the political acts of this prince, which present the same blending of the arts of war and peace, the same impatience for extended empire united with the same cautious conversation at home, which we find in the other chief personages of philosophical history. As in the case of Egypt, accumulated territory required a dis- tribution of official influence, and the now large empire of Persia was divided into nineteen satrapies. Hero- dotus is evidently wrong in regarding this as a merely financial arrangement, made with a view to the taxation of districts, although, as has been suggested, it is not perfect as a geographical one. Places extremely dis- tant are found ranged under one satrapy, but it seems possible that this arrangement might have resulted from a desire of conciliating the feelings of particular people, who, although distant, were best disposed to yield obedience to some leaders whose dispositions they had each previously experienced. Furthermore, such an arrangement would be fraught with little inconvenience in a country, where an organized staff of couriers per- formed the functions of a regular post, and thus pre- served uniformity by a systematic and steady convey- ance of the royal despatches and edicts. By such means the natural tendency to revolt, to which we have before referred in the case of other mixed populations of the east, was efficiently curbed, one province being PEHSEPOLIS. 85 made a coraparitive restraint upon its neighbour. During such a reign, it is fair to suppose that Perse- polis was second to none of the leading cities ; nay more, it may have been the leading scene of the con- quering Darius. But the victorious career of this prince was destined to end with the doubtful campaign against the Scythians. Returning with a partial success, his latter days wero clouded by the revolt of Egypt, and by the* grand blow struck by the successive defeats of the Persians at Plataea and Marathon, on September 29, B. c. 490. His death left the puerile Xerxes heir to a throne he could ill support, but whose contributions to the palace of Persepolis, left unfinished by his father, are perhaps his best claim to mention in the present essay. We may now proceed to give some idea of the ruins of the magnificence which the united testimony of ancient writers has assigned to the great fallen city of Persepolis. The voice of so eloquent and so accurate an eye-witness as Sir Robert Ker Porter, must tell its own tale : " On drawing near to the Chebel Minar, or Palace of Forty Pillars, the eye is riveted by the grandeur and beautiful decorations of the flights of steps which lead up to them. This superb approach consists of a double staircase, projecting considerable before the northern face of the terrace, the whole length of which is 212 feet ; and at each extremity, east and west, rises another range of steps ; again, about the middle, and projecting from it eighteen feet, appear two smaller flights, rising from the same points, where the extent of the range, including a landing-place of twenty feet, 8 86 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. amounts to eighty-six feet. The ascent, like that of the great entrance from the plain, is extremely gradual : each flight containing only thirty-two low steps, none exceeding four inches in height, fourteen inches in breadth, and sixteen feet in length. The whole front of the advanced range is covered with sculpture. The eye at first roves over it, lost in the multitude of figures, and bewildered by the thronging ideas instantly asso- ciated with the crowd of various interesting objects before it. The space immediately under the landing- place is divided into three compartments. The centre one has a plain surface, as if intended for an inscrip- tion ; probably writing may have been there which is now obliterated. To the left of it are four standing figures, about five feet six inches high, habited in long robes, with brogues like buskins on their feet. They each hold a short spear in an upright position in both hands. The fluted flat-topped cap, before described on other bas-relie[X is on their heads; and from the left shoulder ham*:-; their bow and quiver. On the right of the vacant tablet are three figures only. They look towards the opposite four, and differ in no way, with respect to their robes and fluted helmet ; but they have neither bows nor qui-ver, carrying their spear only, with the addition of a large shield on the left arm, something in the shape of a violoncello ; or rather, I should say, exactly in the form of a Boeotian buckler. Two angular spaces, on each side of the borf&powTittg groups of spearmen described on the surface of the staircase, are filled with duplicate representations of a fight between a lion and a bull, a most spirited and admirable performance From the circumstance PEllSEPOLIS. 87 of a collar round the neck of the bull, it proves him to be no wild one, and that we are not to understand tho combat as accidental : but whether it may be received as a proof that such combats were brought forward before the Persian people, is another question. That wild animals, of the untameablo sort, were not merely hunted by the bold spirits of these eastern princes, but preserved near their palaces, is evident from the lions' den which we find at Babylon after its conquest by Cyrus ; but by no accounts that I can recollect, does it appear that beasts so immured were ever used for sport of any kind after their first capture. On the inclined plains, corresponding with the slope of the stairs, runs a kind of frieze, on which is cut a line of figures, one foot nine inches high, answering in number to tho stq;s, each one of which appears to form a pedestal for its relative figure. The figures themselves appear to be a lengthening rank of those already de- scribed on each side of the blank tablet: and a similar range runs up the opposite slope. " The immense space of the upper platform stretches to the north and south 350 feet, and from east to west 380 feet ; the greater part of which is covered with broken capitals, shafts, and pillars, and countless frag- ments of building : some of which are richly orna- mented with the most exquisite sculpture. The pillars were arranged in four divisions, consisting of a centre group six deep every way, and an advanced body of twelve, in two ranks, and the same number flanking the centre. The first is to the north : it is composed of two parallel lines of six columns in each, falling twenty feet back from the landing-place of the stairs 88 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. and meeting the eye immediately on ascending them. The columns are at equal distances from one another. One only still stands ; the shattered bases of nine others still remain, but the places only are left of the other two, which completed the colonnade. Of the remain- ing columns, which once decorated these colonnades, nine only now stand, the rest have been totally destroyed, or lie buried under masses of ruins, now forming hillocks. The front of the columns is very beautiful ; their total height is sixty feet, the circum- ference of the shaft sixteen, and its length, from the capital to the torus, forty-four feet. The shaft is finely fluted in fifty-two divisions ; at its lower ex- tremity begin a cincture and a torus, the first two inches in depth, and the latter one foot, from whence devolves the pedestal, in the form of the cup and leaves of a pendant lotus. The capitals which remain, though much injured, are sufficient to shew that they were once surmounted by a double demi-bull." DAMASCUS. HE history of Damascus presents a strong contrast, in more than one respect, to that of the cities which have hitherto formed the subjects of our remarks.- Not only arc the scriptural notices of this city more distinct, numerous, and interesting, but it is to this day a populous and flourishing city, although the influ- ence of Moslemism presses with a era and despotical sway upon the mixed population f Jews and Christians which throng its streets and azaars. Of the origin of this most scriptural of cities, nothing srtain is known, but it certainly was well known in ic days of Abraham. L. Miiller maintains that it ns even then governed by its own rulers, an opini^s: liich if? rendered probable by its subsequent influence; ver the whole Syrian empire. Possessed by nature f every advantage of situation and soil, it v-ras weii lited to be the " head of Syria," the powerful and (91) 92 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. busy city, which was hereafter destined to give alar even to the favoured king of the Jews, David, and t successor. Benhadad II., in his campaign again Samaria, was accompanied by " thirty and two kings and although these were doubtless little more thj pashas or satraps, ruling over districts, the extent < the kingdom of Damascus may be well estimated fro their number. But great as was the power of Damascus under tl prince's reign, idolatry had stretched forth its corrup ing influence ; and although Benhadad was permitt< to be a scourge to the weak and wavering Ahab, I boastful impiety, and his daring challenge of Jehov; as a "god of the hills," brought down a signal defea the result of a heaven-inspired delusion ; " for the Lo] made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariot and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great hos and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Isra hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and tl kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us. Wherefor they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tent and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as was, and fled for their life." During a subsequent i ness, he fell a victim to the treachery of Hazael, o] of his chief officers, who smothered him in his bed, ai continued to oppress the people of Israel and Juda especially the former. Jeroboam, however, effected diversion in favour of the oppressed Jews, and captur< Damascus. Subsequently, we find Rezin and Peka the confederate kings of Damascus and Israel, makii a joint attempt against Ahaz, king of Judah. Tl prince sought aid at the hands of the Assyrian monarc DAMASCUS. 93 glath Pileser, who, induced by a large bribe, fell upon .d captured Damascus, carrying its people captive to ir, slaying their monarch, and uniting the Syrio- irnascene territory with his own. The glory of Damascus, as an independent kingdom, d set ; and she henceforth appears in the pages of story only as a tributary province. Annexed to the tbylonian and Persian empires, it fell into the hands Alexander the Great, just after the decisive battle Issus ; and at his death formed a part of the kingdom the Seleucidge, whence it passed to the Romans. It is in its condition as a Roman province that Da- iscus claims especial consideration, in reference to 3 history of the New Testament. Fraught with sociations the most interesting; with the remembrance a divine interposition the most sublime in its mani- itation, the most important in its influence on the reading forth and earth-wide development of the ghty truths of Christianity ; the scene of Paul's con- rsion, humiliation, and " setting apart" for the glori- s work that was to change darkness into light, and read the white wings of the angel of Truth over the iole dark abyss of an erring and ignorant world ; imascus, next to Jerusalem, lies before us as " holy ound," as one of those spots where the grandest nvulsions of society took their origin, as teeming with ndly-cherished recollections of the great Apostle who became all things unto all men." It is not difficult to suppose that the spots pointed :t as intimately connected with St. Paul's vision and aversion may have been preserved by the pious meinbrance of Christians; and that the traditions 94 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOKLD. which place the scene of this great revelation from heaven about half a mile eastward from the city, and in sight of Mount Hermon, as well as those which point out the gate (now walled up) whence Paul waa let down in a basket, in order to escape from the death with which he was threatened, deserve more credence than is always to be accorded to such stories. Maun- drell, whose account well deserves perusal, quaintly describes a building shewn as the house of Ananias, who restored Paul to sight. " The place shewn for it is, according to the old rule, a small grotto or cellar, affording nothing remarkable, but only that there are in it a Christian Church and a Turkish praying-place, seated nearer to each other than well agrees with the nature of such places." In the days of Benjamin of Tudela, the taste for displaying relics did not confine itself to objects of Christian interest. .A grand mosque, called the " Synagogue of Damascus," was pointed out as the palace of Benhadad, " one wall of which was framed of glass by enchantment. This wall contained as many openings as there are days in the solar year, and the sun in gradual succession threw its light into the openings, which were divided into twelve degrees, equal to the number of the hours of the day, so that by this contrivance every body might know what time it was." The rib of an ancient giant-king, named Abchamas, traditionally said to have reigned over the whole world, was, according to the same authority, exhibited with equally superstitious veneration. But although Damascus was thus singularly honoured in being made the scene :of the first spreading forth of Christianity among the Gentile world, the compulsory DAMASCUS. 95 escape of St. Paul proves that its inhabitants possessed little susceptibility of the truths which were thus mira- culously set before their eyes. Nor is it uninstructive to mark the connection of the bigotry, which has dis- tinguished the conduct of the inhabitants towards the Christians at a later period, with the intolerant fury of its Jewish inhabitants, which led them to stifle the first dawning of the truth, and fo turn a deaf ear to the awakening voice of their conscience-smitten and repent- ant countryman. Nevertheless, as if in mercy to the scattered people of Israel, Damascus is, to this day, one of the most flourishing cities of the East. After a continued exist- ence for, perhaps, a longer period than any other city of the earth, its wealth, trade, and commerce, are still suggestive of the splendid position it occupied under the Greek emperors of Constantinople. Despite its conquests by Abubekr, Muhammad's famous successor, and by Timur the Tartar, at a subsequent period; despite the reign of Islamism which has pressed its harsh footsteps on the subdued Christians, Damascus is a lively representative of every country of the world. While Baalbek and Palmyra, its magnificent neighbours, present nought but a heap of shattered ruins, the streets of Damascus resound with the busy hum of men ; and though persecution still threatens the name of Christian, and brands the Frank as unclean, natural influences are gradually softening the cry of bigotry, and ameliorating the condition of resident believers. Travellers are unanimous in describing the beauty of the surrounding plains, and the picturesque effect of 96 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. the city itself, as viewed on approaching it. Carne, in his Letters from the East, gives the following interest- ing description : " On the following day we set out early, impatient to behold the celebrated plain of Damascus. A large round mountain in front prevented us from catching a glimpse of it, until, on turning a point of the rock, it appeared suddenly at our feet. Perhaps the barren and dreary hills we had been for some days passing made the plain look doubly beauti- ful, and we stood gazing at it for some time ere we advanced. The domes and minarets of the sacred city rose out of the heart of a forest of gardens and treees, which was twelve miles in circumference. Four or five small rivers ran through the forest and city, glittering at intervals in the sun ; and to form that vivid contrast of objects, in which Asiatic so much excels European scenery, the plain was encircled on three of its sides by mountains of light and naked rocks. " After descending the mountain, we were some time before we entered the city. Damascus is seven miles in circumference ; the width is quite disproportionate to the length, which is above two miles. The walls of this most ancient city in the world are low, and do not en- close it more than two thirds round. " The street still called Straight, and where St. Paul is with reason said to have lived, is entered by the road from Jerusalem. It is as straight as an arrow, a mile in length, broad, and well paved. A lofty window in one of the towers to the east, is shown as the place where the apostle was let down in a basket. In the way to Jerusalem is the spot where his course was arrested by the light from heaven. A Christian is not DAMASCUS. 97 allowed to reside in Damascus, except in a Turkish dress. " The great number of tall palm and cypress trees in the plain of Damascus add much to its beauty. The fruits of the plain are of various kinds, and of ex-, cellent flavour. Provisions are cheap ; the bread is the finest to be found in the East ; it is sold every morning in small light cakes, perfectly white, and surpasses in quality even that of Paris. This luxurious city is no place to perform penance in ; the paths around, wind- ing through the mass of fruit-trees, invite you daily to the most delightful rides and walks. Among the fruits produced in Damascus are oranges, citrons, and apricots of various kinds. The celebrated plain of roses, from the produce of which the rich perfume (attar of roses) is obtained, is about three miles from the town ; it is a part of the great plain, and its entire area is thickly planted with rose-trees, in the cultivation of which great care is taken. "The place called 'the Meeting of the Waters/ is about five miles to the north-west of the city. Here the river Barrady, which may be the ancient Abana, being enlarged by another river that falls into it about two miles off, is divided into several streams, which flow through the plain. The separation is the result of art, and takes place at the foot of one or two rocky hills, and the scene is altogether very picturesque. The streams, six or seven in number, are some of them carried to water the orchards and gardens of the higher grounds, others into the lower, but all meet at last close to the city and form a fine cataract." PALMYRA. HAVE retained the Grecian name of this interesting city, although the pre- valence of local usage still clings to the ancient Tadmor. Throughout the East, from the oldest times, the pre- sence of the palm-tree has ever been regarded as a proof of fertility, es- ^ pecially in distinguishing the small oases rising like islands in the ocean, amidst a barren tract of sand, and gladdening the tired and thirsty traveller by the hope of a green shade and fresh water two blessings which all who have visited the East eagerly appreciate. Hence has the palm-tree become a favourite subject in architectural decoration, as in the Egyptian temples at Denderah and Luxor; and the c< City of Palms" was a natural and fitting epithet for this grand commercial resort, frequented, in the days of its founder Solomon, by caravans from all the leading cities of the East. It must be remembered, however, that although palm-trees are still found in the gardens which environ the ruins of Palmyra, they are but sparing in comparison of the numbers which once gave occasion to so truly eastern an epithet. Before entering upon a description of the ruins which cover the ground upon which so many busy thousands (98) PALMYRA. 101 once trafficked, a glance at the political features of Solomon's reign will furnish the most probable notion of the greatness of Palmyra, and of the motives that led to its aggrandizement. With a character remarkable for caution rather than courage, with a worldliness of disposition which led him to prefer wealth to glory, Solomon was fortunate in succeeding to a kingdom which the complete and recent victories of his father had placed in a state of compara- tive security. The circumstances attendant on his birth would materially tend to keep him in comparative seclu- sion, and the favourite offspring of Bathsheba was per- haps spared any military or political exertion, till the time when, with an understanding matured by carefnl study, and a disposition as yet little sullied by the temptations of court intrigues, or the more dangerous allurements of idolatry, he found himself master of re- sources which, as is oftentimes the case with the labours of another, were to render proverbial the name of the man who had employed rather than amassed them. Nor is there much doubt but that Bathsheba, a woman of a crafty and resolute spirit, who had gained an influ- ence sufficient to enable her to supplant those whose claims to the throne seemed more direct, had a con- siderable influence in forming the mind of the future king. Like a Tanaquil or a Semiramis, her ambition and her forethought instructed Solomon in the probable means of security, and the right organization of a power which, once misdirected, would come to the same pre- mature end which had already befallen so many mighty dynasties. Universal prosperity cheered the efforts of the Jews, 9* 102 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. and politicians would not be slow to deride the shrewd, money-making habits of this people, even in their isolated state, up to the present day, from the habits of trade matured by their intercourse with the Egyptians and Tyrians during the reign of this "merchant-sove- reign." The nature of the traffic thus opened has been well observed by a masterly biographer* of this prince's history, although he has, perhaps, taken too harsh a view of the private character made too little allowance for some of the feelings, of Solomon. " The agricultural tribes enjoyed a soil and climate in some parts eminently fruitful, and in all richly re- warding the toil of irrigation ; so that, in the security of peace, nothing more was wanted to develope the resources of the nation than markets for its various produce. In food for men and cattle, in timber and fruit-trees, in stone, and probably in the useful metals, the land supplied, of itself, all the first wants of its people in abundance. For exportation, it is distinctly stated that wheat, barley, oil and wine, were in chief demand ; to which we may conjecturally add, wool, hides, and other raw materials. The king, undoubtedly, had large districts and extensive herds of his own ; but, besides this, he received presents in kind from his own people, and from the subject nations ; and it was pos- sible in this way to make demands upon them, without severe oppression, to an extent that is unbearable where taxes must be paid in gold or silver. He was himself at once monarch and merchant; and we may, with much * F, W. Newman, in Kitto, v. ii. p. 780. The only apology I can make for using so copious an extract, is my inability to convey so much infor- mation in a better manner. PALMYRA. 103 confidence, infer, that no private merchant will be allowed to compete with a prince who has assumed the mercantile character. By his intimate commercial union with the Tyrians, he was put into the most favourable of all positions for disposing of his goods. That ener- getic nation, possessing so small a strip of territory, had much need of various raw produce for their own wants. Another large demand was made by them for the raw materials of manufactures, and for articles which they could with advantage sell again ; and as they were able to furnish so many acceptable luxuries to the court of Solomon, a most active exchange soon commenced. Only second in importance to this, and superior in fame, was the commerce of the Red Sea, which could not have been successfully prosecuted with- out the aid of Tyriaii enterprise and experience. The navigation to Sheba, and the districts beyond whether of Eastern Arabia or Africa in spite of its tediousness, was highly lucrative, from the vast diversity of produc- tions between the countries so exchanging ; while, as it was a trace of monopoly, a very disproportionate share of the whole gain fell to the carriers of the merchandize. The Egyptians were the only nation who might have been rivals in the southern maritime traffic ; but their religion and their exclusive principles did not favour sea voyages ; and there is some reason to think that, at this early period, they abstained from sending their own people abroad for commerce. The goods brought back from the south were chiefly gold, precious stones, spice, almug, or other scented woods, and ivory ; all of which were probably so abundant in their native regions as to be parted with on easy terms : and, of course, 104 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. were all admirably suited for re-exportation to Europe. The carrying trade, which was thus shared between Solomon and the Tyrians, was probably the most lucra- tive part of the southern and eastern commerce. How large a portion of it went on by caravans of camels, is wholly unknown ; yet, that this branch was considerable, is certain. From Egypt Solomon imported not only linen yarn, but even horses and chariots, which were &old again to the princes of Syria and of the Hittites : and were probably prized for the superior breed of the horses, and for the light, strong, and elegant structure of the chariots. Wine being abundant in Palestine, and wholly wanting in Egypt, was, no doubt, a princi- pal means of repayment." That Solomon's trading correspondence also extended to Babylon, may be fairly inferred from the situation of two of his main stations Thapsacus, on the Eu- phrates, and the city we are now describing. Unfortu- nately, we are unable to identify any of the original architecture, nor has research brought to light any remains bearing reference to the reign of the great founder of Jewish commerce. Some square towers, generally regarded as the tombs of the ancient inhabi- tants, in which are found memorials similar to those of Egypt, are found along the lower eminence of the mountains called Jabel Belaes, which border the ruins, running nearly north and south. These are probably of older date than the decidedly Grecian structures which compose the ensemble of the ruins ; but, taken a& a whole, the remains of Palmyra present few objects of scriptural interest. In connection with the commercial influence of Pal- PALMYRA. 105 myra, Prideaux's description of it at a later period, is sufficiently instructive to deserve a place in these pages. u It is built on an island of firm land, which lies in the midst of a vast ocean of sand, in sandy deserts sur- rounding it on every side. Its neighbourhood to the Euphrates having placed it in the confines of two potent empires that of the Parthians on the east, and that of the Romans on the west it happened often that, in times of war, they were ground between both. But, in times of peace, they made themselves sufficient amends by their commerce with each of them, and the great riches which they gained thereby. For the caravans from Persia and India, which now unload at Aleppo, did in those times unload at Palmyra, and from thence the eastern commodities, which came overland, being carried to the next ports on the Mediterranean, were from thence transmitted into the west, and the western commodities being through the same way brought from the said ports to the city, were there laden on the same caravans, and, on their return, carried back and dis- persed over all the East. So that as Tyre, and after- wards Alexandria, were the chief marts for the eastern trade that was carried on by sea, Palmyra was for some time the chief mart for so much of that trade as was carried on by land." I have before observed that we find but few remains that belong to the era of the early glory of Palmyra. Even as early as the reign of the emperor Trajan, it was lying waste, but was rebuilt, under the name of Adrianopolis, by his successor Adrian. Under Cara- calla it obtained the privileges of a Roman colony. 106 GllEAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. During the weak and fast failing condition of the Roman empire, which ensued under Galenius and Valerian, when provinces and colonies were fast asserting their inde- pendence of the mother city, Odenatus became master of Palmyra, and of the whole territory of Mesopotamia. He boldly assumed the title of king, and, at his death, his queen Zenobia became mistress of most of the east- ern provinces of the Roman empire. Zenobia was a wonderful woman. Shrewd, vigilant, and persevering, she was equally renowned for her learning and her political abilities. "Whilst, like Lady Jane Grey, she gave her private moments to the study of Greek, and probably of the sciences of eloquence and criticism, under the judicious Loiiginus, she dis- played the energy of an Elizabeth in her regular atten- dance at the council-chamber, and in her admirable arrangements for the defence and consolidation of her vast power. But her abilities failed to withstand the exertions of Aurelian, who vanquished the Amazon-like queen, and led her in triumph to Rome, leaving the depopulated and ruined city as an evidence of his prowess. Subsequently perhaps out of compliment to the bravery and skill of Zenobia he ordered the Temple of the Sun to be restored, garrisoned the town, and appointed a deputy over the surrounding district. Subsequent emperors contributed variously to the restoration and adornment of the city, but in A. D. 744, it was taken by the Khalif Merwan, after an obstinate resistance of seven months, and its decay gradually set in. When Benjamin of Tudela visited the place, it contained "2,000 warlike Jews, who were at war with the Christians, and with the Arabian subjects of PALMY11A. 107 Noureddin." In A. D. 1400, it was pillaged by the irmy of Tamerlane. " The ruins cover a san^y plain, stretching along the oasis of a range of mountains called Jebel Belaes, funning nearly north and south, dividing the great desert from the desert plains, extending westwards towards Damascus, and the north of Syria. The lower eminences of these mountains, bordering the ruins, are covered with numerous solitary square towers, the tombs of the ancient Palmyrenes, in which are found me- morials similar to those of Egypt. They are seen to a great distance, and have a striking effect in this desert solitude. Beyond the valley which leads through these hills, the ruined city first opens upon the view. The thousands of Corinthian columns of white marble, erect and fallen, and covering an extent of about a mile and a half, present an appearance which travellers compare to that of a forest. The site on which the city stands is slightly elevated above the level of the sur- rounding desert for a circumference of about ten miles, which the Arabs believe to coincide with the extent of the ancient city, as they find ancient remains whenever they dig within this space. There are, indeed, traces of an old wall, not more than three miles in circum- ference, but this was probably built by Justinian, at a time when Palmyra had lost its ancient importance, and become a desolate place, and when it was conse- quently desirable to contract its bounds so as to include only the'more valuable portion. Volney well describes the general aspect which these ruins present : ' In the space covered by these ruins we sometimes find a palace, of which nothing remains but the court and walls; 108 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. sometimes a temple, whose peristyle is half thrown down ; and now a portico, a gallery, or triumphal arch. Here stand groups of colunyis, whose symmetry is de- stroyed by the fall of many of them ; there we see them ranged in rows of such length, that, similar to rows of trees, they deceive the sight, and assume the appearance of continued walls. If, from this striking scene, we cast our eyes upon the ground, another, almost as varied, presents itself: on all sides we behold nothing but subverted shafts, some whole, others shat- tered to pieces, or dislocated in their joints; and on which side soever we look, the earth is strewed with vast stones, half buried, with broken entablatures, mutilated friezes, disfigured reliefs, effaced sculptures, violated tombs, and altars denied by dust.' ' Recent travellers, however, are much less glowing in their encomiums of the beauty of the ruins of Pal- myra. "Whilst allowing the grandeur of the general effect, they complain of great deficiency in the propor- tion and finish of the details. It must, however, be remembered, that the colossal grandeur of an original design may have been impoverished by the alterations of subsequent ages, and that the degeneracy in art, which characterized the declining era of Rome, has probably left marks of its officious interference with the works of a more refined and sober school of art. Whilst the name has been scrupulously preserved, not a vestige remains of the old city of Solomon. BAALBEK OR BAALGAD. IT happens, unfortunately for the antiquarian. tLfct. - Lilst we pos- sess tbo i;.opt complete descriptions . dr'itils of the magnificent which attest the ancient lux- ury and wealth of the inhabitants of Baalbek, we possess scarcely any information respecting their history. It is next to impossible to believe that they are purely of Roman origin, although we have authority for assigning a portion of them to the liberality of Antoninus Pius. It is possible that this emperor may have restored, augmented, or altered structures already existing ; and other autho- rities seem to prove that Baalbek was always regarded as a place of importance under the emperors. But of its earlier history, of its connection with primitive Ext- ern nations, and its relation to {heir mythology and superstitions, we possess nothing but vague conjectures, founded upon inadequate and unsatisfactory data. "The town of Baalbek is now almost a com; ruin, with .the walls which surrounded it. of an irregu- lar quadrangle in form, fallen in many places, an-l inhabited abodes being of a most wretched character. Immense quantities of hewn stone and fragments of pillars, both of the common rock of the country, arc strewn about in all direction. . The eye of the traveller, (111) 112 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. however, does not rest on their prostration and confu- sion, and the filth with which they are associated. It sees, standing up in majesty amidst the apocryphal Saracenic and Turkish towers and walls of the fort> .the proudest and grandest memorials of human archi- tecture on which it has ever rested : and it scans with wonder and astonishment the remains of the temples, and their courts and colonnades, of Heliopolis. The ruins are those of a greater and lesser temple. The sub-basement of both the temples is artificial, to give them a superior elevation ; and the court of the larger, in particular, is principally on arched vaults, to some of which access can now be got. The peristyles of the temples stand on strong masonry ; but this it has been intended to conceal by facings of stone, or rather rock, of the most prodigious size ever used in architecture, as is evident at the western and northern ends of the great temple. The enormity of some of the stones of the facing has been often brought to notice. One stone, in the western wall overlooked both by Maun- drell, and Wood, and Dawkins, probably because irregularly cut in the outer surface, though of an undivided mass is sixty-nine feet in length, thirteen in depth, and eighteen in breadth, affording altogether a block of raised rock to give it in letters of sixteen thousand one hundred and forty-six cubic feet. The fellow of this stone is left nearly ready cut in the quarry, about a quarter of an hour to the south of the town, to challenge posterity to come up to the deeds of ancestry by removing it from its position. Above the stone in the sub-basement now alluded to, there are other three of enormous dimensions, forming ita BAALBEK, OR BAAL-GAD. 118 second elevation, of which Wood and Dawkins say, that they found the length to make together above a hundred and ninety feet, and separately sixty-three feet eight inches, sixty-four feet, and sixty -three feet. But let us return again to our plan. We have, begin- ning with the east, a staircase, leading np to a grand portico, with chambers on each side. From the por- tico, the entrance must have been by a large and two smaller doors into a hexagonal court, with various little chambers and niches for idols, the pedestals of which, in many instances, still remain. From this court, the entrance is into a large quadrangular court, with similar conveniences. Passing this second court, we are at the large temple, properly so called. Its remains, in addition to its lower works, consist of a colonnade of six Corinthian pillars of majestic size, and bearing a rich entablature, forming altogether objects of enchanting architectural beauty, with looking at which the eye is never satisfied. These columns be- long to the flank of the temple, the original number having been nineteen, while there were ten in front. The bases and pedestals of the others are in their places. A number of the shafts are strewn about, generally with the three pieces of which they were composed separated from one another. The height of these pillars, including the architrave, we found to be seventy-five feet ten inches. Their diameter, taking the measurement between the first and second stones, is seven feet three inches. Their distance from one another is eight feet seven inches. The temple cer- tainly was never finished. The ruins of Baalbek astonish every visitant. Their great delineators, who 10* 114 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. took only an artistic view of them, say: c "VVhen we compare them with those of many ancient cities which we visited in Italy, Greece, Egypt, and other parts of Asia, we cannot help thinking them the boldest plan we ever saw attempted in architecture.' Speaking even of the smaller temple, Maundrell says : ' It strikes the mind with an air of greatness beyond any- thing that I ever saw before, and is an eminent proof of the magnificence of the ancient architecture.' Less grave and sober travellers have written of them with unbounded rapture. Lord Lindsay says :* Palmyra at sunrise and Baalbek at sunset, are Claudes trea- sured in the cabinet of memory, which neither accident can injure, nor beggary deprive one of.' ' A French writer has remarked, that the present ap- pearance of the ruins of Baalbek exhibits a remarkable instance of the destructive effects of vegetation blossom- ing upon the ruins, and seeming to sport in the desola- tion that gives it birth. The ideas that suggested the simple but touching ballad of the " Ivy Green" to Charles Dickens, are but a more familiar, though less classical, appeal to the same feelings that are called forth by a glance at the "nature that has done her work of destruction ; that has stretched forth the living ivies ; that have disjointed walls of the utmost solidity ; has sown the pillitory that creeps about the archi- tectural ornaments; has pressed down pilasters with dense clusters of nopal, and broken through ceilings with the towering" heads of the sycamore." Travellers concur in bearing testimony to the supe- riority of the architecture of Baalbek over that of Palmyra ; but Addison, a judicious but somewhat over- 115 critical traveller, considers that "the rains, though so striking and magnificent, are yet, however, quite second- rate when compared with the Athenian ruins, and dis- play in their decoration none of the bold conceptions and the genius which characterize the Athenian archi- tecture." It is, perhaps to be wished that comparisons with works confessedly belonging to the highest and most advanced school , of Grecian art, were less frequently made in criticising the productions of an uncertain era ; especially when we have insufficient data as to how far the blending of the workmanship of ages far distant may have destroyed the vigour and grandeur of the original design^ without supplying the deficiency with adequate finish of decoration, according to a more mo- dern rule of taste. The buildings at Baalbek perhaps suffer in this respect, as much from the exaggerations of some of their visitors, as from a too critical taste for comparisons on the part of others. Nevertheless, so favourable is the general impression of the bold subli- mity displayed in at least a large portion of the present remains, that we will venture to try our reader's patience with another quotation from the lively pen of Castle- reagh : " I can add nothing to the tributes that have been paid to their magnificence, except the testimony of one fresh from all the wonders of Egypt, and the fairy beauties of Petra, who, nevertheless was amazed and enchanted by the splendour of Baalbek. Here the traveller finds ail the vastness of conception and execu- tion belonging to the Egyptian school, ornamented 116 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. by the richest and most elaborate sculpture of a later age. " Nothing can surpass the friezes and cornices of the smaller temple. The door of entrance, as a piece of workmanship, excels all that even imperial Rome can boast of. The whole area of these edifices is covered with prostrate columns and their capitals. The stone is very hard, and the cutting as fine as it is possible to conceive. But wherever the eye wanders among the ruins, it involuntarily turns to the magnificent Sextuor, which rises, like the personification of strength and beauty, as if it stood there to be worshipped as the deity of the place. " But it is painful to behold the destruction that time and man have worked ; many are the changes which the temples have undergone since they were sacred to the idols of Baal ; for Baalbek has been turned into a fortress, and bastions and batteries have been erected among her colonnades and porticos. These, again, are gone, and with them a mosque which had been built in the midst of the walls ; but many a fragment on which the richest sculpture is portrayed is recognised amidst the rough execution of modern Vandals, who broke down pillar and capital, frieze and bas-relief, to con- struct a wretched mosque, and make a fortification that was useless. " I do not pretend to guess at the history of Baal- bek. But it is clear that its foundations and origin are of the earliest date. How far, and at what time, the Roman brought his taste and skill to bear upon what he discovered here, I know not ; but the temples would appear cotemporaneous with, or very little younger CIRCULAR TEMI'LB AT I5AALEEC. BAALBEK, Oil BAAL-GAD 119 than Karnac and Luxor ; all, however, is lost in mys- tery, for the traces of their history cannot be followed out, and the confusion that prevails among all the rem- nants of these mighty edifices renders it impossible even to guess at the chain of vicissitudes which reduced them to their present state. "It is doubtful whether there is anything in the world, taking it as a whole, more imposing than the colonnade of Baalbek with the six pillars rising oppo- site to it. It is true that the gigantic proportions and extent of Karnac are wanting; but Karnac, on the other hand, is without the elaborate sculptures and ornament of Baalbek. 44 There is a small circular temple, or more probably a tomb, r.ear a fountain, almost covered by a weeping- billow. We saw, also, a building, with granite co- lumns, containing a sarcophagus, but they were all in rams." It is not impossible that a portion of the splendid buildings at Baalbek, may have been appropriated to purposes of Christian worship. This perhaps arrested the progress of decay for some time after the age of Constantine, as the accounts of oriental writers assert that Baalbek continued a place of considerable import- ance down to the time of the Moslem invasion of Syria ; and, in the d.iys of the Emperor Ileraclius, it was looked upon as a atroug cltadd, well calculated to withstand a siege. Notwithstanding, however, a sturdy resistance, it was forced to submit to the conqueror ; and the rich ransom exacted by the avarice of the conqueror, is a satisfactory evidence of its commercial wealth. Whilst gradually recovering from this attack, it received a 120 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. rude blow from the Khalif of its powerful neighbour, Damascus ; not only was the city pillaged and thrown into ruins, but a cruel massacre of the principal inhabi- tants made Baalbek a place of mourning. During the Crusades but little mention of Baalbek appears ; but it is probable that, if this city still re- tained any Christian population, this circumstance may have aroused the spirit of persecution, and tended to promote the work of desolation that had already com- menced. It appears no longer as an active agent in the scene of the world's action, and little as we know of its previous influence upon the vast scheme of human progress, we trace, in its subjection first to ignorant and marauding tribes, and subsequently to the more refined but equally ignorant bigotry of the Turkish nation, evidences of the sad wear and tear of nations of that mysterious yet calculating influence which has reduced the once magnificent " City of the Sun" to a wretched village of mud-houses. Even the fruitfulriess of nature has deserted it, and the grapes and the pome- granates, once so abundant, are sought for in vain. SIEGE OF TYKE BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT. TYEE. RE history of this ancient ".mart of nations" is so cl o s el y connected wi th the history of Solomon's reign, tliat I must en treat iny reader to bear in mind, Av'hi'- ig tLe present article, the sketch Just given of LIKU'S political character, especially in coi The original name of Teat city was Tsar or Tsur, the Surra of the Latin?, a name which it probably 123) 124 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. derived from having been at first founded on a rocky site, for purposes of defence. Its original position was on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, about mid- way between Egypt and Asia Minor, and near the north-western frontier of Palestine. As it was a colony of Zidon, it is styled, in the poetical language of pro- phecy, the " daughter of Zidon," which was evidently a more ancient city, although chiefly known through its participation in the sins of idolatry which, in Scrip- ture, connect its name with its wealthy and powerful colony. Prideaux places its foundation by the Zidon- ians two hundred and forty years before the building of Solomon's temple, observing that " it soon outgrew its mother in largeness, riches, and power." At a very early period, we find the Tyrians pos- sessed of sufficient resources, and with such adequate capabilities of using them, that David resorted to their king, Hiram, for assistance in realising the grand de- sign of his whole life, the "house" for the Lord, which his successor was, however, destined to finish. The hewing, and probably the carving of timber, and "cun- ning to work all works in brass," were the qualifications chiefly in request, but if we turn to the pages of pro- phecy, it will be difficult to suggest any luxury or refine- ment of life, which the advanced state of Tyrian art and commerce did not enable it to furnish. As the sublimest picture of an ancient city, revelling in wealth and iniquity, even while the finger of God's wrath was pointed against it, and while his judgment was but suspending its blow, I cannot avoid quoting the burden of Ezekiel in "lamentation for Tyre :" * * Ezek. xxvii. 2, sqq. TY11E. 125 " thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord God ; Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty. Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy ship-boards of fir-trees of Senir ; they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars ; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim. Fine linen, with broidered work from Egypt, was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee. The inhabitants of Zidon.and Arvad were thy mariners ; thy wise men, Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots. The ancients of Gebal, and the wise men thereof, were in thee thy calkers ; all the ships of the sea, with their mariners, were in thee to occupy thy merchandise. They of Persia, and of Lud, and of Phut, were in thine army, thy men of war , they hanged the shield and helmet in thee ; they set forth thy comeli- ness. The men of Arvad, with thine army, were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy towers ; they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about ; they have made thy beauty perfect. Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches ; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants ; they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market. They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules. The men of Dadan were thy 11* 126 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. merchants : many isles were the merchandise of thy hand ; they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony. Syria was thy. merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making ; they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen and coral, and agate. " Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy mer- chants : they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm. Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches ; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool. Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs : bright iron, cassia, calamus, were in thy market. Dedan was thy mer- chant in precious clothes for chariots. Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and rams, and goats ; in these were they thy merchants. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants : they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold. Haram, and Canneh, and Eden; the merchants of Sheba, Assher, and Chilmad, were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise. The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market : and thou wast re- plenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas. "Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas. Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mari- ners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of TYRE. 127 thy merchandise, and all thy men-of-war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall in the midst of the seas in the day of ruin. The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots. And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall corne down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land ; and shall cause their voice to he heard against thee, and shall cry bit- terly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes. And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing. And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea ? When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many people.; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise. In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall. All the inhabitants of the isles shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their counte? nance. The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror and never shall be any more." It is useless to attempt description after language so graphic, so vivid in its colouring, so minute in its details : not only are the means of wealth distinctly stated, but we are also informed whence they were de- rived. Before the ivory thrones, on which the elders of Tyre sat, the nations of the whole earth displayed 128 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. their treasures, sought their aid and patronage, and courted approbation. But the other side of the picture equally claims our contemplation, and for sadder and more solemn reasons. It is a melancholy reflection, that the arts by which man's wants are satisfied by which, in fact, new desires are created, and new sources of gratification opened to the eager mind of man that these arts, which set forth the progress of ripening humanity, and make man the undisputed lord of th lower classes of created beings, should be so often the means of corrupting the best feelings, and perverting even their own perfection to purposes of evil. As with the polished civilization of other older cities of the eastern world, so was it with Tyre. The same hands that wrought the delicate vest- ments in which her kings sat as they gave judgment, also hung the tapestries that decked the temples of the Zidonian idols. The same cunning workmanship that once wrought the brazen decorations of a temple to the true and only God, formed senseless idols. As the Israelites in the desert perverted their knowledge of Egyptian art to presumptuous imitations of the God whom their faithlessness supposed was lost to them, so did the Tyrians persist in following the corrupt practices of their ancestors, till God's wrath burst forth, and conqueror upon conqueror arose to punish the presump- tion of the city to which Ezekiel had said : " Thine heart was lifted up because of my beauty ; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness ; thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic ; where- fore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it TYRE. 129 shall devour thee ; and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth, in the sight of all them that behold thee." The first important enemy who seems to have at- tempted to subdue the haughty Tynans was Shalom* neser. Some maritime towns, which had hitherto preserved their fidelity to Tyre, revolted to this prince, who, encouraged by their defection, and led on by cupidity, joined battle with them at sea. But the Tyrians, although they presented a small armament of twelve ships to light against the joint fleet of the Assy- rians and Phoenicians, which Cumbered sixty, came off victorious, arid Shalmaneser retired in .disgust, leaving an army to blockade the city. In vain did they cut off the supplies of water furnished by the aqueducts ; the persevering Tyrians dug deep wells, by which they compensated for the deficiency, and after thus holding out five years, the death of Shalmaneser relieved them from fear/' Flushed with the glory of having successfully with- stood the mightiest king of the East, the Tyrians, as has been \\c\\ observed, " for a time played a part in the ancient world, like that which Venice played in the middle ages. Each was insular, colonial, arid conti- nental its borders in the midst of the seas the build- ers had perfected its beauty every precious stone was its covering. Each was not only commercial and opulent, but- a joyous city, a pleas.-r.it place of all festivity- * ''Ai L.ila oi-it-is, or even earlier, an i. '. -v:d half a mile fruiu the shore was made a stronghold for the riches of li. - 'ty ; the water, to a nautical people, being the best bulwark against the A ^vrian;?, who had no mari- time power. The original city on the mainland was subsequently named Palaio-Tynis, or Old Tyre." Kit.Us, v. ii. p.. 96. 130 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. dance, song, and harp."* It was against Tyre in its heat of presumptuous glory, consequent on this triumph of its ability and perseverance, that the lamentable denun- ciations of Isaiah and Ezekiel were directed. Let ua listen to the narrative of their fulfilment. Before a generation had passed away,f the direful warnings of the prophets were confirmed by the appear- ance of Nebuchadnezzar, who, after an obstinate resist- ance of fourteen years' duration, made himself master of the old city of Tyre. But the inhabitants had mean- while removed their most valuable effects into an island about half a mile distant from the shore, where a new city was rapidly rising. " And therefore, when Nebu- chadnezzar entered that which he had so long besieged, he found little there wherewith to reward his soldiers in the spoil of the place which they had so long laboured to take, and therefore, wreaking his anger upon the buildings, and the few. inhabitants who were left in them, he razed the whole town to the ground, and slew all he found therein. After this it never more recovered its former glory, but the city on the island became the Tyre that was afterwards so famous by that name, the other on the continent never rising any higher than to become a village by the name of Old Tyre."J Kitto, v. ii. p. 896. f See Prideaux, v. i. p. 114 and 128, eqq. The scoffings of the Tynans against the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in their misfortune had no small share in calling down the Divine wrath. J Prideaux, Y. i. p. 128, who shows that the prophecies of Ezekiel respecting the manner of the siege apply only to the Tyre on the mainland. But it has been suggested and with much probability, that, although the island was not as yet much built upon, it had, for some time previous to its siege by Nebuchadnezzar, been closely connected with the old city. Hengstenberg (De Rebus Tyriormm) thinks that " there were two citieg, TYKE. 131 Tyre was "forgotten seventy years," as Isaiah had foretold, but the enterprising spirit of its inhabitants was not easily crushed. Of its intermediate history little or nothing is known, but when the Macedonian conqueror appeared before its walls, it " surpassed all other Syro-Phoenician cities in renown and greatness." A powerful reaction had restored the new city to all the forgotten glories of the ancient one, and the Tyrians had not lost one atom of the undaunted perseverance which had withstood the Assyrian conqueror. But their obstinacy was, on the present occasion, matched by that of Alexander. The Zidonians yielded readily ; but when Alexander approached Tyre, the inhabitants sent ambassadors to him, bearing presents for himself and provisions for his army, at the same time professing their willingness to do whatever he might wish. Alexander simply asked permission to enter the city, and sacrifice to Hercules. Whether Alexander well knew that the request was one that would never be complied with, we know not ; but it is certain that the acknowledgment of his all- conquering powers, and the indirect comparison of his own prowess with that of Hercules, proved most dis- tasteful to the Tyrians, who unanimously denied him an entrance. I will not repeat any of the clever things which Curtius and others assert that Alexander said upon the occasion, nor will I describe any of the appa- one insular, and the other on the mainland; perhaps joined originally, as long afterwards by a mole." Encycl. Metrop. Early Oriental History, p. 426, Eadie's edition. But this latter opinion seems at variance with history, which unhesitatingly attributes the formation of tha mole to Alexander the Great. 132 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. ritions that favoured his attempts. A tedious siege of seven months, while it proved that the refusal of the Tyrians was founded in the consciousness of substantial resources, at the same time developed the ingenuity of the Macedonians, and showed them that they had found their match. By means of a mole, the island was turned into a peninsula, formed by the ruins of the old city, and of timber from the adjacent Mount Libanus, and thereby rendered accessible to land forces. And hereby, at least in a secondary sense, were fulfilled those prophecies which had said : " And they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water, and thou shalt be no more : though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God." So utterly were the ruins of Old Tyre cast into the sea, that its exact site cannot now be determined. The new city, however, at a subsequent period, man- fully resisted the attacks of Antigonus, and the gar- rison stationed there by Ptolemy was permitted to depart, and the inhabitants to remain unmolested. But the rivalry of Alexandria, just springing into poli- tical importance, kept back the tendency to recover wl ! !,]-, seemed ever awake in the active Tyrians, and in iho Lime of Pliny it w r as little known, except for its manufacture of purple. During the Crusades, Tyre was beleaguered more than once, was the burial-place of the German emperor Barbarossa, and remained in European hands till A. I). 1291, when it was compelled to yield to the fast advanc- ing power of the Moslems. Its splendid fortifications were utterly demolished, and losing its value as a strong- TYKE. 133 hold, it never again rose into importance. Maundrell, who visited it in 1694, gives us the following descrip- tion : " This city, standing in the sea upon a peninsula, pro- mises at a distance something very magnificent, but when you come to it, you find no similitude of that glory for which it was renowned in ancient times, and which the prophet Ezekiel describes. On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle, besides which you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c., there being not so much as one entire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing, who seemed to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, viz., that it should be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on. " In the midst of the ruins there stands up one pile higher than the rest, which is the east end of a great church, probably of the cathedral of Tyre ; and why not the very same that was erected by its bishop Pauli- nus, and honoured with that famous consecration sermon of Eusebius, recorded by himself ; this having been an archiepiscopal see in the Christian times ? " There being an old staircase in this ruin last men- tioned, I got up to the top of it, from whence I had an entire prospect of the island, part of Tyre, of the isth- mus, and of the adjacent shore. I thought I could, from this elevation, discern the isthmus to be a soil of a different nature to the other two, it lying lower than either, and being covered all over with sand, which the 12 134 GREAT CITIES OP THE WOULD. sea casts upon it as the tokens of its natural right to a passage there, from which it was, hy Alexander the Great, injuriously excluded. The island of Tyre, in its natural state, seems to have heen of a circular figure, containing not more than forty acres of ground. It discovers still the foundations of a wall, which anciently encompassed it round at the utmost margin of the land. It makes, with the isthmus, two large bays, one on the north side, and the other on the south. These bays are in part defended from the ocean, each by a long ridge, resembling a mole, stretching directly out, on both sides, from the head of the island ; but these ridges, whether they were walls or rocks, whether the work of art or nature, I was too far distant to discern." ROCK-HEWN TOMB AT PETRA. PETRA. IN a previous publication, says Mr. Buckley, I have attempted to point out certain leading fea- tures in the character of Jacob, which ren- dered him especially suited to be chosen as the immediate means of handing down God's will amongst his chosen people : while 1 have also tried to show that " the impetuous and intem- perate spirit of Esau rendered him little fitted to be the future progenitor of the Jewish race, and through that race, of the Saviour of mankind." The early history of these two brothers is intimately connected with a notice of the sublime and mysterious ruins of Petra. The same wild, restless spirit that had, in the persons of Nimrod and other early founders of cities, .led them to quit the paternal home, and seek 12* (137) 138 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. to change the simple innocence of the patriarchal state for the bustle of a military and marauding life, to delve the rocks into architectural figures, and rear palaces that should one day rise, as it were, out of the earth, to bear witness to the ancient pride of some of her earliest children : such a spirit doubtless stimulated the energetic, but thoughtless Esau ; and he who had set little store by the best gifts and choicest honours of patriarchal primogeniture, and the prophetic benedic- tion of an aged sire, has left, in the sublime monu- ments of Petra, evidences that the glory of Edom had burnt forth with no common radiance before its setting rays left nought but the wandering and ignorant Arabs to tenant the deserts that had usurped the site of her ancient cities. But although Esau had lost his birthright, although anger and disappointment for a time severed him from the brother who had, by the mysterious forewarning of God, supplanted him in attaining those rights which, in the eyes of the Hebrew, were endeared by the nearer relationship to a Creator, and the gracious promises of that " seed of woman" who was hereafter to reconcile the fallen children to the offended Sire ; although he had even conceived the desire of fatally revenging the fraud by which he was so great a sufferer, the natural generosity and disinterestedness of the Eastern chief prevailed : and when he met his timid and distressed brother, " Esau fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept." Viewed apart from considerations to which I have already alluded, the character of Esau appears to much greater advantage than that of his brother ; and subsequent traditions, little agreeing with the PETRA. 139 statements of the scriptural narrative, have done little justice to the manful and generous, though thoughtless character of the founder of the race of Edom. But his greatest offence the offence which had most influence in severing him from the communion of God's chosen people was his marriage with two Canaanitish women. From these nuptials, the Nabatheans and Temanites sprung. Of the subsequent history of Esau, scripture says little, but the progress of his descendants is traced with tolerable distinctness. The Horim, the ancient inhabitants of the district of Mount Seir, were gra- dually extirpated: and their cavern dwellings, which had furnished a shelter against the excessive heat of the sun, became the lodgings, tombs, and temples of his Edomite descendants. The term "Duke," which has been applied in our own version of the Scriptures to the chieftains who ruled over the Edomites, is unfortunate in conveying a feudal title of nobility in lieu of a patriarchal arrange- ment by which each family was subject to its own head, while a certain number of families were again obedient to a common chief. But, in process of time, these systems gave way to the kingly power ; for when the Israelites applied for permission to pass through the land of Edom, their request was addressed to the king of that country ; and the road by which they sought to traverse is spoken of as " the king's highway." Hence, it has justly been inferred that the change from the patriarchal system had taken place during the wander- ings of the Israelites in the desert. It must be remem- bered, however, that in some instances the early 140 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. authority of kings, as of Saul over the Jews, does not so much interfere with, as systematically and firmly organise, the existing state of things. Among a hardy and independent race like the descendants of Esau, an uncontrolled and oppressive monarchy would have been well nigh impossible. The fraternal feud which had developed itself so early in the supplanting of Esau, raged hotly between the descendants of the brothers : the territory of Idumsea became more and more subject to the descen- dants of Jacob. Petra, or rather Selah, the " city of the rock," was finally conquered by Amaziah, who changed its name to Joktheel, significantly pointing out the Divine influence that had thus verified the saying, that "the elder should serve the younger." For a time, however, it recovered its old name, until this gave way to the Roman translation of it Petra. The earliest notice in pagan history mentions two expeditions sent by Antigonus against the Nabathaeans in Petra ; and Strabo, Pliny, and Josephus mention and describe this city as forming the capital of Arabia Petraea. Under the reign of Trajan, when the whole district formed a Roman province, the building of Petra probably received some of the embellishments which Roman art has engrafted on the magnificence of their original structure ; and the fact that many coins have been discovered, bearing the names of his successor, Hadrian, shows that it was not neglected. It appears as the metropolitan see of the third Pales- tine, in the ecclesiastical notices of the fifth and sixth centuries ; but here all mention of it ends. It is true that writers, during the era of the Crusades, make use PETRA. 141 of the name, but they erred in applying it to Kerek : a mistake which the researches of Burckhardt, after a long lapse of centuries, has but lately fully rectified. Although hindered by the officious and harassing inter- ference of the Bedouin Arabs, this enlightened and indefatigable traveller succeeded in obtaining sufficient data to warrant the conjecture which subsequent criti- cism, under better opportunities, has fully and satisfac- torily established. About two long days journey north-east from Akaba, is a rivulet and valley in the Djebel-Shera, on the east side of the Araba, called Wadi Mousa. " In the red sandstone," says Burckhardt, " of which the valley is composed, are upwards of two hundred and fifty sepulchres, entirely cut out of the rock, the greater part of them with Grecian ornaments. There is a mausoleum, in the shape of a temple, of colossnl dimensions, likewise cut out of the rock, with all its apartments, its vestibule, peristyle, &c. It is a most beautiful specimen of Grecian architecture, and in per- fect preservation. There are other mausolea, with obelisks, apparently in the Egyptian style : a whole amphitheatre cut out of the rock, with the remains of a palace and of several temples. Upon the summit of the mountain which closes the narrow valley on its western side, is the tomb of Haroun (Aaron, hroiMcr of Moses). It is held in great veneration by the Arabs. (If I recollect right, there is a passage in Eusebius, in which he says that the tomb of Aaron was situated near Petra.) The information of Pliny and Strabo, on the site of Petra, agree with the position of Vv<,Ji Mousa." 142 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. From the ample materials collected by Dr. Robinson, a recent editor of Calmet, tbe following amusing and circumstantial account of researches, corroborating the previous ones of Burckhardt, is derived: " Passing on by Roman ruins, and occasionally Roman roads, Mr. Legh arrived at Shubac, the 20th of May. < On the 23rd, the sheikh of Shubac, Ma- homet Ebu-Raschid, arrived, and with him also came the sheikh Abou-Zeitun (father of the olive-tree), the governor of Wadi Mousa. The latter proved after- wards our most formidable enemy, and we were in- debted to the courage and unyielding spirit of the former for the accomplishment of our journey, and the sight of the wonders of Petra. When we related to the two sheikhs, who had just entered the camp, our eager desire to be permitted to proceed, Abou-Zeitun swore, "by the beard of the prophet, and by the Creator, that the Caffrers, or infidels, should not come into his country." Mahomet Ebu-Raschid as warmly supported them, and ' now there arose a great dispute between the two sheikhs, in the tent, which assumed a serious aspect : the sheikh of Wadi Mousa, at length started up, vowed that if we should dare to pass through his lands, we should be shot like so many dogs. Our friend Mahomet mounted, and desired us to follow his example, which, when he saw we had done, he grasped his spear and fiercely exclaimed, ' I have set them on their horses ; let me see who dare stop Ebu-Raschid.' We rode along a valley, the people of Wadi Mousa, with their sheikh at their head, continuing on the high ground to the left in a parallel direction, watching our movements. In half an hour we halted at a spring, PETRA. 145 and were joined by about twenty horsemen, provided with lances, and thirty men on foot with matchlock guns, and a few double-mounted dromedaries, whose riders were well armed. On the arrival of this rein- forcement, the chief, Ebu-Raschid, took an oath in the presence of his Arabs, swearing, " by the honour of their women, and by the beard of the prophet, that we," pointing to our party, " should drink of the waters of Wadi Mousa, and go wherever we pleased in their accursed country." Soon after they left the ravine, the rugged peak of Mount Hor was seen towering over the dark mountains on their right, with Petra under it, and Djebeltour, or Mount Sinai, distant three days jour- ney, like a cone in the horizon. They reached Ebu- Raschid's camp, of about seven tents (usually twenty- five feet long and fourteen feet wide), in three circles, and next morning attempted, but in vain, to obtain the consent of the hostile sheikh to pass through his terri- tory. They did not, however, come to blows ; and at length they passed the much-contested stream, on which stood the mud village of Wadi Mousa : Ebu-Raschid, with an air of triumph, insisting on watering the horses at that rivulet. " ' While we halted for that purpose, we examined a sepulchre excavated on the right of the road. It was of considerable dimensions : and at the entrance of the open court that led to the inner chamber were represented two animals resembling lions or sphinxes, but much disfigured, of colossal size. As this was the first object of curiosity that presented itself, we began to measure its dimensions ; but our guides grew impa- tient, and said, that if we intended to be so accurate 13 146 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. in our survey of all the extraordinary places we should see, we should not finish in ten thousand years.' They therefore remounted and rode on through niches sculp- tured in the rocks, frequent representations of rude stones, mysterious symbols of an indefinite figure de- tached in relief, water-courses of earthen pipes, arches, aqueducts, and all the signs of a wonderful period in the ancient annals of this memorable scene. 'We continued (says the narrative) to explore the gloomy winding passage for the distance of about two miles, gradually descending, when the beautiful fagade of a temple burst upon our view. A statue of Victory with wings filled the centre of an aperture like an attic window, while groups of colossal figures, representing a centaur and a young man, were placed on each side of a portico of lofty proportion, comprising two stories, aud deficient in nothing but a single column. The temple was entirely excavated from the solid rock, and preserved from the ravages of time and the weather by the massive projections of the natural cliffs above, in a state of exquisite and inconceivable perfection ; but the interior chambers were comparatively small, and appeared unworthy of so magnificent a portico. On the summit of the front was placed a vase, hewn also out of the solid rock, conceived by the Arabs to be filled with the most valuable treasure, and showing, in the numerous shot-marks on its exterior, so many proofs of their avidity ; for it is so situated as to be inac- cessible to other attacks. This was the husna or trea- sure of Pharaoh, as it is called by the natives, which Ebu-Raschid swore we should behold.' A colossal vase, belonging, probably, to another temple, was seen PETRA. 147 by Captains Irby and Mangles, at some distance to the westward ; and many excavated chambers were found in front of this temple of Victory. About three hun- dred yards farther on was an amphitheatre : ' Thirty- three steps (grandini) were to be counted ; but, unfor- tunately, the proscenium, not having been excavated like the other parts, but built, was in ruins.' The remains of a palace, and immense numbers of bricks, tiles, &c., presented themselves on a large open space, while < the rocks which enclosed it on all sides, with the exception of the north-east, were hollowed out into innumerable chambers of different dimensions, whose entrances were variously, richly, and often fantastically decorated with every imaginable order of architec- ture.' " "Nothing," says another traveller, "contributes so much to the almost magical effect- of spme of these monuments as the rich and various colours of the rock out of which, or more properly, in which they are formed. Many of these are adorned with such a pro- fusion of the most lovely and brilliant colours, as I believe it is quite impossible to describe : red, purple, yellow, azure or *sky-blue, black, and white, are seen in the same mass directly in successive layers, or blended so as to form every shade and hue of which they are capable as brilliant and as soft as they ever appear in flowers, or in the plumage of birds, or in the sky when illuminated by the most glorious sunset. The red perpetually shades into pale or deep rose, or flesh colour. The purple is sometimes very dark, and again approaches the hue of the lilac or violet. The white, which is often as pure as snow, is occasionally 148 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. just dashed with blue or red. The blue is usually the pale azure of the clear sky, or of the ocean, but some- times has the deep and peculiar shape of the clouds in summer when agitated by a tempest." In this valley of wonders, in this excavated city, where the glories of the palace, and the pomp of the temple mingle with the corruption of tombs, and the desolation formed by the ruins of dwellings, once rife with art and industry in this desert of civilization, studded with the monuments of a race of heroes, whose structures attracted the notice and sought restoration at the hands of the Romans here, in the midst of a ruined city that Nature seems to have sought to shield from desolation by an insuperable barrier of mountains, be- neath the fagade of the temple where thousands wor- shipped, on the benches of the theatre, where a like number laughed away the hour that might never return, or in the recesses of those caverns, which received all the flower of Edom save those whose bones whitened on the battle field here may we pause awhile, and. listen to the voice, which forewarned the children of Esau of their doom here may we lament over one more instance of the vanity of man rearing up the proudest monuments of his disobedience and humiliation. "I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him, the time that I will visit him. If grape-gatherers come to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes ? if thieves by night, they will destroy till they have enough. But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself. Be- hold they whose judgment was not to drink of tH cup have assuredly drunken; and art thou he thai sWl PETRA. 149 altogether go unpunished ? thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt surely drink of it. I have sworn by my- self, saith the Lord, that Bozrah, the strong city, shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse ; and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes. Lo, I will make thee small among the heathen, and despised among men. Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that boldest the height of the hill : though thou shouldst make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord. Also Edom shall be a desolation ; every one that goeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the Lord, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it." " Thou shalt be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the Lord." "Edom shall be a desolate wilderness." "For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punish- ment thereof." "Thus saith the Lord concerning Edom, I have made thee small among the heathen, thou art greatly despised. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high." " Shall I not destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau ? The house of Jacob shall pos- sess their possessions." " I laid the mountains of Esau and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilder- ness." Complete and rael-incholy as is die ^in fchat attests 150 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. the fulfilment of the "burden ofEdom," forgotten and unclaimed (even by the barbarians that infest the dis- trict) as are the edifices which cover and surround the gloomy valley of death that even Roman magnificence once admired for the splendour of its structures, careful investigation has shown that Petra, in its prosperous days, might once have contained a population equal to that of Athens. But while we cannot deny the elabo- rate magnificence and wondrous toil which has exca- vated the rocks of the Edomite Selah into a city of wonders, we must remember that it is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to assign each building, or rather, the improvements and alterations which the buildings have undergone, to their proper ages. The mixture of orders is alone sufficient to show the modifications through which Petra has passed ; and it is for this rea- son that I shall pay more minute attention to the tombs hewn in the rocks, the extent of which is only surpassed by the symmetry of their proportions and their fitness for the melancholy office to which they were destined. After the Creator had doomed the fallen Adam to return to the dust from whence and of which he came a doom in which all his helpless, yet not uncared-for descendants were to participate man, weeping over the dearly-cherished, but disfigured and corrupting remains of those he had once loved, sought to lay their corses in the eaVth, which seemed to open her bosom to receive once more those who had been fed by her gifts. Whether in the burrows of our own ancestors, or in the cave which the chosen of patriarchs purchased as a sepulchre for his wife, and which remained as an heir- loom for the heads of succeeding generations the earth PETRA. 151 ever claims her own. Hence, as a taste for sculpture, and a greater earnestness in labours of art developed themselves artificial caves became the cemeteries of the dead, and in the rock tombs of Petra, as in those of Persepolis, we read the fulfilment of the same sad, but instructive prophecy. " Were those excavations," says Dr. Kitto, "instead of following all the sinuosities of the mountain and its numerous gorges, ranged in regular order, they pro- bably would form a street not less than five or six miles in length. They are often seen rising one above an- other in the face of the cliff, and convenient steps, now much worn, cut in the rock, lead in all directions through the fissures, and along the sides of the mount- ains to the various tombs that occupy these lofty posi- tions. Some of them are apparently not less than from two hundred to three or four hundred feet above the level of the valley. Conspicuous situations, visible from below, were generally chosen ; but .sometimes the opposite taste prevailed, and the most secluded cliffs, fronting to some dark ravine, and quite hidden from the gaze of the multitude, were preferred. The flights of steps, all cut in the solid rock, are almost innumerable, and they ascend to great heights, as well as in all directions. Sometimes the connection with the city is interrupted, and one sees in a gorge, or upon the face of a cliff, fifty or a hundred feet above him, a long series of steps rising from the edge of an inaccessible precipice. The action of winter torrents, and other agencies, have worn the easy ascent into a channel for the waters, and thus interrupted the communication. " The situations of these excavations are not more 152 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. various than their forms and dimensions. Mere niches are sometimes cut in the face of the rock, of little depth, and of various sizes and forms, of which it is difficult to conjecture the object, unless they had some connection with votive offerings and religious rites. By far the largest numher of excavations were manifestly designed as places for the interment of the dead ; and thus exhibit a variety in form and size, of interior arrangement and external decorations, adapted to the different fortunes of their occupants, and conformable to the prevailing tastes of the times in which they were made. There are many tombs consisting of a single chamber, ten, fifteen, or twenty feet square, by ten or twelve in height, containing a recess in the wall large enough to receive one or a few deposits ; sometimes on a level with the floor, at others one or two feet above it, and not unfrequently near the ceiling, at the height of eight or ten feet. Occasionally, oblong pits or graves are sunk in the recesses, or in the floor of the principal apartment. Some of these are of considerable depth, but they are mostly choked with stones and rubbish, so that it is impossible to ascertain it. In these plebeian tombs, there is commonly a door of small dimensions, and an absence of all architectural decorations ; in some of larger dimensions, there are several recesses occupying two or three sides of the apartment. These seem to have been formed for family tombs. Besides these unadorned habitations of the humble dead, there is a vast number of excavations enriched with various architectural ornaments. To these unique and sump- tuous monuments of the taste of one of the most ancient races of men with whom history has made us acquainted, PETRA. 153 Petra is indebted for its great and peculiar attractions. This ornamental architecture is wholly confined to the front, while the interior is quite plain and destitute of all decoration. Pass the threshold, and nothing is seen but perpendicular walls, bearing the marks of the chisel, without mouldings, columns, or any species of orna- ment. But the exteriors of these primitive, and even rude apartments, exhibit some of the most beautiful and imposing results of ancient taste and skill, which have remained to our times. The front of the mountain is wrought into facades of splendid temples, rivalling in their aspect and symmetry the most celebrated monu- ments of Grecian art. Columns of various .orders, graceful pediments, broad rich entablatures, and some- times statuary, all hewn out of the solid rock, and still forining part of the native mass, transform the base of the mountain into a vast splendid pile of architecture ; while the overhanging cliffs, towering above in shapes as rugged and wild as any on which the eye ever rested, form the most striking and curious of contrasts. In most instances it is impossible to assign these beau- tiful facades to any particular style of architecture. Many of the columns resemble those of the Corinthian order; but they deviate so far both in their forms and ornaments from this elegant model, that it would be impossible to rank them in the class. A few are Doric, which are precisely those that have suffered most from the ravages of time, and are probably very ancient." THE ROCK-HEWN CITIES OF INDU. apology is due to the reader, for abruptly con- veying him into the region of Bombay, and the pic- turesque details with which I hbpo to present him will scarcely excuse the seeming eccentricity of so rapid a transportation. But we have just been dwelling on the beauties of Petra, and, aided by the experienced pen of eye- witnesses and connoisseurs, we have sought to form a just appreciation of the mighty wonders of the rock- city, to penetrate into the stillness of her tombs, to pace the courts of her temples, and to marvel at the utter destruction of ti--e KS.C.C 'f ric-ir v/ho chiselled the (154) THE ROCK-HEWN CITIES ui- INDIA. 157 amphitheatre of the mighty valley into forms that, hoth for grandeur of dimension and beauty of finish, rival our own proudest structures. But no better parallel (however historically remote) can be formed to the rock-city of Arabia-Petrsea, than the wondrous region of rock-hewn temples, which extends through so large a portion of India as we are now about to describe Although their antiquity is comparatively moderate, although very irregular and uncertain estimates have been formed of their architectural merits, there can be no doubt that, if their extent alone be taken as a standard of our admiration, they must take a high place among the sublimest proofs of man's ill-directed labours in honour of a.false belief; and, in this respect, the ruins of Indian temples belong as much to our plan, and are as fraught with wholesome lessons of morality, as the fragments which bear witness to the downfall of Assyrian greatness. Although, in discussing the subject of Indian wor- ship, the structures to which it gave rise, and the symbolism in which it sought to embody its principles, we cannot be sufficiently careful to avoid falling into a too ready taste for parallelism with Greek or Oriental analogies yet we must recognise one common feature throughout the world ; and that is, that the greatness of a nation generally attests its culmination in the edifices it rears in the cause of religion. Even in the middle ages, the prowess of the warrior, the successful diplomacy of the courtier, and frequently the private prosperity of an individual, have displayed themselves in the founding and endowing of religious establish- ments. Obscure as are the annals of Egypt, history is 14 158 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. unvarying in placing the epoch of its .greatest work as coeval with its proudest prosperity. Examples, already numerously 'instanced in this little volume, are sufficient to show that the cave temples of India belong to an era of her greatness to the reign and career of a race of whom we have not even a lucid page of tradition ; and, although we know nothing of the history of their founders, we must judge of the artist by the picture, and imagine the Hindoos of old, from the structures that once called them their masters. As we can give little or nothing of an historical character, in connection with these excavations, we must content ourselves with describing, as far as we are able, the magnificent ruins which remain to attest the progress and influence of Buddhism. One of the earliest Indian monuments that attracted the notice of European travellers, was the cave-temple of Elephanta, situated in a beautiful island of the same name. This island lies in the Bay of Bombay, seven miles from Bombay Castle ; it measures about six miles in circumference, being composed of two long hills enclosing a narrow valley. The island has taken its popular name from a colossal statue of an elephant, cut out of a detached mass of blackish rock, and sup- porting another smaller figure, probably that of a tiger, on its back. The length of this colossus, which mea- sures thirteen feet two inches, from the forehead to the root of the tail, stands about 250 yards to the right of the landing-place on the southern part of the island. After proceeding up the valley for some distance, the mountains unite, and we find ourselves in the middle of a narrow path ; after ascending which, we THE ROCK-HEWN CITIES OF INDIA. 159 enjoy at the summit a beautiful prospect of the north- ern part of the island, and the opposite shores of its neighbour, Salsette. Then, in the words of Mr- Erskine, " Advancing forward, and keeping to the left along the bend of the hill, we gradually mount to an open space, and come suddenly on the grand entrance of a magnificent temple, whose huge massy columns seem to give support to the whole mountain which rises above it. " The entrance into this temple, which is entirely hewn out of a stone resembling porphyry, is by a spa- cious front supported by two massive pillars and two pilasters, forming three openings, under a thick and steep rock overhung by brushwood and wild shrubs. The long ranges of columns that appear closing in perspective on every side the flat roof of solid rock that seems to be prevented from falling only by the massy pillars, whose capitals are pressed down and flattened as if by the superincumbent weight the darkness that obscures the interior of the temple, which is dimly lighted only by the entrances ; and the gloomy appearance of the gigantic stone figures ranged along the wall, and hewn, like the whole temple, out of the living rock, joined to the strange uncertainty that hangs over the history of this place carry the mind back to distant periods, and impress it wrth that kind of un- certain religious awe with which the grander works of ages of darkness are generally contemplated. "The whole excavation consists of three principal parts : the great temple itself, which is in the centre ; and two smaller chapels, one on each side of the great 160 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. temple. These two chapels do not come forward in. a straight line with the front of the chief temple, are not perceived on approaching the temple, and are considerably in recess, being approached by two narrow passes in the hill, one on each side of the grand en- trance, but at some distance from it. After advancing to some distance up these confined passes, we find each of them conduct to another front of the grand excava- tion, exactly like the principal front which is first seen ; all the three fronts being hollowed out of the solid rock, and each consisting of two huge pillars with two pilas- ters. The two side fronts are precisely opposite to each other on the east and west, the grand entrance facing the north. The two wings of the temple are at the upper end of these passages, and are close by the grand excavation, but have no covered passage to con- nect them with it." In the neighbouring island of Salsette, there are excavations on a grander scale. To the enlightened and tasteful pen of Bishop Heber, we are indebted for the following elaborate account of the grand temples of Kennery : " These are, certainly, in every way remarkable from their number, their beautiful situation, their elaborate carvings, and their marked connection with Buddha and his religion. The caves are scattered over two sides of a high rocky hill, at many different elevations, and of various sizes and forms. Most of them appear to have been places of habitation for monks or hermits. One very beautiful apartment, of a square form, its walls covered with sculpture, and surrounded internally by a broad stone bench, is called ME HOCK-HEWN CITIES OE INDIA. 161 the durbar;* but I should rather guess had been a school. Many have deep and well-carved cisterns attached to them, which, even in this dry season (May,) were well supplied with water. The largest and most remarkable of all is a Buddhist temple, of great beauty and majesty, and which, even in its pre- sent state, would make a very stately and convenient place of Christian worship. It is entered through a fine and lofty portico, having on the front but a little to the left hand, a high detached octagonal pillar, surmounted by three lions, seated back to back. On each side of the portico is a colossal statue of Buddha, with his hands raised in the attitude of benediction, and the screen which separates the vestibule from the temple is covered, immediately above the dodo, with a row of male and female figures, nearly naked, but not indecent, and carved with considerable spirit, which apparently represent dancers. In the centre of the semicircle, and with a free walk all round it, is a mass of rock left solid, but carved externally like a dome, and so as to bear a strong general likeness to our Saviour's sepulchre, as it is now chiselled away and enclosed in St. Helena's Church at Jerusalem. On the top of the dome is a sort of spreading ornament, like the capital of a column. It is apparently intended to support something, and I was afterwards told at Carli, where such an ornament, but of greater size, is like- wise found, that a large gilt umbrella used to spring from it. This solid dome appears to be the usual symbol of Buddhist adoration, and with its umbrella ornament, may be traced in the Shoo-Madoo of Pegu, and other more remote structures of the same faith, 14* 162 GREAT CITIES Of THE WORLD, Though it is different in its form and style of ornamenA from the Lingam, I cannot help thinking it has been originally intended to represent the same popular object of that almost universal idolatry. The ceiling of tfeis cave is arched semicircularly and ornamented, in a very singular manner, with slender ribs of teak wood of the same curve with the roof, and disposed as if they were supporting it ; which, however, it does not require. Nor are they strong enough to answer the purpose. Their use may have been to hang lamps or flowers from in solemn rejoicings." Let us continue, with the same traveller, to inves- tigate the wonders of Carli, despairing, as we do, of furnishing a more eloquent and tasteful description : " This celebrated cavern is hewn on the face of a precipice about two-thirds up the side of a steep hill, rising, with a very scarped and regular talus, to the height of, probably, eight hundred feet above the plain. The excavations consist, beside the principal temple, of many smaller apartments, and galleries in two stories, some of them ornamented with great beauty, and evidently intended, like those at Kennery, for the lodging of monks or hermits. The temple itself is on the same general plan as that of Kennery, but half as large again, and far finer and richer. It is approached by a steep and narrow path winding up the side of the hill among trees and brushwood, and fragments of rock. This brought us to a mean and ruinous temple of Siva, which serves as a sort of gate- way to the cave: a similar small building stands on the right hand of its portico. .... The approach tc the temple is, like that of Kennery, under a nobk THE ROCK-HEWN CITIES OF INDIA. 163 arch, fitted up with a sort of portico screen, in two stories of three intercolumniations below, and five above. In the front, but a little to the left, is the same kind of pillar as is seen at Kennery, though of larger dimensions, surmounted by three lions back to back. Within the portico, to the right and left, are three colossal figures, in alto-relievo, of elephants, their faces looking towards the person who arrives in the portico, and their heads, tusks, and trunks, very boldly projecting from the wall. On each of them is a mohout very well carved, and a howdah with two persons seated in it. The internal screen on each side of the door is covered, as at Kennery, with alto-relievos, very bold and somewhat larger than life, of naked male and female figures. I asked our young guides what deities these represented, and was surprised to hear from them in answer, ' These are not gods, one god is sufficient, these are viragoes' (religious enthusiasts, or attendants on the deity.) On asking, however, if their god was the same whom they worshipped in the little temple before the steps, and if he were Maha Deo, they answered in the affirmative, so that their deism merely extended to paying worship to a single idol only. There is certainly, however, no image either of Buddha or any other mytholo- gical personage, about this cavern, nor any visible object of devotion, except the mystic chettah, or um- brella, already mentioned at Kennery. The details of the cave within having been already more than once published, and as in its general arrangement, it closely answers to Kennery, I will only observe, that both in dimensions and execution, it is mucli nobler and 164 GftEAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. more elaborate ; and that the capitals of the columns (all of them at least which are not hidden by the chettah at the east end) are very singular and beauti- ful. Each consists of a large cup, like a bell, finely carved, and surmounted by two elephants with their trunks intertwined, and each carrying two male and one female figure, which our guides again told us were viragees. The timber ribs which decorate the roof, whatever their use may have been, are very perfect, and have a good effect in the perspective of the interior, which is all extremely clean, and in good repair, and would be, in fact, a very noble temple for any religion." But it is in the ruins of Ellora that we must see for the consummation of Indian art in the construction of sacred edifices. These temples are situated in the province of Hy- derabad, about twenty miles north-west from Des- ghir or Tagara, the capital of Aurungabad, and 239 miles east of Bombay. It may be considered as near the centre of India. Here we have a granite mountain, forming a vast amphitheatre, complexly chiselled out from top to bottom, and filled with innu- merable temples; the god Siva alone having, it is said, jiiMiut twenty appropriated to himself. To describe the numerous galleries and rows of pillars which support various chambers, lying one above another ; the steps, porticos, and bridges of rock over canals, also hewn out of the solid rock, would be impossible; and we recommend those who have the opportunity to look at Daniell's designs, which, incomplete as they are, and on. THE ROCK-HEWN CITIES OF INDIA. 165 too small a scale, will serve to give some idea of this wonderful place. The chief temple in this mountain is called Kailasa, which we enter from under a balcony ; after which we come to an ante-chamber 138 feet wide, by 88 feet in length, with many rows of pillars and chambers adjoining them. From this chamber we pass through a grand portico, and over a bridge, into a huge cavern-chamber, or rather court, open to the sky, with the huge masses of the natural rock overhanging the pillars around. In the middle of this court stands the great temple, which is excavated from the upper region of the rock, and appears like a grand build- ing. It is connected with the gateway by a bridge left out of the rock, as the mass of the mountain was excavated. Beneath this bridge, at the end oppo- site the entrance, there is a figure of Bowanee sitting on a lotus, with two elephants with their trunks joined, as though fighting over her head. On each side of the passage, under the bridge, is an elephant, one of which has lost its head, the other its trunk, and both are much shortened of their height by earth. There are, likewise, ranges of apartments on each side behind the elephants, of which those on the left are much the finest, being handsomely decorated with figures : ad- vanced in the area, beyond the elephants, are two obelisks, of a square form, handsomely graduated to the commencement of the capitals, which seem to have been crowned with ornaments." The temple itself measures 103 feet long, and 56 feet wide, and rises to a height of 100 feet in a pyra- midal form. It is hollowed out to the height of seven- . 166 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. teen feet, and supported by four rows of pillars, fronted by colossal elephants. These monsters seem to give life and vigour to the general design, whilst the whole building, resembling one of the most mag- nificent of the pyramidal temples, is covered with sculptures. PEKING. HE frequenter of cu- riosity shops, who has amused himself among the whimsical monsters, fantastical furniture, and grotesque yet ingenius toys, which, in defiance of rules of a purer and more natural style of art, claim admiration for the elaborate- ness of their workmanship, and the patience they attest in their execution, will readily find a reason for the introduction of China, after the mention of works of Indian art. Considerable similarity in manners and customs equal mystery as to early origin and history, and an equal prevalence of Buddhism will furnish ample apology for -the introduction of Peking, the largest city of China, to our readers. In a notice of .the " Great Cities of the World," the city of Peking, the metropolis of a third of the human race, can ill be omitted. This enormous town is situated on a vast plain in the (167) 168 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLB. interior of the district of Chih-li, the northernmost province of China Proper. The eastern and southern boundaries of the sandy plain are not visible from the town, but on the west and north hills begin to rise only a few miles from the walls of the city. Peking is situ- ated fifty miles from the great wall, at its nearest point, and it is one hundred miles from the gulf of Chih-li. It is about six miles in diameter, and eighteen miles in circumference. The following account from the pen of one of the early Jesuits, will doubtless prove interest- ing: " Pekin, that is the north court, is the chief city of China, and the usual seat of its emperors. It is so named to distinguish it from Nankin, the south court, another very considerable city, so called from the em- perors residing there in former ages, it being the finest, the most commodious, and best situated of the whole empire ; but the continual incursions of the Tartars, a warlike and very troublesome neighbour, obliged him to settle in the most northernly provinces, that he might be always ready to oppose them, with the numerous army he usually keeps near his court . . . This city, which is of an exact square form, was formerly four long leagues round, but Tartars settling there forced the Chinese to live without the. walls, where they, in a very short while, built a new town, which, being more long than large, does with the old one compose an irregular figure. Thus Pekin is made 'up of two cities ; one is called the Tartar's, because they permit none else to inhabit it ; and the other the Chinese, as large, but much more full than the first. Both are together six great leagues in circuit, allowing 3600 PEKING. 169 paces to each league. This I can aver to be true, it having been measured by the emperor's special com- mand." The houses in Peking are few of more than one story, and the testimony of all authorities point to a denseness of inhabitation, equalled by no other town in the world. Ten or even twenty persons will live in one small room, without attracting unenviable notice. Martin, in describing the city, observes : " The northern division of Peking, consists of three enclosures, one within another, each surrounded by its own wall. The first contains the imperial palace, and the abodes of the different members of the imperial household ; the second, was designed for the residence of the officers of the court, but is now occupied by Chinese mer- chants ; the third, consists of the space enclosed by the outer walls, and was formerly inhabited by Tartar soldiers, but is now in the possession of Chinese shop- keepers and traders. The first enclosure (forbidden city] is the most splendid and important part of Peking. It is situated nearly in the centre of the northern divi- sion of the city. It is an oblong parallelogram, about two miles in circumference, and enclosed by a wall nearly thirty feet high. This wall is built of polished red brick, surrounded by a ditch lined with hewn stone, and covered with varnished tiles of a brilliant yellow, which give it the appearance, when seen under the rays of the sun, of being covered with a roof of gold. The interior of this enclosure, is occupied by a suite of court-yards and apartments, which, it is said, for beauty and splendour cannot be surpassed. It is divided into three parts, the eastern, middle, and western. The 15 170 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. middle division contains the imperial buildings, which, are subdivided into several distinct palaces. They are represented by the Jesuits as perfect models of archi- tecture. " The gates and halls are thus described : 1. The meridian gate. Before this gate, on the east, is a lunar dial, and on the west, a solar, and in the tower above it, a large bell and gong. All public officers enter and leave the palace by the eastern avenue ; none but the princes of the imperial blood are permitted to pass the western, and none but the emperor the southern avenue. At this gate are distributed the presents to embassies ; and all war captives are here received by his majesty in person. 2. The gate of Peace has five avenues, and is a superb building of white marble. The height of the basement is twenty feet, and the whole edifice 110 feet. The ascent to it is by five flights of forty steps each, and it is highly ornamented with tripods, and other figures in bronze. Here, on all the holidays, and on the anniversary of the emperor's birthday, he re- ceives the congratulations of his officers, who prostrate themselves to the earth before him, and strike the ground with their foreheads. 3. The Hall of Perfect Peace ; here the emperor comes to examine the imple- ments prepared for the annual ceremony of ploughing. 4. The Hall of Secure Peace ; in this the emperor gives a banquet to his foreign guests on new year's day. 5. The Tranquil Palace of Heaven, i. e. of the emperor. This is a private retreat to which no one can approach without special permission. This palace is described by the Russians, who have had many opportunities of seeing it, as ' the loftiest, richest, and PEKING. 171 most magnificent of all the palaces.' On each side of the tower is a large copper vessel, in which incense is burnt day and night. 6. The Palace of Earth's Re- pose, i. e. of the empress, which is said to be very beautiful ; adjoining this is the imperial flower-garden, which is laid out in walka for her majesty, who being a Tartar, has not adopted the Chinese custom of crippling her feet, and, therefore, is said to enjoy herself in what is called < Earth's Repose.' In this garden is a library, said to contain a collection of all the books published in China." Of the bustle and confusion of the streets of Peking, some idea may be formed from the words of a writer, trust-worthy enough, I have found, to be quoted with- out restraint: "Even the widest streets are not free from con- fusion ; and at the sight of so many horses, mules, camels, wagons, chairs, and rings of 100 or 200 persons who gather here and there round the fortune- tellers, one would judge that some unusual show had drawn the whole country to Pekin. # * * [After mentioning the practice of all persons of any property going out with many attendants, he continues :] It is evident that these* customs, which are peculiar to China, do very much increase the throng, and it must not be wondered at that the city should seem much more populous than it really is : and what must con- vince us is, that, as I have shown, there may more people lodge in Paris than in Pekin. Then, taking it for granted that twenty or twenty-five persons there take up no more room than ten here, as I have already said, we must conclude, on the whole, that Pekin con- 172 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. tains near twice as many as Paris does , and I think J shall not be very wide of the truth if I allow it two millions of inhabitants." In 1668 the total population of Chin# was 25,386,209 inhabitants ; taking the annual births in the empire tc be 30,000 (which cannot be far from the truth,) and allowing a third of these to die, we have a decrease of some 40,000, and 630,000 for adult deaths, leaves us rather more than 24,000,000 as the total population in 1697 ; and on comparison 2,000,000 for the capital will not appear too much. The present population is about 3,000,000. "Almost all the streets are built in a direct line, the greatest being about 120 feet broad, and a good league, and the shops where they sell silks and china- ware, which, generally take up the whole street, makes a very agreeable perspective. * * * Each shop- keeper puts out before his house, on a little kind of pedestal, a board twenty or two-and-twenty feet high, painted, varnished, and often gilt, on which are written, in large characters, the names of the several commo- dities he sells. These kind of pilasters, thus placed on each side of the street, and almost at an equal dis- tance from each other, make a pretty odd show. This is usual in almost all the cities of China, and I have in some places seen so very neat ones, that one would think they had designed to make a stage of the street." The accounts of travellers concur in describing the streets of Peking as very animated, but as full of dirt and dust as any city, equally as badly cleansed, nearer home. PEKING. 175 As Peking started into its present regular modern array at least seven hundred years before the Christ- ian era, little can be said on the subject of its anti- quities, for since all is so ancient, nothing can be particularly mentioned as of parallel antiquity to what we have seen in Egypt, Nineveh, Syria, Persepolis, and India; for although the iusciti^I-jiis of to-day have existed in the country f ol - 5V- r OO years, to describe them would be to describe what is taking place every day. There has bem no race destroyed here as in Nineveh, niicl tl r:'e has been little left by the earlier denizens of the country to signify their presence ; the Great Wall, indeed, conveys to our minds an impres- sion of plaster still wet, and is almost the oldest piece of architecture they possess ; as it has been often described, we shall not include it in the present sketch. One curiosity there does exist in China, of unques- tionable comparative antiquity and great interest in respect to the preaching of Christianity, which Martin, a most excellent authority on China, thus describes, speaking of embassies : " A. D. 635. The Chinese annals state, that during the reign of Tait-sung. the second emperor of the Tang dynasty, there came ambassadors from foreign nations. There arrived at the capital of China, Sin- gan-foo, a man of exalted virtue, named Olapun. The Emperor graciously received this stranger, exa- mined the nature of the new religion (Scriptures,) found that Olapun was thoroughly acquainted with truth and uprightness, and gave him a special com- mand to make it known. The following year this decree was issued : 176 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. " c Truth hath not an unchanging name, nor are holy men confined to one immutable form. In every place true doctrine has been disseminated ; and with reiterated instructions, the crowd of the living have been blessed. From the distant region of Ta-tsin (Arabia, probably,) [Tn-tsin, ' great purity]' the greatly virtuous Olapun has brought scriptures and pictures, to offer them to our high court. If the intent of this doctrine be examined, it is seen to be profound, excel- lent, and pure. If its noble origin be considered, it offers that which is important. Its phraseology is without superfluous words. It contains truth, reject- ing that which is needless. It is beneficial accord- ing to every view, and profitable to the people ; and should, therefore, pervade the empire. Let the officers erect a temple for the religion of Ta-tsin in the capi- tal, and appoint twenty-one ministers for its adminis- tration. "The discovery of a Syrian monument, commemo- rating the progress of Christianity in China, which was erected A. D. 718, is a remarkable circumstance in corroboration of the foregoing statement. This monument was discovered by some Chinese workmen, A. D. 1625, near the city of Sangan, the capital of the province of Shen-se, which was at a remote period the capital of the empire. This city is situated on the river Wei, in latitude 34 16' N. The monument is described as a slab of marble, about ten feet long and five feet broad; it was covered with earth, but instantly shown to the authorities ; and at this period there were numerous Christian missionaries in China, who had an opportunity of examining it, together PEKING. 177 with natives and pagans. On one side of it is the Chinese inscription, in twenty-eight lines, twenty-six characters in each line, besides a heading, in nine characters ; the Syrian is on the right side, comprised in seventeen characters. The nine Chinese characters at the top of this monument read thus: "A Tablet, recording the introduction of the religion of the Ta- tsin country in China." It commences with stating the existence of the living and true God ; the creation of the world; the fall of man; and the mission of Jesus Christ. The miraculous birth and excellent teaching of the Saviour are briefly described. His ascension is spoken of; the institution of baptism mentioned ; and the cross declared to be effectual for the*salvation of all mankind. The latter part of the inscription states, that in the reign of Tang-tae-Tsung, A. D. 636, a Christian teacher came from Ta-tsin to China; where the emperor, after examining his doc- trines, published an edict, authorising the preaching of Christianity among the people.' Such is the description of this important relic of early Christianity ; and in the inscription the Christian faith is called the "illustrious religion." The men- tion of this interesting discovery naturally leads us to consider the doctrines of the three principal faiths, ethical and religious, of China. " Religion has always had a great share in esta- blishing the greatest kingdoms, which could never sup- port themselves, were not the people's minds and hearts tied together by the outward worship of some deity ; for people are naturally superstitious, and rather follow the .guidance of faith than reason. It was, therefore for 178 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. this reason, that the ancient lawgivers always made use of the knowledge of the true God, or of the false maxims of idolatry, to bring the barbarous nations under the yoke of their government." So says the worthy Jesuit, in a letter to Cardinal de Bouillon, and we may conclude that his observations are correct, as they savour of the tenets of his order. After stating that Monotheism had lasted for many centuries in China, he continues : " The knowledge of the true God, which lasted many ages after the reign of Cam Vam, and, in all proba- bility, a long while after the time of Confucius, was not always supported in the same purity. Their minds were possessed by idolatry, and their manners became so corrupt, that the true Faith, being but the occasion of greater ill, was by little and little taken away from them by the just judgment of God. Among all the superstitions which followed hereupon, there were two sorts which were principally established, and do be- tween them, at this present moment, comprehend almost all the empire." In the reign of Ting- Wang (604 B. c.) the founder of the Taou philosophy, Laou-Tsze was born, and the manner of his birth so much resembles that of Diony- sos (Bacchus) as to justify the supposition of their identity. M. Remusat's remarks on his history, show clearly that the major part of the biography of Laou- Tsze is mythical and mystical, and he compares him with Pythagoras (540 B. c,) ; but a new light could be thrown upon the whole subject, did space admit of it. Le Compte continues : " This monster, to the sorrow of his country, survived his mother, and by his perni- PEKING. 179 cious doctrine in a short time grew famous ; nevertheless, he wrote several useful books, of virtue, of the good of avoiding honour, of the contempt of riches, of that in- comparable retiredness of mind, which separates us from the world, the better to know ourselves. He often repeated the following sentence, which he said was the foundation of true wisdom : Eternal reason produced one ; one produced two ; two produced three ; and three produced all tilings : which seems to show as if he had some knowledge of the Trinity." That the doctrines of the Taou sect originally sprang from some mutilated and mystified versions of the doc- trine of the Trinity, there is high doubt, but not whether the leading notion (if it be not derived from a common source with the Hellenic and other legend- ary lore,) was obtained from the prophetical books of the Old Testament, for I have elsewhere stated, that there are many Hebrew MSS. in China, and now fur- ther sa} r that they have been there for many centuries, and even, as will be seen hereafter, for some hundreds of years before the Christian era. I translate from the Chinese, a passage relative to the doctrine of Taou. " The Chinese sect Taou affirm : ' Taou brought forth one ; one brought forth two ; two brought forth three ; and three brought forth all things.' If you ask them what the nature of Taou (the original principle) is they reply : ' Taou is extreme stillness or a condition of perfect rest.' In speaking of the outward forms of the three, they characterize their nature as ' the heaven's adorning principle, earth's vivifying principle, and the pure principle of the exciting harmonizing wind ;' or as it is defined by them, { That aerial cause, or principle, 180 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. by means of which the heavens and the earth act upon each other.' They call the internal Trinity, < The clear unmingled influence ; the spiritual intelligence ; the purity of essence ; in the midst of rest the yin and yang principles separated. Essence, intelligence, and influence, together worked in a state of vacuum.' ' Such is the clear, and intelligible strain of the Taou philosophy, which might have been an intelligible phi- losophy at the time, but is considered obscure at present, from the tampering of time and unphilosophical com- mentators. To return to the account of the Jesuit : " But he taught that God was corporeal, and that he governed other deities, as a king governs his sub- jects. He applied himself mightily to' chymistry, of which some pretend he was the inventor. He beat his brains, likewise, about the philosopher's stone ; and did, at length, fancy, that by a certain sort of drink one might be immortal. To obtain which, his followers practise magic, which diabolical art, in a short time, was the only thing studied by the gentry. Every body studied it in hopes to avoid death ; and the women, through natural curiosity, as well as a desire to prolong their life, applied themselves to it, wherein they exer- cise all sorts of extravagances, and give themselves up to all sorts of impieties. " Those who have made this their professed business, are called Tien-se, that is, heavenly doctors ; they have houses given them to live together in society ; they erect, in divers parts, temples to Laokun their master ; king and people honour him with divine worship ; and, although they have examples enough to have unde- ceived them from these errors, yet they vehemently PEKING. 181 pursue immortality by liis precepts, who could never gain it himself." "An interview," says Martin, "is said to have taken place between Laou-Tsze and Confucius, in the year 517 B. c. The former was eighty-seven years old, and the latter thirty-five. Laou-tsze reproached Con- fucius with vanity and worldly-mindedness, as exhibited by the pompous style in which he travelled, and the number of his followers. ' The wise man,' said he, Cloves obscurity; so far from courting employments, he shuns them : he studies the times; if they be favourable, he speaks ; if corrupt, he yields to the storm. He who is truly virtuous, makes no parade of his virtue ; he does not proclaim to all the world that he is a sage. This is all I have to say to you ; make the best of it you can.' Confucius said of Laou-tsze, that 'he knew the habits of birds, beasts, and fishes, and how to take them ; but as to the dragon, he could not understand how it could raise itself in the heavens. He had seen Laou-tsze, who resembled the dragon.' ' The death of Laou-tsze took place in 522 E. c. The portraits of the impostor would make him a European. The most important event in Chinese literary and ethical history is the birth of Kung-foo-tsze (Confucius)? both in its effects on the moral organization of this great empire, and on the study of Chinese philosophy in Europe. Confucius, or Ivung-foo-tsze (such is the correct Chinese spelling, meaning "the sage Rung" or "the wise excellence"), was of royal descent ; and his family the most "ancient in the empire, as his genealogy was traceable directly up to Hwang-te, the reputed organ- 16 182 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. izer of the state, and first emperor of the semi-historical period (beginning 2698 B. c. ). The father of Confu- cius was Shih-Leang-Ho, with tlio family style of Kung. His son, Confucius, was the child of a second marriage with a woman named Len-she ; who being of a pious turn of mind, went to Ne-Kew, and prayed to the All- perceiving Divinities, and in ten months had a son in the city of Tsow-yih (now called Keu-foo-heen), in Shantung province, who received the name of Kew, and style of Chung-ne. This took place in the twenty- second year of Seang-Kung, king of Loo, the twenty- PEKING. 183 first year of Emperor Ling-wang, the 13th day of the eleventh month, in the forty-seventh year of the cycle, answering to the autumn of 581 B. c. At his birth, The frame aud huge foundation of the earth Shak'd like a coward; " The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes ; The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields." A. prodigious quadruped called the Ke-lin, appeared and prophesied that the new-born infant " would be a king without throne or territory." Divers indications of scrofula and distortion were turned into miraculous indications of future eminence, and every fault was a distinctive and unusual virtue. Two di'agons hovered about the couch of Yen-she, and five celestial sages, or angels, entered at the moment of the birth of the wondrous child ; heavenly strains were heard in the air, and harmonies and chords followed each other, fast and full. Thus was Confucius ushered into the world, in which for China, and, I doubt not, eventually for the western world, he was destined to work out many favourable and important changes. On the similarity between his birth, and that of our Saviour, I need not dwell. His father died before he was three years old, and he was left unprovided for ; but his mother, who seems to have had independent property, educated him with great care and attention. His reverence for age, even in his earliest years, seems to have been unbounded. At seven years old he went to school, and his learning and talents seem to have raised him in the opinion of 184 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. every one. At the early age of seventeen he obtained the post of subordinate surveyor of agricultural pro- duce ; the duties of which office, contrary to the gene- ral practice, he performed himself, without the aid of a deputy. In his nineteenth year, he married Ke-Kwan-she; and at the birth of his son, Pih-yu, he seems to have been of consequence enough to attract, as Abraham did on a similar occasion, the attention of the monarch of Loo, who sent him a present of a carp. In his twenty-first year, he rose to the considerable office of surveyor of agricultural live stock, retaining, probably, his former office. In this post, as in the former, he gave general- satisfaction, and introduced much reform ; so that, under his administration, the country became twice as prosperous as before his ap- pointment. He retired from public life at the age of twenty- three, on account of the death of his mother, to con- form to the three years mourning customary in China ; and his mother's obsequies appear to have been carried out in the most splendid and respectful manner ; for it was one of the social reforms brought about by him, to treat the earthly frame of man, breathless and quies- cent, with more reverence and affection than before. His example soon became general ; and thus one im- portant object of his mission was carried out. The three years of mourning and seclusion he passed in intense study, and in following up the " six arts," viz., music, ceremonies, arithmetic, writing, the use of wea- pons, and the art of chariot-driving. At this period he imbibed a taste for philosophy, and refused to return PEKING. 185 to public political life. From this time he appears in the character of a travelling politician, reforming, on philosophical principles, the abuses of any or every land, and giving advice and instruction to all. Indeed his house appears to have been turned into a kind of Academus, where the discussion of all subjects in ethics, literature, politics, and natural science, was carried on. Every person, young or old, rich or poor, was admitted, excepting such persons as bore a bad character. On being questioned as to his doctrine, he would reply, " My doctrine is that which it concerns all men to em- brace : it is that of Yaou and Shun. As to my mode of instruction, it is quite simple ; I cite the conduct of the ancients, by way of example ; I prescribe the study of the King (Books), and reflections upon the maxims they contain." Indeed, the object of the philosopher was rather to root out the abuses which had crept into the usages of the country than to introduce new matter for speculation, of which he never seems to have been very fond. On his return to the kingdom of Loo (in B. c. oil), he applied himself to the revision of the ancient classic books. He reduced the She-king (Ode-book) from 3000 poems to 311; he edited the Shoo-king (Four books), and reduced the number of chapters from 100 to 50. He executed many other works of the like nature ; but these, and the revision of the very ancient Yih-king (a book containing an account of the myste- ries of the creation and of early religious feelings), form the whole of the works which have come down to our times ; for his treatise on music (Yo-king,) is lost. "They contain," says Premare, "the whole of the 186 Ui 1 THE WOULD. Chinese religion. In the fundamental doctrines of them may be found the principles of natural law, which the ancient Chinese received from the sons of Noah. They teach the reader to know and reverence the Supreme Being. Like the Patriarchs, under the unwritten law, the emperor is both king and pontiff. To him it belongs to offer, at certain times of the year, sacrifice for his peo- ple ; to him it belongs to prescribe ceremonies, to decide on doctrines. This alone can be called the established religion of China; all other sects are considered by them to be extraneous, false, and pernicious, and are only tolerated. The Christian religion was declared lawful by a public edict : in a subsequent reign it was proscribed." A few extracts from the Ta-hio (Impor- tant Doctrine) will show the bearing of Confucian phil- osophy better than the completest exposition of it: . '* The path or course of learning proper for men," says the Ta-hio, " consists in restoring reason to its pristine lustre ; in renovating others ; and in making the summit of all virtue the only point of rest. When the mind knows its point of rest, it is decided ; once iixed, it can enjoy tranquillity ; and thus at ease view all things around with complete self-possession, thence maturely weigh their nature and value, and finally at- tain perfection in virtue. Things in. the vegetable world have a root, as well as branches and fruit ; ac- tions too have a consummation, and also a source whence they spring. He, then, who has formed a just idea of cause and effect, has made a near approxima- tion to the path which leads to the summit of virtue. . . . From the Son of Heaven even to the common people, one rule applies, that self-government is the 187 root of all virtue. . . ' Excite the people to self- renovation.' The Shoe says ' Though Tchycu ruled a country inveterate in evil habits, By the will. of heaven, he renovated its laws and manners.' " There is then no degree of virtue beyond the aim of the superior man. . . . The Slice says ' See on yon bank of the meandering Khce, The waving reeds how beautifully luxuriant ! Such the virtues of the Superior Man. As they carve and defile ivory, As they cut and polish the precious gem, How exquisite ! how severe ! How resplendent ! how illustrious ! The virtues which adorn the Superior Man, Can never become a prey to oblivion.' As riches adorn a palace, so virtue adorns the man ; when the mind is expanded by virtue and knowledge, the body itself feels in a state of freedom and enjoyment. Hence the superior man will labour to rectify his thoughts and desires. . . . When the mind, engrossed by some passion, is not duly at- tentive, a man may look without perceiving, may listen without hearing, and may receive food without discern- ing its taste. This sufficiently tells us that self-govern- ment depends on a due command over the passions. The good government of a country, therefore, must originate in a man's cultivating virtue in his own house. The Shee says ' The peach tree, how pleasant! Its leaves how blooming and luxuriant Such is a bride when she enters the house of her spouse, And duly regulates his family.' 188 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. . . . That which you dislike in your superiors, do not exercise towards your inferiors ; that which you hate in your inferiors, do not practise towards your su- periors ; that which is disgusting in those "before you, do not set before those behind you ; what is unpleasant in those behind you, do not show to those before you ; what is base to those on your right hand, do not mani- fest in your intercourse with those on your left ; what is evil in those on your left, do not propose to those on your right hand : it is this which is meant by that line of conduct which squares perfectly with equity and virtue. . . . When the sovereign himself reveres virtue, it is impossible that his subjects should forget the respect due to him. When the people duly regard the rights of the sovereign, it is impossible that the revenues should not be easily collected ; and equally impossible, that a revenue thus collected without ex- tortion, should not be deemed sacred to the sovereign's use." Such are the extracts which I have thought best to lay before the reader, and from these passages the genera] tenor of the Confucian philosophy can fairly be inferred. JERUSALEM. WE are treading on holy ground. We are now seeking, by the too feeble efforts of the pen, to trace the site of those regions which the Saviour of mankind has for ever hallowed by his presence ; we are attempting to tell the story of God in his real descent upon the earth, the narrative of those sufferings which the Crea- tor underwent, in order to save us from suffering. The history of Jerusalem is unlike all other histories. The Jews themselves are, to this day, unlike all other people. Scattered and distributed throughout the world here the most miserable agents of the vilest traffic there, the princes of the mercantile world ; in (191) 192 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. one place robbed of the commonest rights of man, in another bartering their wealth for high office the Jews, in their cast-off condition, with all the oppro- brium earned for them by the wilful misdeeds and self-inflicted blindness of their forefathers, are, even in our own times, a riddle that few can solve an ano maly wondrous for its internal consistency, and its outward variance with every other existing creed. The first notice of Jerusalem in Scripture is mys- terious and interesting. When the venerable patriarch of the Jews returned from his victorious pursuit of the kings of the plain, Melchisedec, the king of Salem, came forth to meet him, and in his twofold capacity of priest and king, pronounced a solemn benediction upon the victorious emir. Hereupon Abraham filled with pious gratitude for the victory he had won, gave Melchisedec "tithe of all." Our next notice of Jerusalem, under its proper name, is connected with the alliance of Adoni-zedek with other kings, in a fruitless attempt against Joshua. It is again mentioned among the cities of Benjamin, in describing the northern boundary of Judah. But the most important event before the time of David, is its capture by the tribes of Judah and Simeon, after which time we find the Judahites and Benjamites dwelling together at Jerusalem, without, however, suc- ceeding in driving out the Jebusites. But it is in the reign of David that Jerusalem begins to be of real importance in history. The tribe of Judah could proudly point to Hebron and Macpelah as places of high and holy interest ; and their influence had developed itself in a series of attempts to act 193 independently of the other tribes. The blessing of the birthright, which had departed from the first-born of Jacob, Reuben, seems to have been considered the property of Judah ; and although the Ephraimites might claim Shiloh as the place where the ark of the covenant had so long found a secure habitation, Judah kept the pre-eminence. Of this tribe was David; and it was therefore natural that he would choose a royal city within its territories. Jerusalem, being nearer the other tribes than any other which he could have chosen within the precincts of Judah, was selected for the purpose, being, moreover, admi- rably qualified by the strength of its situation, enclosed on three sides by a natural rench of valleys. Although the Divine mandate which required all the adult males of Israel to visit the place of the Divine presence three times in the year, rendered this situation inconvenient for many an inconvenience which seems to have paved the way to the subsequent revolt of the ten tribes, and to the setting up of images at Dan and Bethel; still, we must feel persuaded that David, actuated as he was by a Divine impulse, and directed by the immediate communications of the Deity, must have had ample reasons for selecting Jerusalem as the place which was to become the glory of his own kingdom, and the scene of the most important change, the most absorbing revolution that ever agitated the earth. Mount Moriah, already rendered famous as the scene of Abraham's early trial of faitl . was chosen by God as the site of his temple, thereby confirming the choice David had made. Thus, under his successor, Jerusa- 17 194 'GREAT CITIES off THE WORLD. lem became not only the royal city, but the very seat and centre of the Jewish theocracy the place where the Shechinah sat "between the cherubims," where the glory of the face of God ever regarded his people. It was of this place that Moses had said : " The place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there ; even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither shalt thou come." Its importance was not political or commercial; but it was a favoured spot invested with every charm of past promises and future hopes, its prospects were sub- lime, and its name became even proverbially signi- ficant of the state of joy into which faithful believers who had "persevered unto the end," should one day enter. I have already given, in my article on Palmyra, a sufficient account of the policy which actuated Solomon in the administration of affairs, and of the wealth which, amassed by his father, his own management enabled him to retain. Jerusalem presented few oppor- tunities for the exercise of diplomacy, still less for matters of traffic. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the magnificence of Solomon's court, honoured by the embassies, sometimes by the personal visits of royal personages, rendered Jerusalem a centre to which the rank and taste of the wealthiest classes would naturally direct them. The details respecting the building of the temple furnish us with a probable notion of the sumptuousness which would prevail in the houses of the great; and the character of the imports which formed the leading traffic of Solomon's JERUSALEM. 197 reign proves a state of refinement highly advanced, if not a considerable progress towards a taste for art. The Psalms of David are replete with passages proving that the affections which linked Jerusalem to the mind of the king were of the tenderest kind ; and, although a calculating coldness may have seemed to form a conspicuous feature in the character of Solo- mon, we have no reason for supposing him insensible to impressions which had directed the life, and inspired the strains of his royal father. Earnestly bent on carrying out the design which had been the thing most at heart with his sire, his taste led him to seek for the best artificers, while his perseverance and business-like disposition would be equally useful in enforcing the ready execution of a plan so magnifi- cently conceived. " And it came to pass, when Solo- mon had finished the building of the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do, that the Lord, appeared to Solomon a second time as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon. And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication that thou hast made before me : I have hallowed this house which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever, and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually." But the splendour and magnificence which had merited these warm encomiums from the God whom they were designed to honour, sank visibly during the subsequent reign of Rehoboam. This prince was at once unfortunate and impolitic. The growing jealousy of the house of Ephraim, to which I have already referred, doubtless tended to bring about the separa* 17* 198 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. tion of the ten tribes : but the imprudent and tyrannical reply of the new king, declaring that he would increase the burdens of which the people already complained, no doubt accelerated the unfortunate event. Jerusa- lem thus became the capital only of the small state of Judah ; and when Jeroboam, the king of the new confederation of the revolted tribes, set up symbolical images for worship at Dan and Bethel, the customary visits to the house of God were discontinued, and the glory of the temple faded like that of the city. Probably as a rebuke to the negligent character of Rehoboam, who showed a tendency to the idolatry of the surrounding nations, Shishak, king of Egypt, was permitted to conquer the city, and pillage the treasures of. the temple; and under succeeding kings it sustained considerable loss and spoliation. Hezekiah, a prince of a mild yet steadfast policy, bestowed great pains upon the improvement of Jerusa- lem,' especially by stopping the upper course of the Gihon, and bringing its waters to the western side of the city by means of a subterraneous aqueduct. His son Manasseh, whose earlier reign had been disgraced by idolatry, and saddened by its punishment, showed his repentance at a later period of life by adorning the city of the Lord, especially by throwing up a high wall on the western side. But the vacillating and fickle minds of the Jews, swayed by indolent and profligate leaders, fell gra- . dually deeper and deeper into the defilements of idolatry. The emphatic behest of their old lawgiver, that they should " observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that they might fear JERUSALEM. 199 this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD," was forgotten or unheeded ; and the threatened scourge of their disobedience descended in the person of Nebu- chadnezzar, who razed the walls of Jerusalem to the ground, and ravaged its temple and palaces with fire and sword. In the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiachim, Jeremiah having vainly sought to withdraw the people from their sins, God commanded him to write in a roll all the words of prophecy which he had spoken against Israel and Judah, from the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign, when he was first called to the pro- phetic office. Baruch, his scribe, wrote them from his master's dictation ; and, as Jeremiah was still in prison for having denounced the future punishments that awaited the Jews, he read them in the hearing of all the people, whilst assembled together on the great day of expiation. Ominous was the choice of this day for the declaration of prophecies fraught with so much of pain and terror ! When Judah was thus transported to Babylon, the other ten tribes of Israel had already bewailed for upwards of 130 years their captivity in Assyria. Melancholy was the desolation that told where the conquering host of Nebuchadnezzar had been. The castle of David, Solomon's temple, and the entire city presented nought save heaps of charred and blackened ruins, and it seemed as though the holy city and the chosen people of God had come to an end. Yet did the Lord "turn again, look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine." I will not enter into a detailed account of the pro- 200 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. pbecies, which, even from the time of Moses, had promised the restoration of the Jews to the land from which their own disobedience had estranged them, nor will our pages admit of a description of the various circumstances attendant on their restoration under Cyrus and Darius Hystaspis. Those prophets, who flourished after the exile to Babylon, unite in magni- ficent predictions respecting the future glory of the new temple and city. But although the dimensions of the new temple probably exceeded those of the one built by Solomon, it lacked certain features by which, in happier days, the favours of God had been mani- festly and immediately declared. The Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat ; the Shekinah, or divine glory ; the Urim and Thummim ; the Holy unquench- able fire upon the altar ; and the spirit of prophecy all these gifts had departed from the priesthood, gifts for which no grandeur of dimensions, no splendour of decoration, could compensate. Well therefore might God say, " who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory ? and how do ye see it now ? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?" After the death of Alexander the Great, Ptolemy took Jerusalem by surprise, plundered the city, and carried many Jews into captivity in Egypt. Under the mild dominion of the Ptolemies, they subsequently enjoyed tranquillity, and an uninterrupted freedom in following their own religion. At the termination, how- ever, of the war waged against the Egyptians and Antiochus the Great, the Jews, who had latterly favoured the cause of that enterprising general, were rewarded by him with several important privileges. JERUSALEM. 201 He directed that the outworks of the temple should be completed, and that all materials for the requisite repairs should be exempt from taxation. He also paid particular attention to enforcing a strict observance of the sanctity of the temple. No foreigner was allowed to pass the sacred precinct ; and the city itself was to be protected from the pollution of bringing the flesh or skins of unclean beasts within its walls. But the peace and tranquillity which the Jews had enjoyed under the mild and liberal sway of Antiochus was not of long duration. Antiochus Epiphanes formed the design of amalgamating the Jews with other na- tions by a conformity in manners and religion ; in a word, by destroying the individualities which had marked the Jews for a distinct and exclusive people. To the jealous conservative principles of the Jews, any swerving from the systems of their forefathers was odious in the extreme, and those Jews who seemed to favour the project were disgraced and expelled with ignominy. The supposed death of Antiochus in Egypt proved a false rumour, and bitterly did he retaliate upon the Jews for the rejoicing to which they had given way on hearing the news. Two years after, dis- appointed in his attempts against Egypt, he, in a fit of ill-humour, sent his chief collector of a tribute, Apol- lonius, with 22,000 men, who pillaged the city, razed its walls, and built with the stones a citadel that over- looked the temple mount. A statue of Jupiter was set up in the temple, and daily sacrifices were discontinued, and priests and people sought a refuge from persecu- tion by quitting the profaned and desolated city. At this juncture, when Jerusalem seemed well nigh 202 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. ruined, and when God and man alike seemed to have left her to her fate, one of those wondrous instances of personal valour and energy, which appear at rare inter- vals in the pages of history, assisted the progress of mischief, and aroused the failing spirits of the Jews. The name of the Maccabees must live forever in the annals of men's best deeds. With the three hundred at Thermopylae, with the Fabii of old Rome, Judas and his valiant followers will ever occupy a niche in the archives of history, of which no worthier claimant can dispossess them. To detail the instances of indi- vidual courage, and the battles sustained by this little band against vast hosts of barbarian forces, were a fitting theme for a Macaulay. After a fearful scene of struggle and slaughter Jerusalem was retaken, the temple repaired and purified, the heathen abominations cast out, and the original worship restored. Neverthe- less, the Syrians retained possession of the castle, and proved a continual source of annoyance to the Jews till B. c. 142, when Simon forced the garrison, and demol- ished the castle. He then fortified the mountain on which the temple stood, and built there a palace for himself, which became the regular residence of the Maccabfean princes. John Hyrcanus turned this into a fortress, which is called by Josephus, " the castle of Baris." At a subsequent period it was strengthened and enlarged by Herod the Great, under the name of the castle of Antonia. In the summer of B. c. 63, Pompey surprised the Jews whilst celebrating a solemn fast in commemora- tion of the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar. One thou- sand two hundred Jews were massacred in the temple JERUSALEM. 205 courts, and many of the priests died at the altar rather than suspend the performance of the sacred rites. He did not, however, pillage the sanctuary of its treasures, but what he had spared were seized a few years after by Crassus, B. c. 51. In B. c. 43, the walls of the city, which Pompey had demolished, were rebuilt by Antipater, the father of that Herod the Great, under whom Jerusalem assumed a new and magnificent ap- pearance. It is this Jerusalem that Josephus describes ; and, by way of breaking the uniformity of a connected history, we will quote his account of the gradual exten- sion of Jerusalem from its first conquest to its enlarge- ment under Herod : " The city was built on two hills, which are opposite to each other, having a valley to divide them asunder ; at which valley the corresponding rows of houses termi- nate. Of these hills, that which contains the upper city is much higher, and in length more direct. Ac- cordingly, it was called the 'the citadel,' by King David : he was the father of that Solomon who built this temple at first ; but it is by us called ' the upper market-place.' But the other hill, which is called 'Acra,' and sustains the lower city, is of the shape of the moon when she is horned ; over against this there was a third hill, but naturally lower than Acra, and parted, formerly, from the other by a broad valley. In the time when the Asmonians reigned, they filled up that valley with earth, and had a mind to join the city to the temple. They then took off part of the height of Acra, and-reduced it to a less elevation than it was before, that the temple might be above it. Now the valley of the cheesemongers, as it was called, was 18 206 GREAT CITIES OF THE WO&LD. that which distinguished the hill of the upper city from that of the lower, and extended as far as Siloam ; for that is the name of a fountain which hath sweet water in it, and this in great plenty also. " But on the outsides, these hills are surrounded by deep valleys, and, by reason of the precipices belonging to them on both sides, are every where impassable." " As the city grew more populous, it gradu- ally crept behind its old limits, and those parts of it that stood northward of the temple, and joined that hill to the city, made it considerably larger, and occa- sioned that hill which is in number the fourth, and is called 'Bezetha,' to be inhabited also. It lies over against the tower Antonia, but is divided from it by a deep valley, which was dug on purpose. This new built part of the city was called 'Bezethe,' in our language, which if interpreted in the Grecian language, may be called ' the new city.' ' The Jews were at first afraid of Herod's proposal to pull down the old temple, lest he should not be able to rebuild it. But he, wishing to calm their fears on this head, promised not to meddle with the old structure, until the materials were collected, and the arrangements completed, for building the new. Just forty-six years before the first passover of our Lord's ministry was the work commenced, and even then it was by no means finished. Of its magnificence Scripture fur- nishes us with abundant testimony, and a Pagan writer describes Jerusalem at this period as " far the most splendid city, not of Judea only, but of the whole East." But the restoration of Jerusalem to a state of gran- JERUSALEM. 207 deur equalling that of its most prosperous days was but the brilliant scintillation of glowing heat that preceded its speedy extinction. We will not repeat the sad and gloomy story of the Second Fall of Man. We will not rife as is every corner of Jerusalem with the memorials of such associations 'recall back the awful story of the death of Him whose Llood was shed at Calvary. Such detailr must be reserved for the historian of Christ's earthly career. Let us, however, trace the fulfilment of those soul harrowing prophecies that the son of man hurled forth against "his own, unto whom he came, and his own received him not." Terrific was the season of carnage and destruction 'that set in. Domestic murder, famine in its most revolting forms, fire, prodigies denouncing the wrath of Heaven, superstition exaggerating those prodigies a resistless host at the gates, starvation and anarchy within such was the ghastly scene that painted the ful- filment of Christ's prophecies in letters of blood with a torch of fire. The very ingenuity of horror itself seemed exhausted in pouring woes upon the devoted city the desperate valour, stubborn perseverance, and barbarous cruelty which animated both sides, fill the pages of voluminous history, but defy description even of the most detailed character. A few families still remained amid the ruins of Jerusalem, and they were comparatively unmolested. But though still under the yoke of a garrison, and themselves miserably reduced in numbers and resources, the native stubbornness of the Jews led them to hope for an opportunity of shaking off the Roman yoke. Adrian, probably aware of this turbulent dis- 208 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. position, attempted to rebuild Jerusalem as a fortified city, with a view of keeping the Jews in check. Unwilling that strangers and heathen deities should again defile their precincts, the Jews broke out into open rebellion under Barchochebas, one of the impostors who had pretended to be the Messiah. They were at first successful, but a war ensued, little inferior to the last in its horrors, and Jerusalem was retaken in A. D. 135. It was now made a Roman colony, inha- bited wholly by foreigners, and it was made death for its own inhabitants to approach it. Mount Moriah, where Abraham had earned the Jews their proud position as children of God, was now the site of a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus. Even the old name was supplanted by that of Aelia Capitolina. Jerusalem remained a blank in history till the year A. D. 326, when Helena, the mother of Constantine, then in the eightieth year of her age, undertook a pilgrimage thither, and built churches on the supposed site of the nativity at Bethlehem, and of the resurrec- tion on the Mount of Olives. Stimulated by her example, Constantine commenced an eager search after the Holy Sepulchre, and built a magnificent church over the sacred site, which was solemnly dedicated A. D. 335. One day in the year the Jews were permit- ted to enter the city to bewail the desolation of " the holy and beautiful house" in which their fathers had worshipped God. In the succeeding centuries the roads to Zion were thronged with cavalcades of pilgrims, and the neigh- bourhood abounded in monasteries, ^filled with those who had changed the toils and vices of the world for a JERUSALEM. specious sanctity and an austere retirement. In A. D. 451 Jerusalem was declared a patriarchate by the Council of Chalcedon, and in A. D. 527 Justinian built a magnificent chapel upon Mount Moriah in honour of the Virgin. The Persians, and subsequently the Arabians, neces- sarily, became masters of Jerusalem, and the Moslem yoke pressed with severe and extortionate hands upon the pilgrims who flocked thither. The cruelties and exorbitant demands of the Turks, who had dispossessed the Khaliffs of Egypt in A. D. 1073, gave an imme- diate impulse to that most extraordinary of ^ndertak- ings the Crusades. The idea of a holy war against the infidels who thus barred Jerusalem against the approach of the faithful, had previously occurred to Pope Gregory VII. But it was not until the preaching of Peter the Hermit, that the project met with any warm reception or support. This extraordinary man, during a voyage through Palestine, had observed with anguish the harassment and persecutions undergone by the Chris- tians, and, inflamed by an holy indignation, which he, doubtless, regarded as immediately inspired by Heaven, he implored Pope Urban II. to interfere on behalf of the faithful, but without effect. Nought discouraged, the enthusiastic monk travelled through the countries of Europe "sounding the alarm of a holy war against the infidel nations, and exhorting all Christian princes to draw the sword against the tyrants of Palestine ; nor did he stop here, but with a view to engage the superstitious and ignorant multi- tude in his cause, he carried about with him a letter, 18* 210 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. which he said was written in heaven, and addressed from thence to all true Christians, to animate their tfeal for the deliverance of their brethren, who groaned under the oppressive burden of a Mahometan yoke." Urban II., who had probably cared very little about the matter previously, no sooner found that the work was half accomplished than he evinced a sudden zeal for the undertaking. Having assembled a numerous Synod at Placentia (A. D. 1095,) he urged the holy carnage with all the authority that his dignity or his eloquence could furnish. Nevertheless, a great part of his hearef? seemed to hang back, and it was not until the council held at Clermont, a city of Auvergne, that his pompous and pathetic language had the desired effect. The first enterprise, headed by Peter the Hermit in person, came to an end as ridiculous as the character of the troops he led would naturally lead one to expect. Drafted off, without discrimination, from the lowest ranks of society, without discipline, and without any motive save the hope of pillage, this "ragged regi- ment" committed such enormities during their march through Hungary and Thrace, that they were soon cut to pieces. ]S"o other result could have been expected from the idle rabble of a set of unprincipled fanatics, headed by a man whose enthusiasm was no guarantee for his capability to command. But the Crusades, fortunately for the small amount of real credit they deserve, were not left long to such conduct. A well organised force of 80,000, horse and foot, were enlisted under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon,. Duke of Lorraine,, and his brother Baldwin, JERUSALEM. 213 and various other detachments, equally well headed, continued to reinforce the expedition. It is probable that few persons at the present day feel much sympathy in the motives which led to the Crusades, or in the undertaking itself. But whatever views may be entertained as to the policy of the attempt, whatever doubts may fairly exist as to the sincerity of some of its promoters one character must stand forth on the page of history. Deeply associated with the tender chivalry of Tasso, blending all the prowess of the hardy chieftain of early history with the not unpleasing marvels of ancient legend, Godfrey de Bouillon must ever live in our recollection, and must ever be remembered as the hero and the Christian. This " brilliant mirror of Christian nobility, in which, as in a splendid ceiling, the lustre of every virtue was reflected," joined gigantic bodily strength and heroic prowess with a humane and pious disposition, in which practical humility shone without ostentation. Vigorous in pursuing an advantage, wary in securing his own forces, and merciful in his treatment of the vanquished, Godfrey found himself in victorious possession of Jeru- salem, and the unanimous voice of the combined forces declared him King. But although he received the regal dignity thus conferred, he declined the symbol of royalty, declaring that "it were too great arrogance for him to be crowned for glory, in that city, in which God had been crowned in mockery." But he was not destined to enjoy his honours long. An herculean frame was no defence against the wear and tear of hard service, or the baleful effects of a climate so different from his own, and he died calmly in his bed 214 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. the next year, surrounded by weeping friends, and leaving a reputation tarnished with few of the vices which are ever wont to sully the name of conqueror. In A. D. 1187 the Christians lost possession of Jeru- salem, and the Cross was prostrated beneath the Cres- cent under the victorious Saladin. Richard the First proved unsuccessful in his attempts to wrest the holy city from the hands of the infidels, Saladin having strengthened it with additional fortifications. Few events of importance occurred afterwards beyond the occasional destruction or rebuilding of the city walls (according to the policy of its respective Mohammedan masters ;) and although mount Zion now boasts a Christian church capable of holding 500 persons, although a bishoprick has been established by the Prussian government and the British, Jerusalem is to this day in the hands of the Unfaithful. The following picture of Jerusalem, as seen from the Mount of Olives, is by Buckingham : " Reposing beneath the shade of an olive-tree, upon the brow of this hill (the Mount of Olives,) we enjoyed from hence a fine prospect of Jerusalem on the oppo- site one. This city occupies an irregular square, of about two miles and a half in circumference. Its shortest apparent side is that which faces the east, and in this is the supposed gate of the ancient temple, now closed up, and the small projecting stone on which Mohammed is to sit when tho world is to be assembled to judgment in the vale below. The s.-mthei n side is exceedingly irregular, taking quite a zig-zag direction ; the south-west extreme being terminated by the mosque built over the supposed sepulchre of David, JERUSALEM. 217 on the summit of Mount Sion. The form and exact direction of the western and southern walls, are not distinctly seen from hence ; but every part of this appears to be a modern work, and executed at the same time. The walls are flanked at irregular distances by square towers, and have battlements running all around on their summits, with loopholes for arrows or musketry close to the top. The walls appear to be about fifty feet in height, but are not surrounded by a ditch. The northern wall runs over slightly declining ground ; the eastern wall runs straight along the brow of Mount Moriah, with the deep valley of Jehoshaphat below ; the southern wall runs over the summit of the hill assumed as Mount Sion, with the vale of the Hin- nom at its feet ; and the western wall runs along on more level ground, near the summit of the high and stony mountains over which we had first approached the town. As the city is thus seated on the brow of one large hill divided by name into several smaller hills, and the whole of these slope gently down towards the east, this view, from the Mount of Olives, a position of greater height than that on which the highest part of the city stands, commands nearly the whole of it at once. " On the north it is bounded by a level and appa- rently fertile space, now covered with olive-trees, par- ticularly near the northeast angle. On the south, the steep side of Mount Sion, and the valley of Hinnom, both show patches of cultivation, and little garden enclosures. On the west, the sterile summits of the hills there, barely lift their outlines above the dwell- ings. And on the east, the deep valley of Jehoshaphat, 19 218 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. now at our feet, has some partial spots relieved by trees, though as forbidding in its general aspect as the vale of death would ever be desired to be by those who have chosen it for the place of their interment. " Within the walls of the city are seen crowded dwellings remarkable in no respect except being ter- raced by flat roofs, and generally built of stone. On the south are some gardens and vineyards, with the long red mosque of Al Sakhara, having two tiers of windows, a sloping roof, and a dark dome at one end, and the mosque of Sion and the sepulchre of David in the same quarter. On the west is seen the high, square castle, and palace of the same monarch, near the Bethlehem gate. In the centre, rise the two cupolas of unequal form and size; the one blue, and the other white, covering the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Around, in different directions, are seen the minarets of eight or ten mosques, amid an assem- blage of about two thousand dwellings ; and on the vast, is seated the great mosque of Al Harrcn, or, as called by Christians, the mosque of Solomon, from being supposed, with that of Al Sakhara near it, to occupy the site of the ancient temple of that splendid and luxurious king." " The Christian pilgrim, approaching Jerusalem for the first time, will probably be disappointed to find that his emotions, on the first sight of a city associated in his mind from his earliest infancy with all that is most sacred, are so much less intense than he antici- pated, and that he can look upon Mount Olivet and Mount Sion with feelings, certainly not of indifference, but of much less painful interest than lie imagined JERUSALEM. 219 possible, when he thought on them at a distance. The truth is, the events transacted here are so great in every view that the mind cannot at once grasp them ; but is, as it were, stupified by the effort ; it takes time to realize the truth, that this is the home of Scripture history, the cradle of the Christian Church. But the feeling of attachment to the Holy City and its sacred localities, will soon be formed, and will be deepened by time, to a calm satisfaction, a peaceful resting in it as the home of one's affections, which no other spot on earth can impart. For there is a halo about Jerusalem, an atmosphere which one drinks in, not only on the mountains around, but even amid its crumbling ruins, which has an untold charm. " Journeying from the west, the traveller will come in sight of the city about a mile from the gates, where it presents its least imposing aspect merely a dull line of wall, with the Mount of Olives rising above. He will, perhaps, have read of the desolate appearance of the neighbourhood of the city: it is sometimes said to resemble a city of the dead. Travellers who have so written, must have been singularly unfortunate in the time of the year ; nothing can well be imagined more lively than the scene without the Jaffa Gate. It is then that the inhabitants, of whatever nation and whatever faith, walk out to c drink the air,' as they express it ; and the various companies may be seen sauntering about or reclining on the ground. The appearance of the females, indeed, is somewhat spec- tral, for a white sheet thrown loosely over their handsome dresses, and their yellow boots, is all that is distinguishable ; but the merry laugh may be heard 220 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. among them, and, with the music of their tickling ornaments,' would serve to convince the stronger that they were veritable daughters of Eve. He will see little of the desolation of Jerusalem here : but let him enter the gates, and the delusion which its compact and well-built walls, and the appearance of its inhabi- tants, may have produced, will be quickly dispelled. " He no sooner enters the city than desolation stares him in the face. The citadel on his right hand, which showed fair from a distance is a ruin and patchwork a Roman tower, with mediaeval additions and Turkish debasements, erected on a massive foundation of Jewish architecture. On his left he will have an open space covered with ruins ; and as he passes through the streets, he will find scarcely a house that is not a ruin, and in some parts huge bulks of massive wrecks ; as, for example, the Hospital of the Knights of St. John, and the so-called Palace of Helena. But, indeed, this may be said of almost any eastern city. It is the peculiar province of the Turks to lay waste what other ages have built up. But let him examine more closely : he will find traces of former greatness, and even grandeur, here and there, handsome Saracenic fount- tains, now dry; some few traces of gothic architec- ture, more of Roman, and here and there fragments of a Greek cornice or capital, lying neglected on the side of the street, or built into modern hovels, without any regard to their proper position; and shafts of columns of costly marbles jutting out from the walls in various parts, all attesting its greatness. Or let him repair to any spot near the walls, where excava- tions may perchance be carrying on for the erection JERUSALEM. 221 of a new building ; and he will see, many feet below the present surface of the ground massive stones tossed about in the wildest confusion, and rubble to the depth of forty feet on the summit of the hills, and of untold depth in the valleys beneath ; and he will easily believe that he is in the oldest city in the world, which has undergone more vicissitudes than any other in the annals of history." CRUSADERS ON THEIR MARCH XO JERUSALEM 19* - -.-.. SMYRNA. AD the sites of the "seven churches" presented, either in their remains or their his- tory, equal matter of interest, I should have united them together in one chapter ; but, since the materials for the description of some of them are meagre and insufficient, 1 have preferred treating sepa- rately of a few of the most distinguished. The origin of Smyrna is replete with the same uncer- tainty of tradition that in- volves the early history of other nations in obscurity. SMYRNA. 223 Tantalus, the son of Jove, whose punishment has given rise to one of our most trite proverbial phrases, is the mythical founder of this city. The wealth and com- mercial influence of the ancestors of Agamemnon will be noticed when we come to speak of Mycense, but their connection with Smyrna is too limited and doubt- ful to require our attention here. Up to the time of Alexander the Great, Smyrna, which had been destroyed by the Lydians, lay waste and desolate ; but it was^ebuilt, and under the earlier Koman emperors it was regarded as one of the finest cities of Asia. It was at this period, when it was at the height of prosperity when its inhabitants were enjoying the vicious pleasures for which their ill-directed industry and enterprise had furnished the means that St. John addressed the Christian Church at Smyrna, but his words furnish little clew to the character of the Smyrngeans as a people. There is, however, great reason to believe that, whatever may have been the vices of the Smyrnaeans, they evinced a ready and receptive spirit towards Christianity. In A. D. 177, it was destroyed by an earthquake ; and though Marcus Aurelius rebuilt it on a grander scale of splendour than before, it was continually ex- posed to the ravages of earthquakes and conflagrations, and gradually declined from its ancient importance and prosperity. In considering the magnificence of this city in its ancient condition, we have one important difficulty to contend with. Convulsions of nature have rent asunder the site upon which it stands, and have led to conse- quent removals, calculated to obliterate its earlier 224 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. MARCOS AURELIUS. FROM A COIN. boundaries. Again, although "few of the Ionian churches have furnished more relics of antiquity than Smyrna; the convenience of transporting them, with the number of investigators, have exhausted the mine ; it is therefore not at all wonderful that of the porticoes and temples the very ruins have vanished ; and it is now extremely difficult to determine the sites of any of the ancient buildings, with the exception of the stadium, the theatre, and the temple of Jupiter Acraeus, which was within the Acropolis." A recent writer on British India, who has visited the interesting locality of the seven churches, has de- scribed the present appearance of these early scenes of the Gospel progress in a manner happily blending classic associations with the more solemn recollections to which they must naturally give rise. We cannot do better than proceed in his own words : " The first of the churches to which my journeying led me, and which had been one of the most important of the seven, was Smyrna. The peculiar felicity of the situation of this place still retains and seems always to have retained, a certain degree of commerce, and its natural consequences, population and prosperity. But SMYKNA. 225 these are merely comparative, and to exalt Smyrna she must be compared with the present depopulated, wretched condition of the districts that surround her, and not to herself or to the cities of her neighbourhood at the period preceding the date of the awful prediction of her ruin. At the more ancient epoch referred to, Smyrna was the admiration of a most ingenious people, who possessed the fine arts in a perfection we have still to see equalled; her lofty Acropolis bore whole quarries of marble on its proud brow ; temples and stoas, theatres and a library covered the bold sides of the hill, facing the clear deep bay, a fitting mirror for so much grace and beauty ; her crowded but elegant houses descend in gentle parapets, from the heights of Mount Pagus, and stretched to the banks of the sacred Meles ; whilst far beyond, an avenue of temples and tombs, villas and baths, extended in the direction of a modern village, called Bournibat ; in short, ancient de- scription, the glorious site of the place as we now see it, and the beauty that remains of sculpture and building occasionally discovered, combine to justify the high titles with which she was honoured, and to prove that Smyrna was indeed ' the lovely, the crown of Ionia, the ornament of Asia.' Now, compared to this, what I saw did not seem of a character in the teeth of pro- phecy. Her Acropolis was bare, or only marked by the walls, with many a yawning fissure between them ; of the ancient fortifications, of temples, or other edifices of taste or grandeur, were there none ; the Turkish houses, that seemed sliding down the hill, were mean, filthy, and tasteless : and every here and there an open space with smoked and blackened walls around it ; gave 226 GREAT CITIES 0# THE WORLD. evidence of recent conflagration; narrow and dirty streets led me to the Meles, the sacred and Homer's own river, according to Smyrnaean tradition; and I found the stream foul and wholly insignificant ; the avenue beyond it could merely be traced by the occa- sional obtrusion of a block of marble, or the base of a wall, which, indifferent to their ancient destination, the indolent Turks used as stepping-stones to mount their horses. The only buildings were the Mahometan mosques; and the voices of the Muerrins from their minarets seemed to proclaim the triumph of the cres- cent over the cross, and to boast of the abasement of the church of Christ in one of its high places. The Christians, divided by heresies and feuds, were merely tolerated on the spot where the church had been all triumphant, and the Greek, the Catholic, and the Armenian offered up their devotions in narrow temples, that were fain to hide their diminished heads. It re- quired the skill of an antiquary to trace the walls of the church on the side of Mount Pagus, where Saint Polycarp and others suffered martyrdom. Nobody attempted to show me the site of the original metro- politan temple, but every step I took offered me evi- dence of that destruction and humiliation foretold by the inspired writer. An infidel barbarous race, the Turks, whose existence was not even known in the clays of the prophecy, were masters or tyrants of the fail- country ; and the wealth and prosperity of Smyrna, or the small portion of them that remained, had passed into the hands of foreign trades some of them from countries considered in a state of unimproveable bar- barity^ or altogether unknown, when the prediction SMYRNA. 227 was uttered for English, Dutch, and Armenians were the most influential of the number. The red hand of the Osmanlis had very lately waved over the devoted city, and if slaughter had ceased, a pestilential fever, engendered by the putrid waters and filth about the town, daily thinned its inhabitants. The productions of art, of the pencil or chisel, were looked for in vain in Smyrna, that had been art's emporium in Smyrna, whose ancient coins and medals, and other exquisite fragments, have partially furnished half of the numer- ous cabinets of Europe. The voice of music was mute, the converse of philosophy was no more heard, and of a certainty, Smyrna was in the days of tribulation with which she had been threatened." EPHESUS. WILL not entertain my readers with the romantic deeds and legends of the Amazons, who possess the mythical claim to be the founders of the old capital of Ionia. Situated on the banks of the Cayster, not far from the coast of the Icarian sea, between the flourishing city-states of Smyrna and Miletus, it at an early period acquired a p--siuuii second to none of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, The classical celebrity of this city is, however, mainly owing to the fame of its temple of Diana, and for tl.c enthusiasm and magnificence with which, up to a very late period, the worship of that goddess was celebrated. Such was this temple, that, in the opinion of the cherished poet of Ptolemy's court, " the morn shall (228) EPHESUS. 229 behold nought more divine or sumptuous ; yea, it might even surpass the shrine of Pythian Apollo." One of those characteristic stories which served to eke out the confused notions of mythology with some- thing like a sprinkling of probability, and at the same time to foster human vanity, and to accommodate the oversight of the deities to a supposed complaisance towards the pride of mankind, is amusingly mixed up with the fate of this structure. On the night that the Macedonian conqueror first saw light, the temple of Diana, which had been one of the marvels of ancient magnificence, was totally destroyed by fire. The incendiary was an obscure individual, Eratostratus by name, who thus sought to earn a notoriety which no better deeds would have realized. To excuse the apparent neglect of the goddess, it was given out that Diana, in her capacity of the midwife-goddess, was too much occupied in ushering Alexander the Great into the world to be able to take care of her favourite shrine. At a subsequent period, the conqueror offered to rebuild the whole structure, on condition of being allowed to inscribe his name on the front ; but the inhabitants perhaps actuated by the same feeling which led the Tyrians to refuse Alexander an entrance into their city for the purpose of sacrificing to Hercules declined the offer. They, however, succeeded in erecting a structure rivalling the former one in magnificence a magnificence to which the whole of the states of Asia Minor contributed. Two hundred and twenty years were occupied in this grand work of superstitious enthusiasm, and the original architect is said to have received divine encouragement from the goddess, when 20 230 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. he was well nigh driven to suicide by the difficulties of the undertaking. In considering the greatness of Ephesus, her high claims to skill for the refinements and taste for the arts of life cannot he denied, although there is little reason to believe that she ever possessed an original school of art, or sought to elevate the character of the inhabitants above the standard of an artificial and pleasure-seeking disposition. They doubtless possessed many features in common with the Alexandrians, amongst which a taste for mystical religion, and for the idle impositions of magic, are amongst their least creditable points of resemblance. The burning of the books* of magic, recorded by the pen of St. Luke, was, however, a powerful evidence of their capability for receiving the truths of Christianity, and abandoning the parapher- nalia of idolatry. If, however, we consider the number of adventurers who, in all ages, and at no period more than on that occasion when the Truth himself had shone forth to dissipate the clouds of error which hung over the heads of oifending, suffering humanity if we reflect upon the pretended skill in such arts attributed to Solomon, and claimed as derived from him by a set of speculative Jews, who had leavened the Law with the corrupt practices of Paganism it will appear highly probable that an under-current of political manoeuvring may have been mixed up with the principles that raised the cry, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians," and raised so formidable an opposition to the hitherto successful preaching of Paul. * Acts xix. 19, EPHESUS. 231 The "Ephesian letters" appear to me to have been certain masonic signs connected with this underhand system of politics, as well as charms or amulets designed to impose upon the idle superstition of the vulgar. Amusing stories have heen told respecting their efficacy, as, for instance, that when a Milesian and an Ephesian were wrestling in the Olympic games, the former could gain no advantage, till he deprived his adversary of some of these charms, which he wore bound round his head. Despite, however, its lamentable superstitions and childish enthusiasm in favour of a mistaken worship, we cannot rob Ephesus of the glory of having given birth to two artists, whose names must live as long as the history of art excites any interest Apelles and Parrhasius. I will not repeat the trite stories respecting the tact with which these painters rivalled each other's powers of imitation, nor will I seek to throw discredit upon what appear to have been merely ingenious feats of sleight of hand ; I will merely observe that we know too little about ancient Greek painting of that period, to have any right to express an opinion on the subject. But whatever may have been the ability and wealth of the Ephesians of old, their present condition presents nothing but a contrast as painful as that which grieves the student of Pagan splendour in every quarter of the known world. " The inhabitants," says Chandler, " are a few Greek peasants, living in extreme wretched- ness, dependence, and insensibility the representative of an illustrious people, and inhabiting the wreck of their greatness ; some the substructure of the glorious edifices which they raised ; some beneath the vaults of 232 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. the stadium, once the crowded scene of their diversions ; and some in the abrupt precipice, in the sepulchres which received their ashes. Its streets are obscured and overgrown. A herd of goats was driven to it for shelter from the sun at noon ; and a noisy flight of crows from the quarries seemed to insult its silence. We heard the partridge call in the area of the theatre and the stadium. The pomp of its heathen worship is no longer remembered; and Christianity which was there nursed by the apostles, and fostered by general Councils, until it increased to fulness of stature, lingers on in an existence hardly visible/' But if the condition of the inhabitants is desolate, how much more desolate is the picture presented by the ruins of its buildings ! Arundell, whose Christian- like and tasteful observations on the seven churches have deservedly attracted the notice of the best judges of this department of topographical history, sums up the present state of the great city of Diana in the following melancholy and reflective terms : " What would have been the astonishment and grief of the beloved Apostle and Timothy, if they could have foreseen that a time would come when there would be in Ephesus neither angel, nor church, nor city when the great city would become 'heaps, a desolation, and a dry land, and a wilderness; a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.' Once it had an idolatrous temple, celebrated for its magnificence, as one of the wonders of the world ; and the mountains of Coressus and Prion re-echoed the shouts of ten thousand, ' Great is Diana of the Ephesians !.' Once it had Christian temples, almost EPHESUS. 233 rivalling the Pagan in splendour, wherein the image that fell from Jupiter lay prostrate before the cross, and as many tongues, moved by the Holy Ghost, made public avowal that ' Great is the Lord Jesus !' Once it had a bishop, the angel of the Church, Timothy, the disciple of St. John ; and tradition reports, that it was honoured with the last days of both these great men, and the mother of our Lord." " Some centuries passed on, and the altars of Jesus were again thrown down to make way for the delusions of Mahomet ; the cross is removed from the dome of the church, and the crescent glitters in its stead, while within, the kebld is substituted for the altar." " A few years more, and all may be silence in the mosque and the church. A few unintelligible heaps of stones, with some mud cottages untenanted, are all the remains of the great city of the Ephesians. The busy hum of a mighty population is silent in death, 4 Thy riches and thy fairs, thy merchandize, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy caulkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandize, and all thy men of war are fallen.' Even the sea has retired from the scene of desolation, and a pestilential morass, with mud and rushes, has succeeded to the waters which brought up the ships laden with merchandize from every country." No less feeling is the following passage of Gibbon : " In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an individual, however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are passed over with careless inatten- tion. Yet we cannot forget that the temple of Diana at Ephesus, after having risen with increasing splendour from seven repeated misfortunes, was finally burnt by 20* 234 GKEAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. the Goths in the third naval invasion. In the third century, the arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia, had conspired to erect that sacred and magnificent structure. It was supported hy a hundred and twenty- seven marble columns of the Ionic order. They were the gift of devout monarchs, and each was sixty feet high. The altar was adorned with the masterly sculp- tures of Praxiteles, who had, perhaps, selected from the favourite legends of the place, the hirth of the divine children of Latona, the concealment of Apollo after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the clemency of Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons ; yet the length of the temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and twenty- five feet, about two-thirds of the measure of St. Peter's at Rome. In the dimensions, it was still more inferior to that sublime production of modern architecture. The spreading arms of a Christian cross require a much greater breadth than the oblong temples of the Pagans ; and the boldest artists of antiquity would have been startled at the proposal of raising in the air a dome of the size and proportions of the Pantheon. The temple of Diana was, however, admired as one of the wonders of the world. Successive empires, the Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman, had revered its sanctity and enriched its splendour. But the rude savages of the Baltic were destitute of a taste for the elegant arts, and they despised the ideal terrors of a foreign superstition." Thus, then, is this scene of Christian developement laid bare and desolate ; thus is her glory departed, and, to conclude in the words of an excellent writer of modern times, " however much the church at Ephesus EPHESUS. 235 may, in its earliest days, have merited praise for its * works, labour, and patience,' yet it appears soon to have ' left its first love,' and to have received in vain the admonition c remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.' If any repentance was produced by this solemn warning, its effects were not durable, and the place has long since offered an evidence of the truth of prophecy, and the certainty of the Divine threatenings, as well as a melancholy subject for thought to the contemplative Christian. Its fate is that of the once flourishing seven churches of Asia : its fate is that of the entire country a garden has become a desert. Busy centres of civilization, spots where the refinements and delights of the age were collected, are now a prey to silence, destruction, and death. Consecrated first of all to the purposes of idolatry, Ephesus next ' had Christian temples almost rivaling the pagan in splendour, wherein the image of the great Diana lay prostrate before the cross ; and, after the lapse of some centuries, Jesus gives place to Mahomed, and the crescent glittered on the dome of the recently Christian church. A few more scores of years, and Ephesus has neither temple, cross, crescent, nor city, but is a ' desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.' Even the sea has retired from the scene of devastation, and a pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has succeeded to the waters which brought up ships laden with merchandize from every part of the known world," BURNING OF SARDIS BY THJS GREEKS. SARDIS. | RE AT as were the sins which debased the lively and earnest dispositions of the Ephesians, severe as was the punishment which has been gradually worked out in the extirpation and casting down of the monuments of exploded idola- try, and in the substitution of a mixed population, in a state of poverty and ignorance, for the elegant and tasteful lonians of old the same important lessons are drawn in stronger colours in the ruins which adorn the miserable village of Sait, which cover the site of the capital of Croesus, of that king whose vanity suffered so heavy a correction in the fearful vicissitudes which formed the melancholy conclusion of the prosperity in which he had so haughtily trusted. (236) SARDIS. 239 Had Solon, or whoever it was that bade the proud king of Lydia await the end of life before he judged of its good fortune, lived to behold the scattered remnants of the almost impregnable treasure-city, which remain to this day, he would have marvelled at the wondrous illustration of the uncertain prosperity of states as of princes. Despite the romance with wliich the artless narrative of Herodotus is invested, and although even chronology tends to cast a doubt upon the whole story, so thoroughly is the conversation of the Lydian monarch with the A then: uii sage realized in what we now behold of Sardis, that we must fain wish to believe it, even where we are bound to doubt. Long and spirited was the resistance which the then hardy Lydians opposed to the intrepid and determined onslaught of Cyrus. Enormous wealth, which had from the days of Gyges been proverbial, had made it a fitting object of cupidity to the successful revolutionist who had ousted his grandfather, Astyages, from the Median throne. Its situation at the foot of Mount Tmolus, in a beautiful plain watered by the golden stream of Pactolus, gave it all the charms of local interest, and it would have made a fitting royal residence even for the monarch of the wide Persian estate. Sardis is pre-eminently interesting as the cause of the first Persian war against the Greeks. Heeren has well described this as the "grand object of common interest that was wanting'' to prevent the consequences of the mutual jealousies of Athens, Sparta, and the other larger Grecian states. " Although," he continues, " this did not produce that union of the whole Greek nation, which a great man had conceived, without 240 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. believing in its possibility, yet the whole condition of Greece in succeeding ages, her foreign and domestic relations, were all a consequence of it ; and we do not say too much when we assert, that by it the political character of Greece was formed." The surprise of Sardis by the lonians, under Aris- togoras, and its subsequent destruction by an accidental fire, proved the grand provocative to the Persian power, and the destruction of the temple of Cybe'le' was after- wards made a pretext for violating and firing the shrines of the gods of Greece, when the Persians were as yet unrcpressed in their victorious progress. But although the Athenians afterwards abandoned the lonians, and refused to send them succour, Darius took little notice of the lonians, when he heard of the destruction of Sardis, but having taken a bow and arrows, he let fly a shaft towards heaven, exclaiming, "0 Jove, grant that I may revenge myself on the Athenians !" And lest he should forget the reprisals he hoped to make, a favourite attendant was desired, every time dinner was set before him, to say three times, " Sire, remember the Athenians." We find little of interest in the subsequent history of Sardis. Like a number of its neighbours, it yielded to the Macedonian conqueror, who treated its inhabi- tants with much favour, admitting Mithrencs,. the governor of the citadel, into the number of his private associates, and employing him on confidential errands. Having ordered a temple to be erected to Jove, on the site of the ancient palace of the Lydian kings, he left Pausanias as governor, permitting the inhabitants to live freely after their accustomed laws and manners. SARDIS. 241 Sardis, however, rapidly declined, when, after the victory of the Romans over Antiochus, it became sub- ject to that power which absorbed the whole greatness of Asia Minor. To become the province of a larger state, to change from the dimensions of a widely-spread kingdom to those of a mere village, itself the tributary of an arbitrary and marauding power, with a nominal and purposeless subjection to some larger and better organized state, which has too little interest in its provinces, or has too much to take care of already such has been the fate we have briefly recorded in the case of half the most glorious cities of antiquity. Sardis is no exception. The haughty palatial city of the Lydian empire had long since parted with her na- tionalty ; the gradual introduction of Persian manners and customs had depraved her once-hardy soldiers; and this ancient kingdom passed through all the stages of degradation which, when we view their ruins, we perceive was consummated throughout the cities of Asia Minor. The calamities of nature were added to the destruc- tive influence of demoralizing man. An earthquake had reduced it to a heap of ruins, when the emperor Tiberius ordered it to be rebuilt. From various local traditions, however, and from the careful surveys that recent travellers have made, it seems probable that many interesting relics of the ancient city were pre- served, and that the work of repair was performed with some regard to the preservation of Lydian associations of an earlier date. As the seat of a Christian church, 1 the Scriptural notices of Sardis are limited to the rebukes addressed 21 242 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. to its inhabitants by St. John, which are sufficient to show that it had declined much in faith, and that, although it still maintained the name and outward form of a Christian church, it was as one " having a name to live, while it was dead.'* Macfarlane furnishes the following pleasing account of his visit to the ruined capital of Lydia : "The country I traversed, the luxuriant vales of the Caicus and the Hermus two noble rivers was almost as deserted and melancholy as the regions between Smyrna and Pergamus; but nothing that I had yet seen equalled the desolation of the city of Sardis. I saw from afar the lofty Acropolis, fringed with crumbling ruins; and when I crossed a branch of the Golden Pactolus, which once flowed through.the agora, market-place ; and when I stood there at eleven o'clock the very hour in which, in its ancient days, the place would be crowded I saw not a soul, nor an object of any sort to remind me that this solitude had been a vast and splendid city, save here and there a patch of ruin, a dismantled wall, or a heap of stone and brick work mixed with brambles and creeping weeds. Where palaces and temples, theatres and crowded habitations had stood, a green and flowery carpet of smooth sward met the eye; and the tall, stately asphodel, or day-lily, gleamed in its beauty and pallidness where the marble column had risen in other days. The brook for the Pactolus is now nothing more than a brook, and a choked and insig- nificant one gently c babbled by ;' a cool breeze blew from the snow-covered Mount Tmolus, which, if I may be permitted to use the poetical language of the SARDIS. 243 Sicilians, as applied to Etna, stood like TArciprete de' monti, che in cotta bianca, al ciel porge gl'incensi,' facing me far across the plain. This breeze murmured along the steep rough sides of the Acropolis, and sighed among the underwood that grew thickly at its foot. Other sounds there were none, save now and then the neighing of my horse, who crushed the flowers and scented turf beneath his hoof, and gave utterance to the contentment and joy suggested by such fair pas- ture. This utter solitude, and in such a place, in the agora of the populous Sardis, became oppressive. I would have summoned the countless thousands of ancient Lydians, that for long centuries had slept the sleep of death beneath that gay green sward : spirits might have walked there in broad noon-day so silent, void, awful was the spot ! Here the hand of destruc- tion had spared nothing but a few rent walls, which remained to tell all that had been done ; were they not there, the eye might pass over the plain and the hill as a scene of a common desert, and never dream that here was the site of Sardis ! The Pagan temple and the Christian church had alike been desolated; the architectural beauty of the one, and the pure destination of the other, having been all inefficacious for their preservation. Four rugged, dark, low walls, by the side of a little mill, represented the church; and two columns erect, and a few mutilated fragments of other columns, scattered on the sward or sunk in it, were all that remained of that ' beautiful and glorious edifice,' the temple of Cybele at Sardis ! At the mill by the church, I met two Greeks, and these, I believe, formed the resident Christian population of 'this once- 244 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. distinguished city of the Lord. From the mill I could see a group of mud-huts on the acclivity under the southern cliffs of the Acropolis there might have been half a dozen of these permanent habitations, and they were flanked by about as many black tents. A pastoral and wandering tribe of the Turcomans dwelt here at the moment ; and the place almost retained the ancient name of the city they called it Sart. Well might the Christian traveller exclaim here 'And what is Sardis now? Her foundations are fallen ; her walls are thrown down.' ' She sits silent in darkness, and is no longer called the lady of kingdoms.' ' How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people !' " I may conclude my notice of Sardis with the following reflections of an equally thoughtful eye- witness : "Beside me were the cliffs of Acropolis, which, centuries before, the hardy Median scaled, while leading on the conquering Persians, whose tents had covered the very spot on which I was reclining. Before me were the vestiges of what had been the palace of the gorgeous Croesus ; within its walls were once congre- gated the wisest of mankind Thales, Cleobulus, and Solon. It was here that the wretched father mourned alone the mangled corpse of his beloved Atys ; it was here that the same humiliated monarch wept at the feet of the Persian boy, who wrung from him his kingdom. Far in the distance were the gigantic tumuli of the Lydian monarchs, Candaules, Halyattes, and Gryges ; and around them were spread those very SAUDIS. 245 plains once trodden by the countless hosts of Xerxes, when hurrying on to find a sepulchre at Marathon. " There were more varied and more vivid remem- brances associated with the sight of Sardis, than could possibly be attached to any other spot of earth ; but all were mingled with a feeling of disgust at the littleness of human glory ; all all had passed away ! There were before me the fanes of a dead religion, the tombs of forgotten nionarchs, and the palm-tree that waved in the banquet hall of kings ; while the feeling of desolation was doubly heightened by the calm, sweet sky above me, which, in its unfading brightness, shone as purely now as when it beamed upon the golden dreams of Croesus. MODERN GREEK COSTUME. 21* THYATIEA. HYATIRA can hardly be considered one of the great cities of the world with respect to its magnitude or importance ; but it possesses a certain degree of interest from having been the seat of one of the Seven Apocalyptic Churches. This ancient city still survives as an inhabited site, under the Turkish name of Ak-hissar, or the " white castle." It cannot however compare with the two other inhabited sites, being greatly inferior to Pergamos, and immeasurably so to Smyrna. In ancient remains it is poorer than any of the seven. It is situated about twenty-seven miles to the north of Sardis, and is thus noticed by Pliny Fisk, the American missionary: " Thyatira is situated near a small river, a branch of the Caicus, in the centre of an extensive plain. At the distance of three or four miles it is almost completely surrounded by mountains. The houses are low ; many of them of mud or earth. Excepting the motsellim's palace, there is scarcely a decent house in the place. The streets are narrow and dirty, and every thing indicates poverty and degradation. We had a letter of introduction to Economo, the bishop's procurator, (246) TflYATIRA. 249 and a principal man aniong the Greeks of this town. . . . He says the Turks have destroyed all remnants of the ancient church ; and even the place where it stood is now unknown. At present there are in the town 1000 houses for which taxes are paid to the government." (Memoir of the Rev. P. Fisk. Boston, Mass., 1828.) It appears from Hartley, that the Greeks occupy 300 houses, and the Armenians 30. Each of them have a church. The town is embosomed in poplars and cypresses. The traveller last named, observes, " The sacred writer of the Acts of the Apostles informs us that Lydia was a seller of purple in the city of Thyatira ; ;:ml the discovery of an inscription here, which makes mention of 'the dyers,' has been considered important in crmirrtion with this passage. I know not if other . ; ve remarked that, even at the present time. Thyatira is famous for dyeing. In answer to inquiries on the subject, I was informed that the cloths which are dyed scarlet here are considered superior to any ttlKV;? furnished by Asia Minor. ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. OWHERE does the repetition of legend, and the existence of one fountain of superstition strike us so strangely, as when, having divested ourselves of all expectation of discovering any similarity between the reli- gious feelings of the ancient inhabitants of the Old and the New World, we suddenly find ourselves overwhelmed by the resemblance of the traditions of the ancient tribes of the New Continent, concerning the Creation, to the Mosaic accounts of the Kosmical Genesis. The etymologist has a new and unploughed field of primeval language opened up to him, and is staggered at the wonderful coincidences of language which crowd into his view. The symbolist here, too, has an addi- tion made to his mysterious, and therefore doubly inter- (250) ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. . 251 esting store, in the picture-writing of the Mexicans, and in the strange mounds of the Mississippi shaped into the outline of inhabitants of the woods. The architect, likewise, cannot fail to look with deep attention and interest on the palaces of Yucatan, and see how, in the earliest ages, the mysteriously work- ing mind of man had conceived such forms of sym- metry, and reared these stately piles without the assistance of iron tools, or of domestic draught-animals. These works, indeed, remind us of the age when an irrevocable decree went forth, and when thousands of men. groaning under the lash till they felt its continu- ally repeated strokes no longer, used their brute force to drag the unwieldy masses from the quarry to the building, to carry out, as if by magic, the concep- tion of the one man in whose brain the plan had first drawn breath, where it had grown up, and whence, when matured, it sprang, Athene-like, full armed and rnlorned, from the ,head where it had been first ima- gined. Of no inferior interest to the palaces of Yucatan, are the brick-built pyramids of the same region, where the barbarous rites of the Aztecs, in strange contrast to the more agricultural rites of their predecessors, the Tol- tecs, were celebrated even to the day when barbarous Spaniards entered the land, and caused the farther brutalization of the forcibly displaced race ; who saw, in sorrow and in misery, that there was no help to be expected, that no kind hand would stay the desecration of their homes and temples ; and, wrought up by their sorrows to a pitch of frantic revenge, sold their king- dom dearly to the Spanish Christians, to whom by 252 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. MOCTECCUilA H. Papal decrees, the new found land belonged. Indeed, under the strait in which they found themselves, I wonder only at their patience and moderation. The end of the Mexican Empire resembles that of a stricken boar in the thickets of Germany, whose dying spring is fearful and often fatal. Indeed, the picture-histo- rians of the period seem but too anxious to forget the whole misery of the reign of Mocteocuma II., and mark it merely as an unlucky year. Their grief was too great to be shown even in the records of the times to be handed down to their children. How fearfully did the armies of Cortez humanize the Mexicans, at the price of honour, religion, home, and independence. The plan proposed in the following sketch is to give an account of some of these ancient buildings, and of their probable era. And first of the pyramidal temples GREAT TEMPLE, OR TEOCALLI, IN THE ANCIENT CITY OF MEXICO. 22 ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 255 of Yucatan and Mexico, which I shall introduce to the reader, by an extract from a late inquiring his- torian : * " The Mexican temples teo-callis, ' houses of God,' as they were called were very numerous. There were several hundreds in each of the principal cities, many of them, doubtless, very humble edifices. They were solid masses of earth, cased with brick or stone, and in their form somewhat resembled the pyramidal struc- tures of ancient Egypt. The bases of many of them were more than a hundred feet square, and they towered to a still greater height. They were distri- buted into four or five stories, each of smaller dimen- sions than that below. The ascent was by a flight of steps at an angle of the pyramid on the outside. This led to a sort of terrace, or gallery, at the base of the second story, which passed quite round the building to another flight of stairs, commencing also at the same angle as the preceding and directly over it, and leading to a similar terrace ; so that one had to make the circuit of the temple several times before reaching the summit. In some instances the stairway led directly up the centre of the western face of the build- ing. The top was a broad area, on which were erected one or two towers, forty or fifty feet high, the sanctu- aries in which were placed the sacred images of the presiding deities. Before these towers stood the dread*' ful stone of sacrifice, and two lofty altars, on which fires were kept as inextinguishable as those in the temple of Vesta. There were said to be six hundred of these altars, in smaller buildings within the enclosure of the * Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, i. p. 72, sqq. 256 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. great temple of Mexico, which, with those on the sacred edifices in other parts of the/city, shed a brilliant illu- mination over its streets, through the darkest nights. "From the construction of their temples, all reli- gious services were public. The long processions of priests winding round their massive sides as they rose higher and higher towards the summit, and the dismal rites of sacrifices performed there, were all visible from the remotest corner of the capital, impressing on the spectator's mind a superstitious veneration for the mysteries of his religion, and for the dread ministers by whom they were interpreted. " This impression was kept in full force by their numerous festivals. Every month was consecrated to some protecting deity ; and every week, r?y, almost every day, was set down in their calendar for some appropriate celebration ; so that it is difficult to under- stand how the ordinary business of life could have be^n compatible with the exactions of religion. Many of their ceremonies were of a light and cheerful complexion, consisting of the national songs and dances, in which both sexes joined. Processions were made of women and children crowned with garlands, and bearing offerings of fruit, the ripened maize, or the sweet incense of copal, and other odoriferous gums, while the altars of the deity were stained with no blood save that of animals. These were the peaceful rites derived from their Toltec predecessors,* on which the fierce Aztecs * Mr. Prescott's reference to the Toltec race gives me nn opportunity of saying that there can be no doubt that the Mexican polity and social sys- tem were derived through Polynesia, from the peninsula of Malacca. The accounts of Toltec civilization are identical with those of the customs of the present Polynesians, and Pickering has clearly proved that the so- ANCIENT CITIES OP AMERICA. 257 a superstition too loathsome to be exhibited in all its nakedness, and one over which I would gladly draw a veil altogether, but that it would leave the reader in ignorance of their most striking institution, and one that had the greatest influence in forming the "n ational character. Human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the fourteenth century, about two hundred years before the conquest. Rare at first, they became more frequent with the wider extent of their empire ; till, at length, almost every festival was closed with this cruel abomination. These religious ceremonials were generally arranged in such a manner as to afford i- type of the most prominent circumstances in the ;;haracter or history of the deity who was the object of ihem. A single example will suffice. ' One of their most important festivals was that in honour of the god Tezcatliposa, whose rank was inferior only to that of the Supreme Being. He was called 4 the soul of the world,' and supposed to have been its Called aboriginals of Oregon, New Mexico, and Anahuac are of the Malay race. See his llaces of Man, pp. 112-111. To Dr. Lang (View of the Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation : demonstrating their Ancient Discovery and Progressive Settlement of the Continent of America, London, 1834) we owe the Iksi. promulgation of this theory (which 1 may ave occasion hereafter to examine), and I ;uu .sure, from further grounds, f which the Principal of Sydney College was unaware, that the coloni- zation of America took place from the Pacific Ocean. I cannot speak in too high terms of Dr. Lang's work : which, unlike that of the would-be discoverer of a Tyrian origin for the Americans, is temperate, logical, and not so much drawn from the "volume ui ;'." brain," as from a tureful and sensible collation of facts and customs : \> - of Mr. Jones's assertions \ve can only say, that they are unproven im. the brilliant description of the latest investigator of Mexican antiquities : " On the summit stood a sumptuous temple, in which was the image of the mystic deity, < God of the Air/ with ehon features, unlike the fair complexion which he hore upon earth, wearing a mitre on his head waving with plumes of fire, with a resplendent collar of gold round his neck, pendants of mosaic turquoise in his ears, a jewelled sceptre in one hand, and a shield curiously painted, the emblem of his rule over the winds, in the other. The sanctity of the place, hallowed by hoary tradition, and the magnificence of the temple and its services, made it an object of veneration through- out the land, and pilgrims from the furthest corners of Anahuac came to offer up their devotions at the shrine ANCIENT CITIES OP AMERICA. 267 of Quetzalcoatl. The number of these was so great as to give an air of mendicity to the motley population of the city ; and Cortez, struck with the novelty, tells us that he saw multitudes of beggars, such as are to be found in the enlightened capitals of Europe : a whimsical criterion of civilization, which must place our own prosperous land somewhat low in the scale. " Cholula was not the resort only of the indigent devotee. Many of the kindred races had temples of their own in the city, in the same manner as some Christian nations have in Rome, and each temple was provided with its own peculiar ministers for the service of the deity to whom it was consecrated. In no city was there seen such a concourse of priests, so many processions, such pomp of ceremonial sacrifice, and religious festivals. Cholula was, in short, what Mecca is among Mahomedans, or Jerusalem among Christians ; it was the Holy City of Anahuac. . . . Nothing could be more grand than the view which met the eye from the area on the truncated summit of the pyramid. Toward the west stretched that bold barrier of porphy- ritic rock which nature has reared around the valley of Mexico, with the huge Popacatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, standing like two colossal sentinels to guard the entrance to the enchanted region Far away to the east was seen the conical head of Orizaba, soaring high into the clouds, and near the barren though beautifully-shaped Sierra de Malinche, throwing its broad shadows over the plain of Tlascala. Three of these are volcanoes higher than the highest mountain peak in Europe, and shrouded in snows which never melt under the fierce sun of the tropics. At the foot of the spectator lay 268 ;;AT CITIES OF THE WOULD. the sacred city of Cholula, .with its bright towers and pinnacles sparkling in the sun. reposing amidst gardens and verdant groves, which then thickly studded the cultivated environs of the capital. Such was the magnificent prospect which met the gaze of the con- querors, and may still, with slight change, meet that of the modern traveller, as from the platform of the great pyramid his eye wanders over the fairest portion of the beautiful plateau of Puebla." The Casa del Gobcrnador, House of the Governor, at Uxmal, one of the most remarkable city palaces of Central America, is thus described by Mr. Gather- wood : The ' Casa del Gobernador,' or House of the Governor, is one of the most extensive and important of the ancient buildings at Uxmal, in Yucatan. It is constructed entirely of hewn stone, and measures 320 feet in front, by 40 feet in depth. The height is about 26 feet. It has eleven doorways in front, and one at each end. The apartments are narrow, seldom exceeding 12 feet, just large enough to swing a hammock, which was, and still is, the substitute for beds throughout the country. Some of the rooms measure 60 feet in length, and are 23 feet high. There does not appear to have been any internal decoration in the chambers, nor are there any windows. The lower part of the edifice is of plain wrought stone, but the upper portion is singularly rich in ornament. Taking the front, the ends, and the rear of the building, there is a length of 752 feet of elaborate carving, on which traces of colour are still visible. The peculiar arch of the country has been employed in every room. The lintels of the doorways ANCIENT CITIES OP AMERICA. 271 were of wood, a more costly material to work than stone, but less durable. Unfortunately, they have all decayed, and the masonry they supported has, in places, fallen down, and much of the beauty of the building is thus destroyed. The central ornament over the principal doorway was a seated figure, of which but slight traces remain. The head-dress of feathers is more perfect, and appears totally disproportioned to the size of the figure. On either side is a parallel bar of stone, between which are well-sculptured hierogly- phics. The cornice was perhaps intended to represent the coilings of a serpent ; it continued from one extremity of the building to the other, and goes entirely round it. The Casa del Gobernador stands on three terraces ; the lowest is three feet high, fifteen feet wide, and 575 feet long ; the second is 20 feet high, 250 feet wide, and 545 feet long ; and the third is 19 feet high, 30 feet broad, and 360 feet long. They are all of stone, and in a tolerably good state of preservation." Even here in the wilderness, where it might be supposed mysticism would not be found, we find that symbolism and mysterious import of number which seems to have been so widely spread among the nations of antiquity. The length of the upper platform is seen to correspond nearly with the number of days in the year, and the mysterious emblem of eternity, the serpent, is found extending its portentous length around the building, which, like the temples of India, was consecrated to a worship of the nature of which, except by an examination of the simple religions of the Polynesians, we shall never be able to obtain any definite knowledge* From their customs alone ean 272 GREAT CITIES OF T1IE WORLD. we arrive at the solution of the problems of early migrations, and to them I would accordingly direct the attention of the students of the physical distribution of the races of mankind. To return to Uxmal. It is much better to give the descriptions of eye-witnesses than to attempt the compilation of one from the accounts given us by travellers ; I shall therefore quote some passages from a late investigator of this district : " The first object," says Stephens. " that arrests the eye on emerging from the forest is the building to the right of the spectator. Drawn off by mounds of ruins and piles of gigantic buildings, the eye returns, and again fastens upon this lofty structure. It was the first building I entered. From its front doorway I counted sixteen elevations, with broken walls and mounds of stones, and vast magnificent edifice? which at that distance seemed untouched by time, and defy- ing ruin. I stood in the doorway when the sun went down, throwing from the buildings a prodigious breadth of shadow, darkening the terraces on which tV .- stood, and presenting a scene strange enough enchantment. " This building is sixty-eight feet long. T. tion on which it stands is built up solid iY< .-hi in, entirely artificial. Its form is not pyram' oblong and rounding, being 240 feet Ion- and 120 broad, and it is protected all roui: very top, by a wall of square stones. Perhaps the I ruined sculptures at Palenque, which we ha\ pyramidal, and which were so ruined th-a we C'M-.hl n.t make them out exactl}', were or! shape. On the east side . KCIXS or xocmcALco. Cuernavaca lies a cerro, three hundred feet in height, which, with the ruins that crown it is known by the name of Xochicalco, or the " Hill of Flowers." The base of this eminence is surrounded by the very distinct remains of a deep and wide ditch ; its summit is attained by five spiral terraces ; the walls that support them are built of stone, joined by cement, and are still quite perfect ; and at regular distances, as if to buttress these terraces, there are remains of bulwarks shaped like the bastions of a fortification. The summit of the hill is a wide esplanade, on the eastern side of which are still perceptible three truncated cones, resembling the tumuli among many similar ruins in Mexico. On the other sides there are also large heaps of loose stones ANCIENT CITIES OP AMERICA. 299 of irregular shape, which seem to have formed por- tions of similar mounds or tumuli, or, perhaps, parts of fortifications in connection with the wall that is alleged by the old writers to have surrounded the base of the pyramid, but of which I could discern no traces. " The stones forming parts of the conical remains, have evidently been shaped by the hand of art, and are often found covered with an exterior coat of mortar, specimens of which* I took away with me, as sharp and perfect as the day it was laid on centuries ago. "Near the base of the last terrace, on which the pyramid rises, the esplanade is covered with trees and tangled vines, but the body of the platform is cultivated as a corn-field. We found the Indian owner at work in it, and were supplied by him with the long-desired comfort of a gourd of water. He then pointed out to us the way to the summit of the terrace through the thick brambles ; and rearing our horses up the crumb- ling stones of the wall, we stood before the ruins of this interesting pyramid, the remains of which, left by the neighbouring planters after they had borne away enough to build the walls of their haciendas, now lie buried in a grove of pahnettoes, bananas, and forest- trees, apparently the growth of many hundred years. " Indeed, this pyramid seems to have been (like the Forum and Coliseum at Rome,) the quarry for all the builders in the vicinity ; and Alzate, who visited it as far back as 1777, relates, that not more than twenty years before, the five terraces of zuhich it consisted, were still perfect ; and that on the eastern side of the upper platform there had been a magnificent throne carved f ' u porphyry, and covered with hieroglyphics of the 300 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. most graceful sculpture. Soon after this period, how- ever, the work of destruction was begun by a certain Estrada,^ and it is not more than a couple of years since one of the wealthiest planters of the neighbourhood ended the line of spoilers by carrying off enormous loads of the squared and sculptured materials, to build ;i tank in a barranca to bathe his cattle ! All that now remains of the five stories, terraces, or bodies of the pyramid, are portions of the first, ^he whole of which is of dressed porphyritic rock, covered with singular figures and hieroglyphics executed in a skilful manner. The engraving on page 296 presents a general view of the ruins as seen from the westward. " The basement is a rectangular building, and its dimensions on the northern front, measured above the plinth, are sixty-four feet in length, by fifty-eight in depth on the western front. The height between the plinth and frieze is nearly ten feet ; the breadth of the frieze is three feet and a half, and of the cornice one foot and five inches. I placed my compass on the wall, and found the lines of the edifice to correspond exactly with the cardinal points." Of the ruins of the pyramid of Teotihuacan, Mr. Mayer gives the following account : " On leaving the town our road lay in a north- easterly direction, through a number of picturesque villages buried in foliage, and fenced with the organ cactus, lifting its tall pillar-like stems to a height of twenty feet above the ground. The country was roll- ing, and we passed over several elevations and a stream or two before we turned suddenly to the right, and saw the village of St. Juan with an extensive level beyond ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 303 it, bordered on all sides by mountains, except towards the east, where a deep depression in the chain leads into the plains of Otumba. In the centre of this level are the pyramids of Teotihuacan, and the annexed engraving will give you an accurate idea of their position, and the present appearance from tfiis point." Mr. Mayer's account of the aqueduct of Tezcosingo, is very interesting. He says : " Directly at the foot of the eminence on which we rested, there was an extensive Indian remain. By an able system of engineering, the water had been brought by the ancients from the eastern sierra, for a distance, probably, of three leagues, by conduits across barrancas and along the sides of the hill ; and the ruin below us was that of one of these aqueducts, across a ravine about a hundred feet in elevation. " You will find a view of this work in the annexed picture. The base of the two conduit pipes is raised to the required level on stones and masonry, and the canals for the water are made of an exceeding hard cement, of mortar and fragments of pounded brick. Although, of course, long since abandoned, it is, in many places, as perfect as on the day of its completion ; and perhaps as good a work, for all the necessary pur- poses, as could be formed at the present day by the most expert engineers. " The view over the valley, to the north, towards the pyramids of Teotihuacan, and across the lake to Mexico was uninterrupted ; and the city (beyond the waters, surrounded by a mirage on the distant plain) seemed placed again, as it was three hundred years ago, in the midst of a beautiful lake. 804 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. " After we had finished our meal, we gave a small compensation to the Indian, and resumed our route towards Tezcosingo. The road, for a long distance, lay over an extensive table-land, with a deep valley north and south, filled on both sides with haciendas, villages, aM plantations. Vv r e crossed the shoulder of a mountain, and descended half way a second ravine, near the eighth of a mile in extent, until we struck the level of another ancient aqueduct, that led the waters directly to the hill of Tezcosingo. This elevation was broader, firmer, and even in better preservation than the first. It may be crossed on horseback three abreast. " As soon as we struck the celebrated hill, we bo^an 7 r? ascending rapidly by an almost imperceptible fat tie- path, among gigantic cacti, whose thorns tore our skin- as we brushed by them. Over the whole surface then- were remains of a spiral road cut from the living rock, strewn with fragments of pottery, Indian arrows, and broken sacrificial knives ; while, occasionally, we passed over the ruins of an aqueduct winding round the liili. The eminence seems to have been convei ' ii its base to its summit, (a distance of perhaps iivi.- i,i mired feet,) into a pile of those terraced gardens, so \\v\\tA\ admired by every tourist who falls into raptm-. s tnmmg the romantic groves of Isola Bella. The ruins of Quemada, lying north of the ein Mexico, in the department of Zacatecas, arc v:-j-y extensive, and must be referred to a very re period of antiquity. The view of a portion of !. which we give, embraces the court-yard of a temp!:', n* drawn by M. Nebel. Captain Lyon. ipioh-d by Mr. Mayer, describes them in the follouic;; reruns : ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 307 "We set out," says he, "on our expedition to the Cerro de los Edificios, under the guidance of an old ranchcro, and soon arrived at the foot of the abrupt and steep rock on which the buildings are situated. Here we perceived two ruined heaps of stones, flanking the entrance to a causeway ninety-three feet broad, commencing at four hundred feet from the cliff. "A space of about six acres has been inclosed by a broad wall, of which the foundations are still visible, running first to the south and afterward to the east. Off its south-western angle stands a high mass of stones, which flanks the causeway. In outward appear- ance it is of pyramidal form, owing to the quantities of stones piled against it, either by design or by its own ruin ; but on closer examination its figure could be traced by the remains of solid walls, to have been a square of thirty-one feet by the same height : the heap immediately opposite is lower and more scattered, but in all probability formerly resembled it. Hence the grand causeway runs to the north-east until it renclies the ascent of a cliff, which, as I have already observed, is about four hundred yards distant. Here again are found two masses of ruins, in which may be traced the same construction as that before described ; and it is not improbable that these two towers guarded the inner entrance to the citadel. In the centre of the causeway, which is raised about a foot, and has its rough pave- ment uninjured, is a large heap of stones, as if the remains of some altar; round which we could trace, notwithstanding the accumulation of earth and vegeta- tion, a paved border of flat slabs arranged in the figure of a six-rayed star. 308 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. " We did not enter the city by the principal road, but led our horses, with some difficulty, up the steep mass formed by the ruins of a defensive wall, inclosing a quad- rangle two hundred and forty feet by two hundred, which to the east is still sheltered by a strong wall of unhewn stones, eight feet in thickness, and eighteen in height. A raised terrace of twenty feet in width, passes round the northern and eastern sides of this space, and on its south-east corner is yet standing a round pillar of rough stones, of the same height as the wall, and nine- teen feet in circumference. " There appear to have been five other pillars on the east, and four on the northern terrace; and as the view of the plain which lies to the south and west is hence very extensive, I am inclined to believe that the square has always been open in these directions. Adjoining to this, we entered by the eastern side to another quadrangle, entirely surrounded by perfect ^Yalls of the same height and thickness as the former one, and measuring one hundred and fifty-four feet by one hundred and thirty-seven. In this were yet stand- ing fourteen very well- constructed pillars, of equal dimensions with that in the adjoining inclosure, and arranged, four in length and three in breadth of the quadrangle, from which on every side they separated a space of twenty-three feet in width : probably the pavement of a portico of which they once supported the roof. In their construction, as well as that of all the walls which we saw, a common clay having straw mixed with it has been used, and is yet visible in those places which are sheltered from the rains. Rich grass was growing in the spacious courts where Aztec mon- ANCIENT CITIES OP AMERICA. 809 archs may once have feasted ; and our cattle were so delighted with it that we left them to graze while we walked about three hundred yards to the northward, over a very wide parapet, and reached a perfect, square, flat-topped pyramid of large unhewn stones. It was standing unattached to any other buildings, at the foot of the eastern brow of the mountain, which rises abruptly behind it. On the eastern face is a platform of twenty- eight feet in width, faced by a parapet wall of fifteen feet, and from the base of this extends a second platform with a parapet like the former, and one hundred and eighteen feet wide. These form the outer defensive boundary of the mountain, which from its fig- ure has materially favoured their construction. There is every reason to believe that this eastern face must have been of great importance. A slightly raised and paved causeway of about twenty-five feet descends across the valley, in the direction of the rising sun ; and being continued on the opposite side of a stream which flows through it, can be traced up the mountains at two miles' distance, until it terminates at the base of an immense stone edifice, which probably may also have been a pyramid. Although a stream (Rio del Partido) runs meandering through the plain from the northward, about midway between the two elevated buildings, I can scarcely imagine that the causeway should have been formed for .the purpose of bring- ing water to the city, which is far more easy of access in many other directions much nearer to the river, but must have been constructed for important purposes between the two places in question ; and it is not improbable, that it once formed the street between 810 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. the frail huts of the poorer inhabitants. The base of the large pyramid measured fifty feet, and I ascertained by ascending with a line, that its height was precisely the same. Its flat top was covered with earth and a little vegetation; and our guide asserted, although he knew not whence he received the information, that it was once surmounted by a statue. Off the south-east corner of this building, and at about fifteen yards distant, is to be seen the edge of a circle of stones about eight feet in diameter, inclosing, as far as we could judge on scraping away the soil, a bowl-shaped pit, in which the action of fire was plainly observable ; and the earth, from which we picked some pieces of pottery, was evidently darkened by an admixture of soot or ashes. At the distance of one hundred yards south-west of the large pyramid, is a small one, twelve feet square, and much injured. This is situated on somewhat higher ground, in the steep part of the ascent to the mountain's brow. On its eastern face, which is toward the declivity, the height is eighteen feet ; and apparently there have been steps by which to descend to a quadrangular space, having a broad terrace round it, and extending east one hundred feet by a width of fifty. In the centre of this inclosure is another bowl-shaped pit, somewhat wider than the first. Hence we began our ascent to the upper works, over a well-buttressed yet ruined wall, built, to a certain extent, so as to derive advantage from the natural abruptness of the rock. Its height on the steepest side is twenty-one feet, and the width on the summit, which is level, with an extensive platform, is the same. Thi^ is a double wall, one of ten feet having been first con- ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 811 Btructed, and then covered with a very smooth kind of cement, after which the second has been built against it. The platform (which faces to the south, and may to a certain extent be considered as a ledge from the cliff,) is eighty-nine feet by seventy-two; and on its northern centre stand the ruins of a square building, having within it an open. space of ten feet by eight, and of the same depth. In the middle of the quad- rangle is to be seen a mound of stones eight feet high. A little farther on, we entered by a broad opening between two perfect and massive walls, to a square of one hundred and fifty feet. This space was surrounded on the south, east, and west, by an elevated terrace of three feet by twelve in breadth, having in the centre of each side steps, by which to descend to the square. Each terrace was backed by a wall of twenty feet by eight or nine. From the south are two broad entrances, and on the east is one of thirty feet, communicating with a perfect inclosed square of two hundred feet, while on the west is one small opening, leading to an artificial cave or dungeon. " To the north the square is bounded by the steep mountain, and in the centre of that side stands a pyra- mid with several ledges, or stages, which in many places are quite perfect. It is flat-topped, has four sides, and measures at the base thirty-eight by thirty- five feet, while in height it is nineteen. Immediately behind this, and on all that portion of the hill which presents itself to the square, are numerous tiers of seats, either broken in the rock or built of rough stones. In the centre of the square, and due south of the pyra- mid, is a small quadrangular building, seven feet by 312 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. TEMPLE AT TUSAPAX. five in height. The summit is imperfect, but it has unquestionably been an altar; and from the whole character of the space in which it stands, the peculiar form of the pyramid, the surrounding terrace, and the seats or steps on the mountain, there can be little doubt that this has been the grand Hall of Sacrifice or Assembly, or perhaps both. "The village of Papantla," says Mr. Mayer, "lies sixteen leagues from the sea, and fifty-two north from Yera Crux, at the base of the eastern mountains, in the midst of fertile savannahs constantly watered by streams from neighbouring hills. Although it is the centre of a country remarkable for fertility, the Indian ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 313 PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA. village has scarcely a loMte inhabitant, with the excep- tion of the curate, and some few dealers, who come from the coast to traffic their wares for the products of the soil. The people of the upper country dislike to venture into the heat and disease of the tierra caliente ; and, in turn, its inhabitants dislike an exposure to the chills of the tierras frias templadas. Thus the region of Papantla, two leagues from the village, has hitherto 2T 3J4 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. remained an unexplored nook, even at the short dis- tance of fifty miles from the coast ; and although it was alluded to by Baron Humboldt, it had never been correctly drawn, or even accurately described before the visit of M. Nebel. The neighbouring Indians, even, had scarcely seen it, and considerable local knowledge was required to trace a path to the relic through the wild and tangled forest. There is no doubt, from the masses of ruins spread over the plain, that this city was more than a mile and a half in circuit. Although there seems good reason to believe that it was abandoned by its builders after the conquest, there has still been time enough both for the growth of the forest in so warm and prolific a climate, and for the gradual destruction of the build- ings by the seasons and other causes. Indeed, huge trees, trailing plants, and parasite vines have struck their roots among the crannies and joints of the re- maining pyramid, and, in a few years more, will con- sign even that remnant to the common fate of the rest of the city. " The above plate presents a view of the pyramid, (called by the natives, * El Tajin,') as seen by Nebel after he had cleared it of trees and foliage. It consists of seven stories, each following the same angle of in- clination, and each terminated, as at Xochicalco, by a frieze and cornice. The whole of these bodies are con- structed of sand-stone, neatly squared and joined, and covered, to the depth of three inches, with a strong cement, which appears, from the remains of colour in many places, to have been entirely painted. The pyra- mid measures precisely one hundred and twenty feet ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 315 PTBAMID OP MISANTLA. on every side, and is ascended, in front, by a stairway of fifty-seven steps, divided in three places by small box-like recesses or niches, two feet in depth, similar to those which are seen perforating the frieze of each of the bodies. This stairway terminates at the top of the sixth story, the seventh appearing (although in ruins) to have been unlike the rest, and hollow. Here, most probably, was the shrine of the divinity and the place of sacrifice." With the following account of Misantla, we close our extracts from the entertaining and instructive work of Mr. Mayer. 316 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. " Passing by the Island of Sacrificios, I will now de- scribe the ruins that were discovered as recently as 1835, adjacent to Misantla, near the city of Jalapa, and not very far from the direct road to the capital. " The work from which I extract my information is the Mosaico Mexicano, to which it was contributed, I believe, by Don Isidrio Gondra. "On a lofty ridge of mountains in the canton of Misantla, there is a hill called Estillero, (distant some thirty miles from Jalapa,) near which lies a mountain covered with a narrow strip of table-land, perfectly isolated from the surrounding country by steep rocks and inaccessible barrancas. Beyond these dells and precipices there is a lofty wall of hills, from the sum- mit of one of which the sea is distinctly visible in the direction of Nautly. The only parts of the country by which this plain is accessible, are the slopes of Estillero : on all other sides the solitary mountain seems to have been separated from the neighbouring land by some violent earthquake that sunk the earth to an unfathomed depth. " On this secluded and isolated eminence, are situated the remains of an ancient city. As you approach the plain by the slopes of Estillero, a broken wall of large stones, united by a weak cement, is first observable. This appears to have served for protection to a circular plaza, in the centre of which is a pyramid eighty feet high, forty-nine feet front, and forty-two in depth. " The account does not state positively whether this edifice is constructed of stone, but it is reasonable to suppose that it is so, from the wall found around the plaza, and the remains which will be subsequently men ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 317 tioncd. It is divided into three stories, or rather, there are three still remaining. On the broadest front a stairway leads to the second body, which, in turn is ascended at the side, while the top of the third is reached by steps cut in the corner edge of the pyramid. In front of the teocalli, on the second story, are two pilastral columns, which may have formed part of a staircase ; but this portion of the pyramid, and espe- cially the last body, is so overgrown with trees that its" outline is considerably injured. On the very top, (driving its roots into the spot that was doubtless for- merly the holy place of the temple,) there is a gigantic tree, which from its immense size in this comparatively high and temperate region, denotes a long period since tlie abandonment of the altar where it grows. At the periphery of the .circular plaza around this *>\;-.rnid, commence the remains of a town, extending no-'ilierly in a straight line for near a league. Im- mense square blocks of stone buildings, separated by streets at the distance of about three hundred yards tVoin each other, mark the sites of the ancient habita- tions, fronting upon four parallel highways. In some of the houses the walls are still three or four feet high, but of most of them there is nothing but an outline tracery of the mere foundations. On the south, there are the remains of a long and narrow wall, which de- fended the city in that quarter. u North of the town there is a tongue of land, occu- pied in the centre by a mound, or cemetery. On the left slope of the hill by which the ruins are reached, there are, also, twelve circular sepulchres, two yards and a half in diameter, and as many high ; the walla 27* 318 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. are all of neatly cut stone, but the cement with which they were once joined has almost entirely disappeared. In these sepulchres several bodies were found, parts of which were in tolerable preservation. " Two stones, a foot and a half long by half a foot wide, were discovered, bearing hieroglyphics, which are described, in general terms, as * resembling the usual hieroglyphics of the Indians.' Another figure was found, representing a man standing ; and another, cut out of a firm but porous stone, which was intended to portray a person sitting cross-legged, with the arms also crossed, resting on his knees. This, however, was executed in a very inferior style. Near it, were dis- covered many domestic utensils, which were carried to Vera Cruz, whence they have been dispersed, perhaps to the four quarters of the globe. " It is thus, in the neglect of all antiquities in Mexico, in the midst of her political distractions and bloody revolutions, that every vestige of her former history will gradually pass to foreign countries, instead of enriching the cabinets of her university, and stimulating the inquisitiveness of her scientific students." I will, before passing to the subject of the Mississippi and Ohio ruins, merely note the general resemblance of the ruins with those engraved of the restoration of the Persepolitan ruins. That the Vedaic religion, if I may so express myself, was that followed by the Toltecs ? I have little doubt. But decidedly the most remarkable circumstances connected with the buildings of America, is the simi- larity between their teo-callis and the pyramid of Bel or Babel, as remarked by Dr. Lang, and by others ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 319 before and after him. To Dr. Lang's work I would refer any one anxious to get at the facts and data on which -his arguments are founded. We now leave the ruins of Yucatan, and flying rapidly over the mysterious pyramids of Mexico, we leave the sultry arid plains, and the dark cool forests behind, and looking round, see before us another and a far different locality. I shall introduce my account of the ruins of the Western States of America by some observations contained in a letter from Mr. Brackenridge to Jefferson : " Throughout what is denominated by Volney the valley of the Mississippi," says that gentle- man, " there exists the traces of a population far be- yond what this extensive and fertile portion of the continent is supposed to have possessed ; greater, per- haps, than could be supported, by the present white inhabitants, even with the careful agriculture practised in the most populous part of Europe. The reason of this is to be found in the peculiar manners in the inha- bitants by whom it was formerly occupied ; like those of Mexico, their agriculture had for its only object their own sustenance ; no surplus was demanded for commerce with foreign nations, and no part of the soil susceptible of culture was devoted to pasturage, yet extensive forests filled with wild animals would still remain. . . . We must in this way account for the astonishing population of the vale of Mexico, when first known to the Spaniards, perhaps equal to any dis- trict of the same extent of climate. The astonishing population of Owhyhee and Otaheite must be accounted for in the same way. ... In the valley of the Mississippi, there are discovered the traces of two dis- 320 GUKAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. tinct races of people, or periods of population ; one much more ancient than the other. The traces of the last are the most numerous, but mark a population less advanced in civilization ; in fact, they belong to the same race that existed in the country when the French and English effected their settlements on this part of the continent ; but since the intercourse of these people with the whites, and their astonishing diminution ir numbers, many of their customs have fallen into disuse. . . . . The appoa ranees of fortifications, of which eo much has been said, and which have been attributed to a colony of Welch, are nothing more than the traces of palisadoed towns or villages. . . . We might be warranted in considering the mounds of the Missis- sippi inure ancient than the Teo-calli ; a fact vorthy tif notice, although the stages are still plain in .some of them, the gradations or steps have disappeared, in the course <>f time, the rains have washed them off.*' Mr. Brackenridge evidently suspects a Polynesian < . i .tin for the constructors of these mounds, but i:io id-.-ji is not expressed. lie considers the I i : . ! <>. CmiES OF AMERICA. 321 ravines, which, commencing on the east side of the peninsula, near to each other, diverge and sweep round, entering the Miami, one above and the other below the work. On the west, the Miami, with its precipitous bank of 200 feet, is itself the defence. On the very verge of the ravines, totally surrounding the peninsula, an embankment of great height and strength has been raised ; and such an attention was paid to the mean- derings of its cours-e, that Professor Locke required 196 stations to complete the survey he made. The whole circuit of the work was about four miles. The bank of earth is in many places twenty feet high, and is composed of a tough, alluvial clay, without stone. There is no continuous ditch, whence the earth was dug, around the work ; but pits, still to be distinguished, were the source whence the earth was obtained. Pro- fessor Locke himself concludes : " Finally, I am astonished to see a work simply of earth, after braving the storms of thousands of years, still so entire and well marked. Several circumstances have contributed to this. The clay of which it is built is not easily penetrated by water. The bank has been, and is still, mostly covered by a forest of beech-trees, which have woven a strong web of their roots over its steep sides; and a fine bed of moss (Polytrichum] serves still further to afford protection." There are more than seventy gateways or interrup- tions in the embankments, at irregular intervals along the line. They were probably, as supposed by Messrs. Squier and Davis,* " places once occupied by block- houses or bastions composed of timber, and which have * Ancient Monuments of tie Mississippi Valley, p. 20. 322 CHEAT CITIES Off THE long since decayed." This fort evidently shows military skill, and might indeed, if occasion were to require it, be again used for its original purpose. The work appears still more remarkable when we consider that it was constructed without any other aid than human hands. More curious than the foregoing earthwork are the mounds in Dade County, Wisconsin, about seven miles to the east of the Blue Mounds. They are situated on the great Indian trail or war-path, between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, and are six effigies of quadrupeds, six parallelograms, one circular tumulus, one small circle, and one effigy of the human figure, with the head towards the west, and unnaturally long arms. These tumuli extend about half a mile along the trail. What the animals represented in effigy are, it is not easy to determine. Some have supposed the buffalo to be the animal intended; "but," as Squier* very justly remarks, " the absence of a tail, and of the characteristic hump of that animal, would seem to point to a different conclusion ;" and, besides, I may be permitted to ask, why should the buffalo be the ani- mal especially chosen ? It is to be remarked that these effigies have their head turned to the west, which cir- cumstance, together with the position of the head of the human tumulus, seems to me to signify that the tribes who constructed these remarkable mounds, commemo- rated thereby some favourite and common animal of their former country, which lay towards the west. In examining ancient ruins like those now before us, we must measure the reigning idea by an ancient standard ; * Aneien* Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 1 28. ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 323 and the closer we get to such standard, the more do we approach to the truth. In speaking of these traces of a nation sleeping now for ever the death-sleep of time, we must approach as nearly as possible to the psycho- logical conception of them, and take into consideration the fondness the ancients had for mysticism. I may mention, likewise, that in the north-western part of the Hindo-Chinese countries, similar circular and oblong tumuli are to be found, and, if I recollect right, one in the form of an animal. It has been supposed, too, to be the bear that the Indians thus honoured ; but, though I am unable to prove what the animal was, this solution of the problem does not satisfy me. " The figures seem," says Squier, " to be most preva- lent ; and, though preserving about the same relative proportions, vary in size from 90 to 120 feet. In many other places, as at this point, they occur in ranges, one after the other at irregular intervals. In the midst of this group is the representation of a human figure, placed with its head towards the west, and hav- ing its arms and legs extended. Its length is 125 feet, and it is 140 feet from the extremity of one arm to that of the other. The body is thirty feet in breadth, the head twenty-five feet in diameter, and its elevation considerably greater than that of most of the others, being not much less than six feet. The human figure is not uncommon among the effigies, and is always characterized by the extraordinary and unnatural length of its arms." Ten miles west of Madison, in the same county Dade, Wisconsin, are other works of a similar nature : but the animals represented are evidently not the same, 824 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. as they have long and heavy tails. One of the two effigies has also a pair of horns. The Indian war-trail, now the military road to Madison, passes between the mounds. In other places, birds and insects are represented on the same gigantic scale. The utterly infantine manner in which these works are built up render it impossible to offer any conjecture as to what they were really in- tended to represent, and for what uses they were de- signed, except, indeed, that they might have been religious monuments. I have been led to enlarge on these curious remains, from their being so little known and so interesting, as they will be felt when once brought under the notice of the public : I will but briefly mention the sacrificial mounds and altars of the same people in the valley. "A simple heap of earth or stones," says Squier, " seems to have been the first monument which sug- gested itself to man ; the pyramid, the arch, and the obelisk, are evidences of a more advanced state. But rude as are these primitive memorials, they have been but little impaired by time, while other more imposing structures have sunk into shapeless ruins. When co- vered with forests, and their surfaces interlaced with the of trees and bushes, or when protected by turf, the humble mound bids defiance to the elements which throw down the temple, and crumble the marble into dust. We therefore find them, little changed from their original proportions, side by side with the ruins of those proud edifices which mark the advanced, as the former do the primitive, state of the people who built them." ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 325 Indeed, as Mr. Squier goes on to remark, these rude mounds are found in India, Siberia, and Scandinavia ; by the shores of the Bosphorus and the Mediterranean, and in Britain. In America, these marks of a primi- tive state extends from the northern lakes through the valley of the Mississippi, and even to the south of the continent of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil, to the La Plate and Cape Horn. Description of these relics of the Mississippi races is almost unnecessary, as they so closely resemble our British cairns and barrows, being only on a much larger scale. I cannot, however, before closing this article, omit to notice .some points connected with the religion of the semi-civilized races in America, referring the reader to Prescott for more diffused accounts. I stated, at the commencement of this article, that the Mosaic account of the Creation found a full parallel in the accounts of the same event in the Mexican symbolical papyri ; but more fully and strangely did they resemble the He- brews in their institutions. I am far more inclined to see a parallel, however, with Polynesian customs in some of these, than with Jewish. Some salient points of coincidence may be interesting to the reader. The most reasonable course is to follow the course of tradition from the creation downward. And, first, of the names and attributes of the Creator. " Xiuletl, in the Mexican language," says the com mentator on the Antiquities of Mexico, " signifies blue, and hence, was a name which the Mexicans gave to heaven, from which Xiuleticutli is derived, an epithet signifying the Crod of Heaven, which they bestowed 29 326 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. upon Tezcatlipoca or Tonacateuctli, who was painted with a crown as LORD of all, as the interpreter of the Codex Tellereano-Remensis affirms ; to whom they as- signed the first and last place in the calendar, emphati- cally styling him the God of Fire. Xiuleticutli may bear the other interpretation of the God of Ages, the Everlasting One, which, connected with the Mexican notion of fire being the element more peculiarly sacred to Him, recalls to our recollection the ninth and tenth verses of the seventh chapter of Daniel's description of the vision of the Ancient of Days, from * before whom issued a fiery stream, and whose throne was like the fiery flame." This Tonacateuctli, the supreme God, resided in the garden of Tonaquatatitlan. He was the father of Quetzalcoatl, and was surnamed Ometecutli (Most High). Quetzalcoatl was the Son of God by the virgin of Tula, Chimelman, by His breath or will. " His in- carnation," says Humboldt, "existed from eternity, and that He had been the creator of both the world and man ; that he had descended to reform the world by endurance, and being king of Tula, was crucified for the sins of mankind, &c., as is plainly declared in the tradition of Yucatan, and mysteriously represented in the Mexican paintings." With the tree of Scandinavia, too, Yggclrasill (or that of Eden), they were acquainted, and it seems to have held no mean place in their mythology. In Chiapa, we learn from Garcia, the name of the Father is Icona ; of the Son, Vacah ; and of the Holy Spirit, Es^Ruach. Of Eve, whom they called Yex-nextli, they seem to ANCIENT CITIES OF AMERICA. 327 have had some tradition, but the apple of Genesis is converted here into roses (called elsewhere Fruit of the Tree). She is represented by Sahagun to have had twins, a son and daughter, Cain and Calmana; and afterwards she again bore twins, Abel and his sister Delborah; she obtained the name of serpent-woman (Chuacohuat). The rebellion of the spirits against the Almighty also meets with a parallel in Anahuacan legends of the war in Heaven, and the fall of Zoutmo- quen and the other rebels. The deluge and the ark are also alluded to in the Mexican MSS. It was repre- sented as being made of fir wood, under the direction of Palecatli, or Cipaquetona, who invented wine ; Xelua, one of his descendants, aided in the construction of a high tower, destroyed by Tonacatecutli, who confounded their language at the same period. Such are a few of the coincidences which the in- genuity of commentators and enthusiasm of would-be discoverers have elicited from the Mexican paintings. But on this subject all speculation is unsatisfactory and bewildering. Whether the judgment of these ingenious men was overruled by their imagination, or whether the paintings really represent some episodes of the Mosaical history, it is not for me to pronounce. I would merely suggest to the students of Mexican history a careful examination of the Codex Mendoza, the only existing key to the political history, economy, and social life of the country, under the dynasty of the Aztec kings. Any attempt to unravel the other paintings, I would enforce, but very modestly, upon the reader as being utterly absurd and, as I just now said, bewildering. Of the Toltecs, though they are more ancient, it is more 328 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. satisfactory to speak, and the concurrent evidence of historical, physical, zoological, physiological, social, ana architectural investigations, points to their race being the Malayan or Polynesian. To that race are the Mexicans and Peruvians indebted for the arts of peace, and for the amenities of life, which they enjoyed. Our limits have not permitted us to notice the ancient cities of Peru. The cut below is a specimen of their sacred architecture in the times of the Incas. ANCIENT TZMKJ5. THE ACROPOLIS. ATHENS. write on this cherished scene of art and nature, to attempt to add one iota to the knowledge accumu- lated in countless volumes of history and criticism, would be a presump- tuous adventure in a series of brief sketches. The fact is, that upon many other cities it is difficult to write a long article ; on Athens, it is next to impossible to pen a short one. Surrounded with the works of her greatest poets, orators, philosophers, and historians ; with the originals, or the copies of her sublimest works of art met on all sides, even in our own public buildings, with the imitation or realization of those rules of Athenian architecture, which have held an empire over art, of which nothing seems likely to dispossess them ; with a mass of ideas, in which one art struggles with another tr V^eak our attention ; in short, with overwhelming (331) 332 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. materials that force themselves upon our imagination, and almost direct our pen to their description, it is more than difficult to give a slight, " darkly, as in a glass, visible," sketch of the wondrous city of Pallas. " There exists not," says Wordsworth, " a corner in the civilized world, which is not, as it were, breathed on by the air of Attica. Its influence is felt in the thoughts, and shows itself in the speech of men ; and it will never cease to do so. It is not enough to say that it lives in the inspirations of the poet, in the eloquence of the orator, and in the speculations of the philosopher. Besides this, it exhibits itself in visible shapes ; it is the soul which animates and informs the most beautiful creations of art. The works of the architect and of the sculptor, in every quarter of the globe, speak of Attica. Of Attica, the galleries of princes and nations are full. Of Attica, the temples and palaces, and libraries and council-rooms of capital cities, give sensible witness, and will do for ever. " But above all, it is due to the intellectual results produced by the inhabitants of this small canton of Europe, that the language in which they spoke and in which they wrote, became the vernacular tongue of the whole world. The genius of Athenians made their speech universal; the treasures which they deposited in it rendered its acquisition essential to all ; and thus the sway, unlimited in extent, and invincible in power, which was wielded over the universe by the arms of Home, was exercised over Rome itself by the arts of Athens. To Attica, therefore, it is to be attributed that, first, precisely at the season when such a channel of general communication was most needed, there existed ATHENS. 333 a common language in the world ; and, secondly, that this language was Greek ; or, in other words, that there was, at the time of the first propagation of the Gospel, a tongue in which it could be preached to the whole earth, and that Greek, the most worthy of such, a distinction, was the language of Inspiration the tongue of the earliest preachers and writers of Christianity. Therefore we may regard Attica, viewed in this light, as engaged in the same cause, and leagued in" a holy confederacy, with Palestine ; we may consider 'the philosophers, and orators, and poets of this country as preparing the way, by a special dispensation of God's providence, for the Apostles, and Fathers, and Apologists of the Church of Christ." In fact, the history of Athens is, in one sense, the history of all Greece ; perhaps, we might say, of the whole world during a certain period. Fraught with political changes the most exciting, and exercising an influence that imperceptibly diffused itself, though not always under the same form, throughout the civilized world, Athens is the centre of ancient constitutional study. At Athens, history finds examples of every variety of legislature ; furnishes specimens of their respective effects ; arid, in a word, teaches almost nil that every other history can teach, whether it regards the private or social condition of man. At the same time, amid this universality of example, we must be prepared to find much that is revolting to the best feelings of reason or humanity. Like all other states, Athens possessed the same corroding influences which suppurated her vital energies, and extinguished the glorious breath of that love of freedom 334 GEE AT CITIES OF THE WORLD. which a Byron could sigh for, but not call back into the lovely corpse of dead, degraded Hellas. Corruption at elections, love of place, and scandalous, openly- professed, and avowedly-tolerated immorality, were the base successors to the honest independence of the olden time, the healthy limited monarchy, or steadfast and impartial democracy, and the grave hardihood of the sons of Codrus. Add to this, the degeneracy in regard to religious feeling, and the consequent oblivion of the rights of men. " It is the glory," says Heeren, " of the Greeks, that they honoured the nobler feelings of humanity, where other nations were unmindful of them. They flourished so long as they possessed self- government enough to do this ; they fell when sacred things ceased to be sacred." In contemplating the early history of Attica, we are as much beset by difficulties, as in any of the other early states and cities of the human race. Mythology is at work, and in fantastical stories about Poseidon (Neptune), Athene (Minerva), Erich thonius, and a variety of other heroes and heroines, locally and religiously connected with this soil, we are struck with the incongruities, whilst we are delighted by the charms, of early Grecian history. An endless field of poetical narrative unfolds itself in the writings of the Athenian stage ; Scholiasts of a later date, and compilers of popular myths, astound us by the rich diversity of their stories of early Athens ; and it is but occasionally that one distinctly-marked feature of likelihood stands out from the mass of pretty uncertainties and fictitious plausibilities, and literally surprises us by its resemblance to truth. ATHENS. 335 When we look at the hero-like, yet symmetrical proportions of the Theseus in the Elgin collections, we feel some regret at finding that the original is as doubtful a character in real history, as his marble neighbour the Ilissus, the old river-god the god of that stream, along the banks of which, amid the shades of the Academy, Socrates and Plato stvoiled in search of truth. Yet the legend of Theseus has a vitality that distinguishes Inr.i from the merely symbolical benefactors of thy h r^i in race. Like another Hercules or Amadis tie Guul, his exploits have been made the subject of almost boundless exaggeration, and they have been pointed out as worthy objects of imitation by those who were with reason dissatisfied with the languid inertness of their own times. But although we cannot fix the standard of our belief in its fitting and just proportion, we must not withdraw credit from the report which represents Theseus as the king under whose banner the scattered towns of Attica ranged themselves, and round whose capital city, Athens, they were persuaded to consolidate their resources fur purposes of common interest and defence. But, with our narrow limits, we must rather seek to point out the gradual progress of Athens to the greatness we shall briefly describe, than to dwell upon the manifold difficulties and obscurities of her early history. The Trojan war, that diverting source of cliivalric wonders, which has furnished materials for, we might almost say, the whole cycle of Greek epic poetry, produced strange influences on the condition and prospects of the Greeks. 836 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOKLD. Involved in great doubt is the story of king Codrus. He is said to have devoted himself for the good of Athens in a war with the Dorians, who had invaded the northern peninsula, but found themselves repulsed when they attempted to invade the frontiers of Athens. One tradition asserts, that, after his reign, the kingly power ceased, and that while an aristocratic oligarchy was substituted ; the throne of the dead hero was left vacant, in testimony to his patriotism. But, as was destined hereafter to take place in the rising commonwealth of Rome, the higher class of the commons kept increasing in wealth, and that wealth was fostered by the success of the colonies which continually went forth from the mother-city. But whilst a dislike to the aristocracy was augmented on their part by their increased capabilities of displaying it, it was widely different with the poorer classes, who became oppressed with debt, and whose free rights were consequently and proportionately crippled. Infamy, or, in a more restricted sense, disfranchisement, was the penalty with which debt, often the result of mis- fortune, was visited ; and the loss of the privileges of a free agent led in some instances to cruelties that loudly called for an amelioration of the existing system. The laws of Draco are known chiefly by their proverbial severity ; but, while they may have served to repress some of the open outrages, to which the struggles between the wealthier commons and the aristocracy would give rise, they were of little avail in sheltering the poor and uninfluential from the aggressions and neglect of their superiors. Indeed, ATHENS. 337 the laws of Draco appear to have gone upon a broad principle of severity, little adapted to that self-reforming progress which is the surest evidence of social improve- ment. We scarcely know to what extent they were carried out ; but a limited experience in our own times is sufficient to show the inefficiency of capital punish- ments in repressing the amount of crime and misde- meanor. Amid such an imperfect code of laws, and so corrupt a state of society, Solon appeared as the grand reformer of abuses, legal and social. Wachsmuth, a first-rate antiquarian, has given so excellent an account of the leading work of reformation under this great, and, one rejoices to think, historical personage, that we present it to our readers without hesitation : " Equity and moderation are described by the ancients as the characteristics of his mind ; he determined to abolish the privileges of particular classes, and the arbitrary power of officers, and to render all the participation as in civil and political freedom equal in the eye of the law, at the same time ensuring to every one the integrity of those rights to which his real merits entitled him ; on the other hand, he was far from contemplating a total subversion of existing regulations ; for that reason, he left many institutions, for example, Draco's laws on murder, in full force, or most wisely suffered them to exist in form, whilst the old and decayed substance was carefully extracted and replaced by sound materials. Whatever was excellent in pre- scription was incorporated with the new laws, and thereby stamped afresh ; but prescription as such, with the exception of some unwritten religious ordinances 29 338 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. of the Eumolpids, was deprived of force. The law was destined to be the sole centre whence every member of the political community was to derive a fixed rule of conduct, secured against the vicissitudes of arbitrary power by the clear and explicit character of its precepts. " The chief power was vested in the collective people ; but, in order that it might be exercised with advantage, it was necessary that they should be endowed with common rights of citizenship. Solon effected this by raising the lower class from its degradation, and by rendering the liberty of both dependent upon the law. The essential properties of citizenship consisted in the share possessed by every citizen in the legislature ; the election of magistrates, as well as the scrutiny of their conduct, and the execution of the laws by the courts of justice. This change was brought about by two ordinances, which must not be regarded as mere remedies for the abuses of that period, but as the permanent basis of free and legal citizenship. The one was the Seisachtheia ; this was enacted by Solon to afford relief to oppressed debtors, by reducing their debts in amount, and by raising the value of money in the payment of interest and principal ; at the same time he abrogated the former rigorous law of debt by which the freeman might be reduced to servitude, and thus secured to him the unmolested possession of his legal rights. Moreover, it may be confidently asserted, that the Seisachtheia was accompanied by the conversion of those estates, which had hitherto been held of the nobility, by the payment of a fixed rent, into indepen- dent freehold property ; thus domiciliation, and the possession of freehold property, were the mainsprings ATHENS. 339 of Solon's citizenship. A second ordinance enjoined that their full and entire right should be restored to all citizens who had incurred Atimia,* except to absolute criminals. This was not only destined to heal the wounds which had been caused by the previous dissen- sions, but as till that time the law of debt had been able to reduce citizens to Atimia, and the majority of the Atirnoi pointed out by Solon were slaves for debt, that declaration stood in close connection with the Seisachtheia, and had the effect of a proclamation from the State of its intention to guarantee the validity of the new citizenship. Hence, the sacred right would no longer be forfeited through the operation of private laws, but through the commission of such offences only as immediately regarded the public ; on the other side, indeed, upon the principle of full right for full services, the non-performance of a public duty might be followed by Atimia, or by the restriction or privation of the full rights of citizenship, and it frequently happened, even without the formality of a judicial sentence, that the neglect of an obligation to the State involved heavier penalties than a crime itself. Such was the system of policy which made men respect the civil institutions of their country by teach- ing them self-consideration. Where every man felt himself a part of the institutions he was bound to up- hold, his duty as a citizen became a natural act of self- importance, not the compulsory testimony of obedience; where citizenship was held out as the motive, not for aggrandizing a family by the purchase of influence, but for contributing to maintaining a power in the pre- * *'. e. Disfranchiseinent, infamy. 340 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. servation of which each father of a family felt himself interested, the best principles of democracy might be. said to be in full force. It was not by an unbridled onslaught on the property and privileges of the class whose ancestral renown could scarcely be forgotten even in a democracy ; it was not by indiscriminately giving away both means and privileges to those who had nothing ; but it was by making each class of suffi- cient consequence to be respectable in the eyes of the other ; and by rendering respectability an attribute of character and zeal, not debasing it to a slang word for property and county influence, that Solon sought to re-model Athens. Framed with an equal regard to the well-being of all, were the new laws repeating the naturalization of aliens, the better treatment of the Metoeci, and even an amelioration of the condition of the slaves. Our limits do not permit us to give a full account of the various reforms worked in these respects, but the fol- lowing remarks, from the pen of the author above quoted, will give an excellent idea of the change in the share of power possessed by each citizen : " With reference to a share in the supreme power, the citizenship must first be considered in its largest extent, as a common possession, of which the lowest persons were not deprived, and which varied in degree according to age ; and secondly, in connection with those rights which proceeded from a difference of valua- tion. Every citizen had a right to speak in the popular assembly, and to judge, upon oath, in the courts ; but the former of these rights might be exercised at an earlier age than the latter. Upon attaining the age GRECIAN WARRIOR. ATHENS. 343 of puberty, the sons of citizens entered public life under the name of Ephebi. The state gave them two years for the full development of their youthful strength, and the practice of the foot races and other exercises which might ensure its efficient dedication to the most impor- tant duty of a citizen, viz. the service of arms. Upon the expiration of the second, and, according to the most authentic accounts, in their eighteenth year, they received the shield and spear in the popular assembly, complete armour being given to the sons of those who had fallen in battle, and in the temple of Agraulos took the oath of young citizens, the chief obligation of which concerned the defence of their country; and then for the space of one or two years performed mili- tary service in the Attic border fortresses, under the name of Peripoli. The ceremony of arming them was followed by enrolment in the book which contained the names of those who had attained majority ; this empow- ered the young citizen to manage his fortune, preside over a household, enter the popular assembly, and speak. When he asserts the last right, namely, the Isegoria, Parrhesia, he was denominated Rhetor, and this ap- pellation denoted the difference between him and the silent members of the assembly, the Idiotes ;* but the speakers were not singled out from the rest of the members in the manner of a corporation, or particular order, or the character of regular functionaries. What was called the Dokimasiat of the Rhetors was not a scrutiny of office, but a measure which was adopted in case a citizen, who had forfeited the right of speaking * '. e. private persons. f Investigation, scrutiny. 344 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. in consequence of Atimia, presumed to exercise it, and it required to be preceded by a special motion to that effect. That this Dokimasia is, in the ancient authors, so frequently classed with that of the Archons and Strategi, must be explained from the growing political import- ance of oratory, which imparted a sort of official cha- racter, like that of legally-elected military commanders, and civil functionaries, to the self-constituted dema- gogues of the day. " Moreover, after oratory began to be studied syste- matically, the word Rhetor became confined to the class of professed sophists, Autoschediasts becoming comparatively rare, and a marked line being drawn between them and the remaining mass. Finally, the order of speaking depended upon age ; those who wove more than fifty years old being entitled to speak first. Upon attaining his thirtieth year, the cilbrn might assert his superior rights ; he was qualified for a mem- ber of the sworn tribunal, entitled the Ilcliaea. For this purpose it was requisite to take a new oath in the open place called Ardettus, which chiefly related to civil duties generally ; but its conclusion prescribed judicial obligations. This must be distinguished from the short oath which it was necessary to take before a court of any description could be held. The word Heliast, does not merely signify a judge, but the citizen who has fully attained maturity, and whose superior right is proclaimed in the performance of juridical func- tions, as the most important public agency of which he is capable, as the rights of younger citizens are implied by the act of public speaking. The judges of the ATHENS. 345 courts of the Diretetge* and Ephset8e,f which existed without the circle of the ordinary tribunal, were re- quired to be still older men than the Heliusts, viz. fifty or sixty years of age. " Solon appointed gradations in the rights of citizen- ship, according to the conditions of a census in reference to the offices of State, which, although not in themselves modifications of the highest legislative and judicial power, nevertheless exercised a most important influence upon it as advising and directing authorities. Upon the principle of a conditional equality of rights, which assigns to every one as much as he deserves, and which is highly characteristic of Solon's policy in general, he instituted four classes according to a valuation ; these were the Pent:icosiomedimini,J the Hippeis, the /. ugi[a.\jj and the Thetes.^f The valuation, however, only aft'ected that portion of capital from which contri- butions to the State burthens were required, conse- quently, according to Bockh, a taxable capital. u This counteracts the unworthy notion that this regulation was intended to raise wealth itself in the scale of importance, and serves to exhibit its real object, which was to impose that burthen which unpaid offices of State might prove to needy persons, on such as could administer them without prejudice to their domestic relations, so that a person who was declared eligible * i. e. Arbitrators, f Commissioners. J Those rated at property = 500 bushels "wet and dry," says Pollux, viii. 10, p. 408. $ Knights, or those capable of keeping horses. . U A word of uncertain origin. ^T The lowest (or servile) class, incapable of office. 346 GREAT CITIES OF TIIE WORLD. could only be dispensed from it by means of an oath, and thus to guard the state against the effect of that pernicious cupidity which is so frequently combined with indigence ; it was, at the same time, a means to reward the citizen, who was obliged to satisfy the higher claims of the state, by the enjoyment of corresponding rights. The Thetes, the last of these classes, were not regularly summoned to perform military service, but only exercised the civic right as members of the assembly and the law courts ; the second and third, from which the cavalry were chosen, likewise acted as functionaries, and when irreproachable in other respects, and according to the conditions of the census, sat in the council of the four hundred ; whilst the highest class exclusively supplied the superior offices such as the arch on ship, and through this the council of the Areopagus." But the reform worked by Solon built too much upon the better feelings of mankind, to remain undisturbed ; <; evil passions," as Wachsmuth pithily remarks, " could not be subdued by ideas;" and disputes began to renew the ancient differences between the different classes ; and the lower order, ill satisfied with the legal rights and privileges they had obtained, and readily alive to the deadly and perverting influence of bribery, fell an easy prey to the plausible impositions of Pisistratus, who, although repeatedly expelled, had built his hopes of success too surely on the stupidity of mankind to fail of ultimate success. Nor can Pisistratus be regarded as a mere tyrant, in the modern sense of the word. Desirous of supporting the institutions of Solon, himself submissive to the laws of the conn try. the patron of art ATHENS. 347 and letters, he merely seized the opportunity that Athenian weakness had furnished, but did not abuse it. Nevertheless, the Athenians had done wrong. They had lost their noble horror of absolute power a power which was ill adapted to their social character or position. However, upon the expulsion of the sons of Pisistratus, forty-one years after the commencement of the tyranny, factions broke out anew, and a fresh reformer appeared in the person of Clisthenes the Alcmgenoid, about 508 B. c. The main feature of the new system thus introduced consisted in the formation of ten new tribes in lieu of the four ancient ones. Aristotle considers this arrangement as essentially democratic, because the dissolution of ancient connec- tions, and the greater mixture of the citizens, are calculated to promote the introduction of democracy. "It is not," therefore, "so much to the increase in the number of the tribes, as to the abolition of institu- tions which were connected with the ancient ones, but which impeded the progress of democracy, that we should direct our attention as to the most prominent feature in the changes of Clisthenes." And now Athens was fairly on the road to the glory in which we shall shortly describe her. We have already alluded to the spirited conduct of the Athenians, in repressing the forces of the Persians in their attempt to enslave Greece. " The Athenians were left 'almost nl one to repel the first invasion of Darius Hystaspis ; but the glory won at Marathon was not sufficient to create a general enthusiasm, when greater danger threatened them from the invasion of Xerxes So true is the remark of Herodotus, that, however ill 348 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. it might be taken by others, he was compelled to declare that Greece was indebted for its freedom to Athens. Athens, with Themistocles for its leader, gave life and courage to the other states ; yielded, where it was its duty to yield ; and always relied on its own strength, while it seemed to expect safety from all. Her hopes were not disappointed in the result ; the battle of Salamis gave a new impulse to the spirit of the Greeks ; and when, in the following year, the battle of Plataea decided the contest, the greater part of Greece was assembled on the field of battle." But Athens, the saviour of Greece, was yet destined to become a step-mother to those whom she had fostered through dangers and difficulties which her almost romantic heroism had so successfully overcome. The influence acquired from the renown gained by her exertions during the Persian war, was turned into a means of aggression ; and the consciousness of power tempted her to acts of despotism. The Peloponnesian war (431 B. c.) aroused the whole of the Dorian and 2Eolian states against her; and although, despite the horrors of a terrific pestilence, and the revolt of her Ionian subjects, the naval skill of her seamen, and the valiant enterprise of 'her commander, proved a match for so alarming a confederacy, still, the fairest days of Athens were gone : she had abused her mighty resources, and her power was rapidly departing from her. Sparta and Thebes made as ill use of the influence they in turn acquired at a subsequent period ; and, with Athens, fell a prey to the crafty and calculating schemes of Philip of Macedon. In vain did a Demos- ATHENS. 349 thenes invoke their attention ; fruitlessly did he strive to rally to the field the listless flock who " sat talking and asking questions" in the forum. The Athenians were fast degenerating into an almost Albanian indo- lence, a state from which she never recovered. "With the loss of civil liberty, Athens lost her genius, her manly mind, and whatever remained of her virtue : she long continued to produce talents, which were too often made tools of iniquity, panders to power, and petty artificers of false philosophy." Before mentioning a few of the long list of great men who have adorned the name of Athens throughout the annals of history, we will give as complete a sketch of the city of Athens in her greatness and her downfall, as our limits will allow. We will follow Wordsworth as a guide : " In order to obtain a distinct notion of the natural characteristics of the spot to which we refer, let us con- sider it, in the first place, as abstracted from artificial modifications : let us imagine ourselves as existing in the days of Cecrops, and looking' upon the site of Athens. In a wide plain, which is enclosed by moun- tains, except on the south, where it is bounded by the sea, rises a flat oblong rock, lying from east to west, about fifty yards high, rather more than 160 broad and 300 in length. It is inaccessible on all sides but the west, on which it is approached by a steep slope. This is the future Acropolis, or Citadel of Athens. We place ourselves upon the eminence, and cast our eyes about us. Immediately on the west is a second hill, of irregular form, lower than that on which we stand, and opposite to it. This is the Areopagus. Beneath 30 350 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. it, on the south-west, is a valley, neither deep nor nar- row, open both at the north-west and south-east. Here was the Agora, or public place of Athens. Above it, to the south-west, rises another hill, formed, like the two others already mentioned, of hard and rugged lime- stone, clothed here and there with a scanty covering of herbage. On this hill the popular assemblies of the future citizens of Athens will be held. It will be called the Pnyx. To the south of it is a fourth hill of similar kind, known in after ages as the Museum. Thus a group of four hills is presented to our view, which nearly enclose the space wherein the Athenian Agora existed, as the Forum of Rome lay between the hills of the Capital and the Palatine. " Beyond the plain, to the south-west, the sea is visible, distant about four miles from this central rock. On the coast are three bays, the future harbours of Athens, the Phalerum, Munychia, and Piraeus; the ATHENS. 353 first being the nearest to us, the last the most distant from our present position. Toward the coast, and in the direction of these ports, run two small streams, both coming from the north-east ; the one on the south side of us passing us at a distance of half a mile, the other on the north, at the distance of two : they do not reach the shore, but are lost in the intermediate plain. The former is the Ilissus, the latter the Cephisus. To the north of the former, and at a mile distance to the north-east of the Acropolis, is a rocky conical hill, of considerable height, and one of the most striking fea- tures of the scenery of Athens. This is Mount Lyca- bettus. Regarding, then, the hill of the Acropolis as the centre of the future city of Athens, we have, as its natural frcntiers to the north and south, two rivers, while on the east and west it is bounded by hills ; its limit on the east being the mountain of Lycabettus, and on the west the lower range, which consists of the Pnyx and the Museum. Such is a brief sketch of the physical features which distinguish the site of the Athenian city. " We now quit the period of remote antiquity, when the soil of the future Athens was either untenanted or occupied only by a few rude and irregular buildings, and pass at once to the time when it had attained that splendour which made it, in literature and art, the metropolitan city of the world. A more striking con- trast than that which is presented by the appearance of the same spot at these two different epochs, cannot well be imagined. "No longer, therefore, as contemporaries of the ancient kings of Attica, but existing, in imagination, in 854 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLU. the age of Pericles and of his immediate successors, we now contemplate this city as it then exibited itself to the age. First, we direct our attention to the central rock of the Acropolis. And let us here suppose our- selves as joining at this period that splendid procession of minstrels, priests, and victims, of horsemen and of chariots, which ascended to that place at the quin- quennial solemnity of the Great Panathensea. Atop above the heads of the trains, the sacred Peplos, raised and stretched like a sail upon the mast, waves in the air : it is variegated with an embroidered tissue of bat- tles, of giants, and of Gods : it will be carried to the temple of the Minerva Polias in the Citadel, whose statue it is intended to adorn. In the bright season of summer, on the 28th day of the Athenian month Hecatombseon, let us mount with this procession to the western slope of the Acropolis. Toward the termina- tion of its course, we are brought in face of a colossal fabric of white marble, which crowns the brow of the steep, and stretches itself from north to south across the whole western front of the Citadel, which is about 170 feet in breadth. " The centre of this fabric consists of a portico 60 feet broad, and formed of six fluted colums of the Doric order, raised upon four steps, and intersected by a road passing through the midst of the columns, which are thirty feet in height, and support a noble pediment. From this portico, two wings project about thirty feet to the west, each having three columns on the side nearest the portico in the centre. "The architectural mouldings of the fabric glitter in the sun with brilliant tints of red and blue : in the cen- ATHENS. 355 tre, the coffers of its soffits are spangled with stars, and the antes of the wings are fringed with an azure em- broidery of ivy leaf. " We pass along the avenue lying between the two central columns of the portico, and through a corridor leading from it, and formed by three Ionic columns on each hand, and are brought in front of five doors of bronze ; the centre one, which is the loftiest and broadest, being immediately before us. " This structure which we are describing is the Pro- pylsea or vestibule of the Athenian citadel. It is built of Pentelic marble. In the year 437 B. c., it was com- menced, and was completed by the architect Mnesicles in five years from that time. Its termination, there- fore, coincides very nearly with the commencement of the Peloponnesian war. "After a short pause, in order to contemplate the objects around us, to explore the gallery, adorned with the painting of Polygnotus, in the left wing of the Propylsea, and to visit the temple of Victory on the right, which possesses four Ionic columns on its western, and four at its eastern end, thus being approached by two facades, and whose frieze is sculptured with figures of Persians and of Greeks fighting on the plain of the Marathon, we return to the marble corridor of the Propylsea. " We will now imagine that the great bronze doors of which we have spoken as standing at the termination of this gallery are thrown back upon their hinges, to admit the riders and charioteers, and all that long and magnificent array of the Panathenaic procession, which stretches back from this spot to the area of the Agora 856 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. at the western foot of the Citadel. We behold through this vista the interior of the Athenian Acropolis. We pass under the gateway before us, and enter its pre- cincts, surrounded on all sides by massive walls ; we tread the soil on which the greatest men of the ancient world have walked, and behold buildings ever admired and imitated, and never equalled in beauty. We stand on the platform which is above the Temple, the For- tress, and the Museum of Athens." A notice of the Acropolis, on or around which all the most magnificent and important buildings of Athens were collected, is naturally followed by some remarks on the state of the arts in the golden era of this city of the world. I shall follow Heeren, classifying the arts, as architecture, sculpture, and painting. Between the rough Cyclopaean walls at Mycense and the polished marble structures of the Acropolis, we discern as great a distance, whether in lapse of years or of progress in style ; yet even in the poems of Homer we meet with enough of architectural detail to cause the antiquarian considerable difficulty, and at the same time prove that the simplicity of early Gre- cian structures was not so great as may have been sup- posed. But there is a certain definite style of archi- tect are, of which we fortunately possess not only the models, but the theory, and with such examples as it presents, the Acropolis has been the favourite school of imitation for the architect and sculptor. Heeren has well remarked, in reference to the Heroic ages, that, " in the dwellings and halls of the kings there prevailed a certain grandeur and splejulour which, however, we can hardly designate by the name ATHENS. 357 of scientific architecture." When, however, the cur- rent of popular feeling began to run in favour of equal- ity of rights, and an almost universal participation in the government, these differences in private dwellings were looked upon as invidious distinctions, and to build a large and splendid house became an infringe- ment upon popular liberty. Hence Athens possessed few fine streets. Unlike our own modern houses, architectural regularity was little cultivated, and the' materials were simple and inexpensive. " The splendour of the city was not perceived till the public squares and the Acropolis were approached. The small dwellings of Themis- tocles and Aristides were long pointed out ; and the building of large houses was looked upon as a proof of pride." Hence, even at a late period, when luxury had given rise to larger houses and more expensive esta- blishments, we still find the application of architectural symmetry confined to temples, and subsequently to the theatres, porticoes, and gymnasia. Even these, how- ever, may be regarded as forming part of the religious structure of Athens. So intimately was the drama connected with the sacred rites of Bacchus, that we are at once struck with the similar coincidence in the origin of our own dramatic literature from the rude "mysteries" of the middle ages. To describe the temples which cluster about the precincts of Athens were an endless task. Noble are the proportions of the columns, varied the devices on the friezes, telling whole histories of the heroes whose greatness and whose services had deserved these per* 358 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. manent though exaggerated memorials, and celebrating alternately the loves and battles of those gods whom they had raised from their fanciful conceptions of ennobled humanity. Is there less of symbolism in the Grecian than in the Oriental temple ? Undoubtedly not. But it is of a less grotesque, of a more refined and poetical cha- racter. And it is so in natural objects. Each stream has its legend of hapless youth, of maiden, " who had loved not wisely, but too well ;" of nymph wafted to realms of love and bliss athwart the breath of the amorous zephyr. Where Plato muses, there Socrates prates casuistry against casuistry; there glides the Ilissus that gentle stream which he dared not enter before he had appeased the god of love whom his invectives had offended. There did his guardian spirit, that pleasing riddle to Platonists, hinder the hasty words of its talkative master. As we follow the little stream in its humble course, the air seems peopled with the ghosts of the martyr philosopher and his disciples ; the spirits of the waters seem to join chorus, and, as we look at the ruined prospect before us, we feel thankful that a Plato still lives imperish- ably in his writings that legacy which is its own title-deed. Nor was the Grecian character unobservant of the charm of such associations. As the inhabitants of Chios rejoiced in pointing out the rock benches on which Homer sat and discoursed in song, so did the Athenians yearn with affection for each spot that had been the scene of bygone glories, where the heart had warmed with impulse, the imagination expanded in the ATHENS. 359 sublimity of poetry, or the reason descended into its own innermost depths in quest of as-oft-receding cer- tainty. Even the plane-tree that Socrates had loved, that Plato had celebrated, and which has furnished a dozen declaimers with descriptions, was shown with delight in the days of Tully. But all the poetry of Athens, whether sculptured on the legends of the friezes of the Parthenon, pealing forth in the sublime choruses of the Attic tragedians, or varying the heavy quaintness of Socratic discus- sions with fictions, happily and humorously explained ; all the solemn grandeur of her temples, the learned gloom of her porticoes, and the costly magnificence of her theatrical representations ; these all derived their vitality and character from the grand principle by which each man was taught to hold, and contribute to the existence of one common good, in the well- being of which his own self-preservation was con- cerned. Poetry, literature, and art were not, as amongst so many modern states, the profession of a few persons of half-recognised standing, whose know- ledge, by being imperfectly imparted at certain prices, may atone for the ignorance and tastelessness of a listless aristocracy. The threadbare boorishness of Sparta, with her contracted policy and soul-fatiguing discipline, falls into the shade, in this respect, before the poetical people of Athens. To the same public spirit was it due, that works of art were not executed for the limited purpose of adorn- ing the staircases of the nobility, but as votive offerings, or gifts to the public ; attesting at once the liberality of the giver, and the public spirit which enshrined 360 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. each pet gem of art in the sanctuaries of the gods, or in the public buildings where every man might admire, as he trafficked in the ordinary business of life. " The great masters," says our lately-quoted autho- rity, " were chiefly in the employ of the public. The community, either directly or through its leaders, as we learn from the instance of Pericles, either ordered works of art, or bought them ready made, to ornament the city and public buildings. We have distinct evidence that the great masterpieces of Phidias, Praxiteles, and Lysippus, had this origin. Thus were produced the Jupiter of Olympia, the Minerva Polias at Athens, by Phidias ; the Venus at Criidus and at Cos, by Praxiteles ; the Colossus of Rhodes, by Lysippus. Yet numerous as were the applications of cities, the immense multitude of statues could not be accounted for, unless the piety and vanity of individuals had come to their assistance. " The first assisted by the votive offerings, of which all the celebrated temples were full. These were not always works of art, being as often mere costly presents. Yet the collection of statues and pictures which belonged to those temples, consisted,, for the most part, of votive offerings. But these were as often the tribute of gratitude from whole cities as from individuals." " Painting, from its very nature, seems to have been more designed for private use. Yet, in the age of Pericles, when the great masters in this art appeared in Athens, it was hardly less publicly applied than the art of sculpture. It was in the public porticoes and temples that Polygnotus, Micon, and others, exhibited the productions of their genius. Ko trace is to be ATHENS. 361 found of celebrated private pictures in those times. Yet portrait-painting seems peculiarly to belong to private life. This branch of the art was certainly cultivated among the Greeks ; but not until the Macedo- nian age. The likenesses of celebrated men were placed in the pictures which commemorated their actions ; as that of Miltiades in the painting of the battle in the Poecile, or pictured portico at Athens ; or the artists found a place for themselves or their mistresses in such public works. But portrait-painting, as such, did not, in fact, flourish till the times of Philip and Alexander ; and was first practised in the school of Apelles. When powerful princes arose, curiosity or flattery desired to possess their likeness ; the artists were most sure of receiving compensation for such labours ; and private statues as well as pictures began to grow common, although, in most cases, something of ideal beauty was added to the resemblance." " So deeply was the idea rooted among the Greeks, that the works of artists were public, that it could not be eradicated even by the profanations of the Romans. It was thus that, by attaining their proper end, they flourished so greatly in Greece. The works of art were considered as belonging not to individuals, but to the cultivated part of mankind. They should be a common property. Even in our times, when individuals are permitted to possess them, censure is incurred if others also are not allowed to enjoy them. . . . How much more honoured does the artist feel, how much more freely does he breathe, when he knows that he is exerting himself for a nation which will esteem its glory 31 362 GKEAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. increased by his works, instead of toiling for the money and the caprices of individuals." A brief glance at the literature of Athens is all that our limits can afford. The theme is a noble one, and has been already made the subject of so much criticism, that we must fain content ourselves with a short sketch of its aim and its effect. Tragedy and comedy, in their finished state, derive their origin from Athens. Patriotism nerved and ripened into manhood the babe that Poetry had given to the light ; in the hands of ^schylus, the tragic muse strode along in haughty sublimity, struggling with the words that could scarce give expression to thoughts almost beyond language at one time pealing forth the shout of victory over the Persian foe, at another gloomily bemoaning the destinies impending the Atrean house, or, in language worthy to be carved on the smooth surface of some lightning-rent precipice, descri- bing the God-defying prowess of the rock-bound Titan, and rivalling the convulsions of nature while he details them. In quieter gait walks Sophocles. His sublimity is attempered with sweetness ; and we draw nigh to his magnificence, while we are allured by its solemn tenderness. The "Attic bee" is more loveable than his great predecessor yet no less glorious. Third and last, in time and rank, trips along the flighty, ingenious Euripides ; now drawing tears by some unlooked-for outburst of pathos, now frittering away his chastened Greek in dogmatic scepticism or casuistic selfishness. We like Euripides, we admire him sometimes but there praise must end. ATHENS. 363 What shall we say of dear, wicked, scandalous Aristophanes, with his "screaming" parodies of Euri- pides, his magnificent flights of poetic fancy at times rivalling those of the tragic poets themselves, and his sublime " putting down" of Cleon ? Truly, as Mitchell observed, "Nature made but one, and broke the mould in which he was cast !" Much complaint has been made of the personalities with which the writings of the comedians teem, and Aristophanes has been represented as a mere buffoon, in whose eyes neither the sacredness of private, nor the dignity of public, character were objects of respect. To this it has been well answered, that " private life, as such, was never the subject of comedy, except so far as it was connected with the public." It was the close connection of every Athenian with the government and politics of his city, rendering every man an item in the administering influence of the State, that rendered him open to such attacks. Cleon's private vices would have formed no whetstone for the wit of Aristophanes, if they had not been developed to the injury of the public weal. In a word, " whatever excited public attention, whether in persons or in things, would probably be brought on the stage. The most powerful demagogue, in the height of his power, did not escape this fate; nay, the people of Athens had the satisfaction of seeing itself personified and brought upon the stage, where it could laugh at itself till it was satisfied with mirth ; and the poet was crowned for having done so. What is our freedom of the press, our licentiousness of the press, compared with their freedom and licentiousness of the drama?" 364 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. But Aristophanes was no buffoon. Like Eabelais, his closest modern copyist, he degenerated into coarse- ness, even while moralizing on the characters of the day ; like him, too, he was unfortunate in finding characters but too fraught with unwholesome example ; and where the original was disgusting, the portrait could hardly be a graceful one. But the mind that could rival Empedocles and other earlier cosmogonists in idealizing a fable of the creation of things, that has made the " clouds" creatures of fairy -like interest, that read the loftiest and most faultless lessons of morality to the listless manhood and degenerate youth of the Cecropian city, such a poet must have condescended to ribaldry, not written up ribaldry, for its own sake. Furthermore, the popularity of Aristophanes, and his wondrous influence upon the political characters of his time, fully prove that his writings did not shock the modesty of an Athenian audience if modesty there were any but that too much temptation existed in a corrupt public taste, to fetter the mind of the most reckless writer ever known. When a gradual falling away of the genuine patriot- ism of Greece began to herald her downfal, comedy took a corresponding change. Satire became dangerous, when liberty had become a marketable commodity, and personal invective quailed before personal means and influence. A new, we may almost call it, drawing- room style of comedy, was introduced, at the head of which we may fairly place Menander. Personal satire and pointed attacks upon particular abuses now gave way to a subjective style of poetry, in which developement of human character, less exagge- ATHENS. 865 rated, and more closely approximating to the simplicity of common life, formed the leading feature. To paint a story of every day life, with a sufficient adherence to probability to be agreeable, and yet sufficiently height- ened to prevent its degenerating into insipidity and to blend moral axioms with neatly-drawn pictures of characters illustrating their tendency this was, as far as we may judge from the imitations of Terence, the motive which actuated the writers of the New Comedy. But whilst we may gladly admit that some refinement in principles, and some greater delicacy in language was attained by this class of writers, it is certain that there was a corresponding, and more than equivalent falling away in the grand essentials of wit and humour. As well might we compare the slang punning wit of George Coleman, junior, with the more chastened sarcasm of a Vanbrugh, a Farquhar, or a Sheridan, as contrast the productions of the new school with those of Aristophanes. The fact is, the drama degenerates into commonplace when writers strive to be merely natural. To form a tragedy or a comedy, human nature must be exaggerated or depressed, and the measure of this exaggeration or depression is perhaps the best standard of fair criticism. Mrs. Siddons has been known to abandon many of her old "stage tricks," because, although natural and well conceived, they lowered the dignity of tragedy into commonplace. In like manner, English tragedy has been either exagge- rated into melodrama, or vaporized into dull verbiage, while comedy and low farce have become identical. A good play, tragic or comic, must have some absurdities, but it is in the defining the limit of these absurdities, 81* GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. and subduing them beneath a language that elevates their very improbability, that the art of the dramatic poet consists. But whatever may be the influence of poetry upon the human mind, there is another faculty which is equally capable of being turned to the best or the worst effect, especially in cities, namely, Oratory. No city ever boasted a school of eloquence equal to Athens. Even our own statesmen of the long reign of George the Third scarcely parallel the golden reign of oratory at Athens. In fact, oratory existed at Athens only. The quaint proverbial style of the Lacedemonians might excite the same feelings of satisfaction as we derive from a well-turned epigram, or a tart reply to a speech in "the House," their habit of saying clever things would be quite as amusing as any thing handed down in ^ Joe Miller," or as the world-famed Irish Bulls so often invented on this side of the Channel. But of consolidated, oratory, properly so called, they had none. The polished sweetness, the gentle grace- fulness, and lively antithesis the elaborate exordium, the neat balancing of the points at issue, the collation and contrast of contradictory evidences, and the peal of eloquence winding up the peroration, and almost hurling the minds of the hearers into acquiescence the poetical allusion, the happy blending of local associations with the matter in hand, the " wise saws and modern instances," the subtilties and delicate quibblings to which the interpretation of a doubtful law, or the varying statements of witnesses might give rise, and the cutting sarcasm with which these were in turn refuted in -a word, all that kept the anxious ATHENS. 367 thousands of busy Athens hanging on the words of the speaker was wanting in the oratory of Sparta. Athens was the grand school of eloquence, where even Cicero was glad to learn. Let us glance briefly at a few of her scholars. Unfortunately, we have no specimens of the orations spoken by Pericles, except tLe funeral panegyric preserved by Thucydide? in his second book, and this must be regarded rather ns the substance of what was spoken over the bodies of the slain than as the precise words of the r-pecch. But the concurrent voice of antiquit} r pronounces decisively in favour of his won- drous power of arresting the attention by a sweetness of language almost unparalleled, although blended with the happiest and most searching touches of delicate irony. As the polished gentleman and statesman, he is, perhaps, the most favourable specimen history has recorded in Athenian society ; an easy urbanity, mingled with firmness ; a scholarlike taste, unsullied by conventional selfishness ; and a business-like attention to matters of finance and speculation, uncorrupted by sordid meanness, or spiritless economy such were the qualities which adorned Pericles and Athens at the same time. It is even probable that these very qualities furnish the best reason for our having no extant productions of this great statesman. . He spoke, doubtless, extemporaneously, and antiquity records no regular staff of reporters at Athens. And yet, how much better must have been the fresh enthusiasm of Pericles, than the tedious rhetoric and sophistic twaddle of such declamation writers as Isocrates ! Among the Greek orators whose writings have been GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. handed down to us, partly in a complete, partly in a fragmentary state, Lysias is the earliest in chronological order. Although his orations on private cases are perhaps less interesting than his public ones, yet they appear to be the best. A shrewd discernment of the various points of evidence, a vivid perception of the best means of upsetting a fallacy or dogma, and a level dignity of language, at once free from plebeian simplicity or pedantic ostentation, render these speeches models of judicial oratory which few can surpass. Many of his orations, moreover, are especially valuable in an antiquarian point of view, although they at the same time present a melancholy picture of social abuse in respect of the burthens laid by the state on the fortunes of the wealthier citizens. " Vast sums of money were collected by forcible contribution, and laid out in ministering to the amuse- ments of the people: the services called xatrovpyuxc, lyxvx^io.i provided games and spectacles, and theatrical entertainments, in which troops of singers and dancers displayed their musical skill, and performed their evolutions. The writings of Lysias are conceived in the spirit of determined republicanism ; a spirit which delighted in arbitrary confiscation, and which seized on the fortunes of the rich to replenish that exchequer, from which the amusements of the mob were to be supplied : hence arose, on one hand, the most anxious desire to conceal wealth, and on the other, unwearied acuteness in detecting it. This introduced bribery and falsehood into the Athenian courts of justice : while those, whose opulence was proved, and who were consequently plundered, endeavoured to indemnify ATHENS. their own losses by the corrupt administration of the city magistracies. In short, the speeches of this orator display such a system of public and private rapine as may diminish our admiration of Athenian government, and teach us to receive with caution the praises which are lavished on the advantages of Athenian liberty." Isseus, Aridocides, and several others, whose works are known to us chiefly in a fragmentary form, present various examples of oratory more or less mingled with judicial and political archaeology. There is much to admire in Andocides. Charming purity of language, headlong vehemence in his onslaughts upon an opponent; and a finished working up of arguments, make us regret that this orator's works are not more popularly known at the present day. And now we come to the orator of nations, Demos- thenes. How great were the vicissitudes of his life ! and -how fraught with example and interest ! With our perception of the vanity that actuated some movements of his life, of the vacillation that may have once or twice deflfmed his fair renown, still the name of Demos- thenes is a dearly-cherished one in the heart of every lover of eloquence and patriotism. Heeren's sketch of his life is so good a picture of the history of Greece during its most critical period, as well as of the mighty influence possessed by Demosthenes over the fortunes of Greece that no apology can be required for trans- ferring it to our pages : " Nothing could be more superfluous than the desire of becoming the eulogist of that great master, whom the united voice of so many ages has declared to be the first, and whose panegyric, the only rival which 370 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. antiquity had placed by his side, has pronounced it in a manner at once accurate and honourable to both. " We would not here speak of Demosthenes the orator, but of Demosthenes the statesman ; and of him only as far as the man, the orator, and the statesman were inti- mately combined. His political principles emanated from the depth of his soul, he remained true to his feel- ings and his convictions, amidst all changes of cir- cumstances and all threatening dangers. Hence he was the most powerful of orators; because with him there was no surrender of his conviction, no partial compromise ; in a word, no trace of weakness. This is the real essence of his art ; every thing else was but secondary: and in this, how far does he rise above Cicero ! and yet, who ever suffered more severely than he for his greatness ? Of all political characters, Demos- thenes is the most sublime and purely tragic character with which history is acquainted. When, still trem- bling with the force of his language, we read his life in Plutarch, when we transfer ourselves into his times and his situation, we are carried away by^a deeper interest than can be exerted by any hero of the epic muse, or tragedy. From his first appearance till the moment when he swallowed poison in the temple, we see him contending against destiny, which seems to mock him with malignant cruelty. It throws him on the ground, but never subdues him. What a crowd of emotions must have struggled through his manly breast, amidst this interchange of reviving and expiring hopes ! How natural was it, that the lines of melan- choly and indignation, such as we yet behold in his bust, should have been imprinted on his severe eoua- ATHENS. 371 tenance ! Hardly had he passed the years of his youth, when he appeared, in his own behalf, as accuser of his faithless guardians ; from whom, however, he was able to rescue only a small part of his patrimony. In his next attempts, insulted by the multitude, though encouraged by a few who anticipated his future great- ness, he supported an obstinate contest with himself, till he gained the victory over his own nature. He now appeared once more as an accuser in public prose- cutions, before he ventured to speak on the affairs of the State. But in the very first of his public speeches we see the independent statesman, who, without being dazzled by a splendid project, opposes a vast under- taking. When Philip soon after displayed his designs against Greece, by his interference in the Phocian war, he for the first time came forward against that prince, in his first Philippic oration. From this period, he was engaged in the great business of his life- sometimes as a counsellor, sometimes as accuser, sometimes as an ambassador he protected the independence of his country against the Macedonian policy. "Splendid success seemed at first to reward his exertions. He had won a number of states for Athens ; when Philip invaded Greece, he had succeeded, not only in gaining over the Thebans, but in kindling their enthusiasm, when the day of Chaeronsea overthrew all his hopes. But he courageously declares, in the as- sembly of the people, that he still does not repent of the counsels he had given. An unexpected event changes the whole aspect of things : Philip falls, the victim of assassination ; and a youth, as yet but little known, is his successor, Immediately Demosthenes 372 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. institutes a second alliance of the Greeks ; but Alex- ander suddenly appears before Thebes ; the terrible vengeance which he here takes instantly destroys the league ; Demosthenes, Lycurgus, and several of their supporters are required to be delivered up ; but De- mades was at that time able to settle the difficulty, and to appease the king. His strength was, therefore, enfeebled as Alexander departed from Asia; he begins to raise his head once more, when Sparta attempts to throw off the yoke ; but under Antipater he is over- powered. Yet it was about the time that, by the most celebrated of his orations, he gained the victory over the most eloquent of his adversaries, and -ZEschines was forced to depart from Athens. But this seems only to have more embittered his enemies, the leaders of the Macedonian party; and they soon found an opportunity of preparing his downfall. When Harpa- lus, a fugitive from the army of Alexander, came with his treasures to Athens, and the question arose, whether he would be permitted to remain there ? Demosthenes was accused of having been corrupted by his money, at least to be silent. This was sufficient to procure the imposition of a fine ; and as this was not paid he was thrown into prison. From thence he succeeded in escaping ; but to the man who lived only for his coun- try, exile was no less an evil than imprisonment. He resided for the most part in -ZEgina and at Traezen, from whence he looked with sad eyes towards the oppo- site shores of Attica. Suddenly and unexpectedly a new ray of light dawned upon him. Tidings were brought that Alexander was dead. The moment of deliverance seemed at hand ; anxiety pervaded every Grecian state ; ATHENS. 373 the ambassadors of the Athenians passed through the cities ; Demosthenes joined himself to the number, and exerted all his eloquence and power to unite them against Macedon. In requital for such services, the people decreed his return ; and years of sufferings were at last followed by a day of exalted compensation. A galley was sent to 2Egina to bring the advocate of liberty. All Athens was in motion ; no magistrate, no priest remained in the chy, when it was reported that Demosthenes was advancing from the Piraeus. Over- powered by his feelings, he extended his arms and declared himself happier than Alcibiades ; for his coun- trymen had recalled him, not by compulsion, but from choice. It was a momentary glimpse of the sun, which still darker clouds were soon to overshadow. Anti pater and Craterus were victorious, and with them the Mace- donian party at Athens; Demosthenes and his friends were numbered among the accused, and at the instiga- tion of Demades were condemned to die. They had already withdrawn in secret from the city; but where could they find a place of refuge ? Hyperidcs, with two others, fled to ^Egina, and took refuge in the tem- ple of Ajax. In vain ! they were torn away, dragged before Antipater, and executed. Demosthenes had escaped to the island Caluria, in the vicinity of Trrezen, and taken refuge in the temple of Neptune. It was to no purpose that Archias, the satellite of Antipater, urged him to surrender himself, under promise of par- don. He pretended he wished to write something, bit the quill, and swallowed the poison contained in it. He then veiled himself, reclining his head backwards, till he felt the operation of the poison. ' Neptune !' 374 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. he exclaimed, ' they have defiled thy temple ; but honouring thee, I will leave it while yet living.' But he sank before the altar, and a sudden death sepa- rated him from the world, which after the fall of his country contained no happiness for him. Where shall we find a character of more grandeur and purity than that of Demosthenes ?" This masterly historical sketch may be fairly brought forward as an instance of the capability of eliciting the state of the times from the writings of a single author. Indeed, it is doubtful whether more real history may not be learnt from the practised and systematic obser- vations of a single politician, than from a mass, how- ever copious, of conflicting statements and second-hand descriptions. The great spirits of the world are so blent with the material mass they serve to illumine, that, viewed apart from their existence, one whole con- ception of the facts of history can only present a shape- less and confused void. It is impossible to write the history of the times of a great man apart from his own life : he is the vital principle from whence the lesser importance of other men radiates in different degrees and directions, it is his influence that gives momentum to the gravitating particles of humanity, that directs the whole living world to one centre, from which it cannot diverge but to their own destruction. It is melancholy to contemplate the downfall of Athenian patriotism " during the eventful career of Demosthenes. The exaggeration of democracy had proceeded too far, and Athens had absolutely been enslaved by her own liberty. Moreover, a taste for private elegance and luxury, had superseded the noble ATHENS. 375 liberality that had once decorated the Acropolis. But we have already dwelt long on this sad subject, and a more pleasing one calls away our attention the philo- sophy of Athens. Socrates and Plato are two names associated so much with fantastical theories and speculations, that one is almost afraid of saying any thing about them, for fear of falling into equal incongruities. Socrates wrote nothing, at least, nothing that appears to have descen- ded to posterity ; but his conversation and habits have been handed down to us by two authors, who have little in common, Xenophon and Plato ; while the latter of these is not even consistent with himself in his descrip- tion of his favourite friend and master. In the writings of Xenophon, some of which seem to exhibit fair speci- mens of the table-talk of Socrates, we are distinctly told that Socrates studied matters of ordinary life, using the most familiar illustrations, without troubling himself about physics or meteorology. In Plato, So- crates appears as a subtle dialectician, fresh in all the quirks and by-play of the Sophists, and discussing the Pythagorean and other earlier cosmogonies, without, however, expressing any thing like a definite opinion on the subject. Furthermore, was Socrates the man of fancy, which the Phsedrus and Symposium would induce us to believe ? It is at all times difficult to tell when Plato supposes Socrates to mean what he is saying ; in some cases we should almost feel a doubt whether he attached any meaning whatever to what he says. Viewing the character of Socrates apart from the frothy verbiage with which Plato has at times obscured it, he appears as a man uniting a singular keenness of 376 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. perception with an affable, yet artificial show of sim- plicity. Of his high talents there can be no doubt ; but he spoke too much. A disposition to sift and ex- pose the follies of other people, especially if one succeeds in doing so, is seldom popular, and often proves dan- gerous to its possessor. No better illustration of this can be quoted than the heroic death of Socrates. He was a martyr, not to the truth, but to the vanity of those who could not bear the discovery that they were fools. We may pardon Plato his misrepresentations, when we consider the charming dress in which he has clothed them ; and his historical deficiencies will be atoned by the elegance of his language, the graceful play of his wit, and the imaginative variety of his e] the same time, I must, after constant comparison of the whole of Plato's wri; my unqualified denial of any scheme that profes> unite and reconcile their tenor as a whole. If Plato intended them to be such, he has signally failed in the execution of his design; as the inconsistencies are tremendous. And how could it be otherwise ? Could an eclectic philosophy, which culled the flowers from every scholastic bower, which at one time revelled in the cosmogonical hypotheses of the Pythagoreans ; at another, flitted to and fro in the dazzling midday sun of Parmenidean atoms could a philosophy, which talked of every art and science, which seldom concluded an argument in such a manner n- to designate the party convinced, and where absurdities were sometimes balanced on a needle's point of accuracy could such a farrago of thoughts, hypotheses, refutations, and con- ATHENS. 379 tradictions, ever possess, ever assume a claim to definite system ? I am not of the number who can believe so. It is, perhaps, with the bias of a prescribed course of education, that I am inclined to prefer Aristotle to Plato. His writings are immeasurably less pleasing, but they are sounder and better food for the mind. Concentration of the mind upon the subject in view, accuracy, not far-fetched whimsicality, of illustration, and a more systematic technology, are pre-eminent advantages which the philosopher of Stageira possesses over the Athenian. In Plato, we too often tickle our appetite with the ices and champagne of a pic-nic lunch. In Aristotle, we find a dinner that whets our appetite with a healthy desire for eating more. Plato was a gentleman-philosopher ; perhaps to Socrates what Bos- well was to Johnson. Aristotle was a philosopher by profession, and understood his profession well. Let no one think I dislike Plato. It is because I love his writings, that I am tired of the theories which have been invented to excuse, sometimes to make virtues of their worst faults. I cannot make a more natural transition than from Athenian philosophy to Athenian Christianity ; and a brief consideration of the state of this most interesting city at the time of St. Paul's visit will form a fitting conclusion to our notice. Athens was literally full of shrines and temples in honour either of their own gods, or of those whom they had naturalized. Paul's " spirit w r as stirred in him when he saw the city full of idols," and he began to enter into disputes both with the Jew^ and the prose- lytes. The same bigotry that had formerly assailed 380 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. Socrates, now became the "lot of Paul, and he was reviled with no small bitterness as " a setter forth of strange gods." When he appeared before the court of Areopagus, and was questioned touching the " new doctrine," he made the celebrated defence which has been so often quoted as a proof of his temperate judg- ment as well as his religious zeal. Appealing even to their own Pagan literature, he taught them that in one only God, tl we live, and move, and have our being," exhorted them to repentance, and set forth the awful responsibilities of the resurrection and final judgment of men. But the babbling people of Athens, who had sat trifling while a Demosthenes spoke, had no ears even for the Great Apostle of the Gentiles. Some mocked the solemn warning, others promised to consider it, and "so Paul departed from among them." Who cannot tell what followed ? Has the same scourge that has laid waste almost every city we have described, spared the proud capitol of Cecropia ? Her ruins tell the same story of the fall of Idolatry, and the spreading abroad of everlasting and immutable truth with a silent eloquence that is made appalling by their magnificence. CORINTH. A LTHOUGH Corinth cannot be regarded as belonging to the number of those cities which have wrought great changes in the history of the human race, and have left corresponding memorials attesting the power that must have wrought those changes, still, there is much that is interesting both in its early political impor- tance, and its conspicuous position at the outset of the Peloponnesian war. Although one of the small- est states in Greece, its situation was commanding, and its resources immense. Heeren well remarks : " Venice was never more flourishing, or more power- ful, than at a time when it did not possess a square mile on the continent. Wealthy Corinth, more than four miles in extent, lay at the foot of a steep and elevated hill, on which its citadel was built. There was hardly a stronger fortress in all Greece, and perhaps no spot afforded a more splendid prospect than Acrocorinthus. Beneath it might be seen the busy city and its territory, with its temples, its theatres, and its aqueducts. Its two harbours Lechseurn on the western bay, Cenchreae on the eastern, filled with ships, and the two bays (383) 384 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. themselves, with the isthmus between them, were all in sight. The peaks of Helicon, and Parnassus itself, were seen at a distance ; and a strong eye could distinguish, on the eastern side, the Acropolis of Athens. What images and emotions are excited by this prospect !" With such advantages, it is not strange that, even at an early period, Corinth should have taken a foremost position among the great cities of Greece. Homer dignified her, under her ancient name of Ephyre, as the " opulent" city, and her fame as such lasted even to the days of John Chrysostom. Pausanias remarks, that in his time " none of the ancient Corinthians dwelt there, but colonists sent thither by the Romans. And the cause of this," continues the same antiquarian, " was the Achaean synod ; for the Corinthians took part in this with the other states, in the war against the Romans, in obedience to the suggestions of Critolaus, who, having been appointed general of the Achaean's, ' persuaded both the Achaeans and the greater part of those without Peloponnesus to revolt. When the Romans had prevailed in the war, they took away the arms from the other Greeks, and stripped all the fortified cities of their walls." We shall hereafter revert to the amusing stupidity of the valiant but tasteless consul, Mummius, upon this occasion, merely observing that the Corinth of St. Paul's time must subsequently be regarded rather as a Roman colony than a Grecian city. The quaint Horatian epithet, " Corinth of the two seas," neatly describes its position between the Ionian and -ZEgean seas, a position which was valuable in a OBINTH. 385 commercial point of view. In consequence of the difficulty of weathering the western promontory of Malea, merchandise was conveyed across land from sea to sea, the city of Corinth thus becoming an immediate means of communication for the wealth and wares of Asia and Italy. Its traffic from north to south was equally ready and extensive. Natural difficulties, presented by the rocky and stubborn soil, frustrated the attempt made to form a canal through the isthmus ; but at one period the Corinthians used to haul the galleys across, from sea to sea, on vast trucks or sledges. Nor were the Corinthians less happy in the employment than in the acquisition of gain : liberality and taste distinguished their public works and private expenditure, and at the time when Corinth fell into the hands of the Romans, few richer or nobler prizes could have been desired, even by the insatiate cupidity of a Verres. The popular origin of Corinth betrays the usual attempts to connect its earlier dynasties with the royal houses of mythic history. Sisyphus, Bellerophon, and many other heroes of ancient tragedy, appear among the list of its sovereigns, and the memory of these departed monarchs was preserved in the groves which adjoined its precinct. But one curious point in its ancient history, deserves especial notice, as furnishing an historical parallel to the half-mythical history of early Athens. When the grand movement of the northern tribes brought the Dorians and Heracleids in one vast troop upon the less hardy states of the Morea, the descendants of Sisyphus, who had already been tributary to the S3 386 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. sovereigns of Argos and Mycense, abdicated the crown in favour of Aletes, a descendant of Hercules, whose lineal descendants occupied the throne of Corinth for five generations, at the expiration of which time the throne passed into the family of the Bacchiadoe, who retained it for a like period. And now came a political change, analogous to that which substituted Medon, the son of Codrus, as archon, or chief magistrate, at Athens. While the prestige in favour of the old royal family was retained, an aristo- cratic system took the place of the monarchical ; and, although the chief power remained vested in the hands of the Bacehiad^e, they formed a staff of civil magis- trates probably with some power of mutual self-control, in lieu of a patriarchal, yet absolute government by kings. In the year 629 B. c., Cypselus, a man of unbounded spirit and ambition, succeeded in expelling the Bacchiadse, and in establishing himself in a firm tyranny. Many were the cruelties which befell the hapless descendants of Bacchis. Death or exile made as sure havoc among the relics of the old royal family of Corinth as among the offshoots of Louis the Sixteenth. Among the most distinguished exiles was Demaratus, the father of Lucumo, or Tarquinius Prisons, king of Rome. But whatever were the crimes of Cypselus crimes which ambition and the passion for gain unfortunately associate with the history of almost every nation, ancient or modern it cannot be denied that he was a prince of much tact and ability. Corinth had always been renowned for the extent and prosperity of her colonial influenae : and Cypselus was not impolitic CORINTH. 387 enough to neglect so important an item in the political scheme of his dominion. Ambracia, Anactorium, and Leucas, were added to the colonies already possessed by the Corinthians. Among the seven "wise men" of Greece, Periander, the son and successor of Cypselus, has unaccountably obtained a place. Murder, even within the recesses of his own family; tyranny, the most arbitrary and fickle ; and other crimes too revolting to mention, render the name of this prince pre-eminently con- temptible. An utter want of natural feeling, blended with a weakness that hindered his resolute perse- verance in the crimes he instigated and abetted, leave the memory of Periander nought but a record of vicious inability and maudlin brutishness. It was by his cruelties that the Corcyreans, stung by his unnatural treatment of his son Lycophron, and his subsequent tyranny over themselves, were driven to revolt ; and the result, shown in the earliest naval engagement ever fought, proved the active Corcyreans had learned all that their mother-state could teach them. I have, in my remarks on Athens, alluded to the mischievous influence of the Peloponnesian war upon the whole of the Grecian states. Corinth took a forward part in this unfortunate struggle, and became the most important enemy to Athens. Repeated pro- vocations, first arising from the aid rendered by the Athenians to their Megarean neighbours ; next, by their alliance with Corcyra ; and finally, by their treatment of Potidsea, incited them to side with the Spartans a conduct for which the alleged treatment of their allies seemed to furnish ample excuse. Their 388 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. enterprise at sea, although at first inadequate to with- stand the hetter discipline of the Athenian navy, event- ually proved a match for their practised enemies, and not only obtained success for themselves, but likewise secured it to the Syracusans on a subsequent occasion. After the battle of Amphipolis, when hostilities seemed to be coming to a close, the Corinthians, justly aggravated by the selfish conduct of the Lace- demonians, who had made an exclusive treaty with Athens, without the slightest reference to the interest of their allies, joined the league formed by Elis, Man- tinea, and Argos, with a view to the mutual protection of their rights and privileges. But, finding the Boeo- tians unwilling to join the confederacy, they changed their line of politics, and again associated themselves with Sparta. During the hostilities waged between the Spartans and Argives, the value of the Corinthian power was felt, especially in their active co-operation with Gylip- pus for the recovery of Syracuse, much of the success of that attempt being due to the conduct and valour of Aristo, the most able admiral of the Corinthian navy. But when the states of Greece began to exemplify the truth of the old adage respecting the strength of unity, when intestine divisions were gradually sapping the better feelings of mutual confidence and good-will, and substituting an arbitrary and irritable state of dissension, Athens lay at the mercy of its opponents, and the Corinthians urged the Lacedemonians to destroy that city which had been so unjust an enemy to their own colonies, and so proud and uncontrol':- 1 CORINTH. 389 a rival" to Sparta. But the memory of Marathon was not yet effaced. The proud stand made by one state in its youth and vigour, against the common enemy of all Greece, remained in all the glory of heroic renown ; even the jealous Spartans respected the declining and tottering state of that city that had once stood forth alone as the champion against the Persian invader. Dissatisfied and disappointed, the Corinthians gradually began to forsake their Spartan allies, and even became creatures of the Persian satrap, Tithraustes, whose sovereign was then at war with Sparta. After the defeat they sustained at the battle of Coronea, the aristocracy, pressed by the difficulties which surrounded them at home and abroad, began to think of deserting the Boeotians, Argives, and Athenians, and again uniting themselves to their old associates. But this oft-attempted trimming in policy proved a signal failure. The confederate states, already smarting under the consequences of defeat, and dreading the detachment of so important an ally, incited the leaders of the democratic party to massacre the aristocracy of Corinth. As the Danes were mur- dered on the festival of St. Brice, so were the noblest and best inhabitants of Corinth slaughtered, while unarmed and defenceless, during a day of public festivity ; some sought safety in flight, but the demo- cratic party remained in the ascendant, and resolved upon uniting Corinth to Argos, so as to form but one state. Struggle upon struggle followed, and found the Corinthians alternately worsted and victorious, until, harassed by the protracted conflict of the 33* 390 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. Boeotian war, they made a separate treaty with the Thebans, dismissing their Athenian allies. I have not space to detail the various circumstances that intervened between this period and the sacking of Corinth, under Lucius Mummius. This successful general, who had worked his way to honours from an humble station, was much more capable of beating the enemy than taking care of the spoils. If we may believe Velleius, Mummius was so little acquainted with the value of the treasures he was about to trans- port to Rome, that he warned the carriers that " if they lost or injured the pictures and statues, they should be compelled to furnish new ones !" Mr. Heidelberg, in the " Clandestine Marriage," could hardly have formed a more enlightened view of the value of antiquities. Strabo goes even further, asserting that the finest paintings were strewn heedlessly on the ground, and used by the soldiers as dice or draught boards. The male inhabitants were put to the sword, the women and children sold as captives, and Corinth became a scene of ruin and desolation rarely surpassed in the saddest annals of human history. Corinth was destined to revive again, but not as a Grecian city. It served as the seat of Roman govern- ment for southern Greece, now called the province of Achaia. In the time of Pausanias, as we have already stated, its inhabitants had wholly lost their Grecian character. This modern city, moreover, has, in recent times, suffered so much from the hands of the Turks, who have alternately possessed and lost it, that it presents few indications of an even comparative anti- quarian interest, as the following description, from tho CORINTH. 893 pen of an eye-witness and scholar of the highest cha- racter, will attest : " There are few remains of antiquity now surviving at Corinth. The Temple of Minerva, of which a view is annexed, is one of the finest. The traveller wh< arrives in the modern village from Neuva, perceives on his right hand five fluted columns, of a very ancient date, which once formed part of a temple. What the name of that temple was, is a subject for conjecture alone. The ascent of the hill of the Acrocorinth is steep and difficult. The first gate, which is approached by a drawbridge, is flanked by an impregnable wall of rock on the right, and by artificial outworks on the left. From this gate, a road leads to a hill on the south-west, in form like a truncated cone, upon which is a fortress : it is called Pente Skouphia. Proceeding upwards towards the summit of the Acrocorinth, we enter a semicircular battery, and after seventy paces another gate, defended by artillery; within it is the steep, rocky fortress on the southern crest of the Acro- corinth. The eastern wall of this enclosure is strength- ened by four square towers, and the angles are formed with ancient polygonal masonry; after a little more than a hundred paces, we enter a third gate, on the right of which is a square tower of Pelasgic archi- tecture, by which we pass into the large enclosure, which comprehends in its circuit the two northern crests of the Acrocorinth, on the eastern or higher of which are the remains of the ancient temple of Venus, on the site of which a mosque now stands. This large enclosure seems to- be comparatively easy of access, and has been entered by a besieging force along a path 394 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. leading between the two crests, of which we have spoken ; and by a well-concerted attack at different points might, perhaps, be surprised, and could not easily be defended, on account of its vast extent. Tf the eastern crest, which commands the whole citadel, were walled into a separate enclosure, it would seem almost impregnable. The large enclosure resembles a tow r n ; it contains many houses, cisterns, churches, and mosques, all which -are now in ruins. There is a fountain in this enclosure, to the east of the southern crest of it ; it is approached by a descent on a subter- ranean slope, which is nine feet broad, and seems to have been covered with marble steps. The water is contained in a rectangular basin, at the termination of the slope: above the water, the rock is hewn into an architectural form, resembling the facade of a small temple : it consists of a tympanum, supported by an architrave resting upon two antae, and a pilaster in the centre of them : above the tympanum there is an arched vault. On the rock, near the water, are inscribed com- memorations of vows offered in ancient times in this place, which was probably known in the earliest days of Corinth by the name of the fountain of Peirene." Several fountains, however, bear this name, but Wordsworth thinks that the Peirene, at which the winged horse Pegasus was caught, while drinking, by Bellerophon, was the " source which springs from the rock on the summit of the Acrocorinth, and that it was from this high point that he soared aloft into the air." In reference to the device of the winged Pegasus, so often found upon the coins of Corinth and her columns, the same scholar elegantly observes : " The mytho- 395 logical aiuu.^y kft\\t\u the horse and the element of water, an ans>toy which shows itself in the name of Pegasus, and which appears in the activity of both the animal and the element ; each, in its own manner, struggling to burst from its confinement, foaming with restless fury, and, as it were, ' pawing to get free,' and at other times bridled, whether by reins of steel or stone, and in the circumstances that they both sve to man the means of conquering distance, and of con- versing with things remote, may have led to the adoption of this device ; and the symbol upon these coins was, perhaps, intended to express the national sense entertained by Corinth of the advantage which she enjoyed in the excellence and superabundance of her fresh water, an advantage not possessed in the same degree by any other maritime city of Greece." A road leading from the foot of the citadel, and winding towards the east through low shrubs and quarries of stone, after a distance of about eight miles, brings us to the ancient port of Schaenus. About a mile short of that place is the site of the sacred grove in which the Isthmian games were celebrated. The only remains of its ancient buildings are those of the stadium in the southern part of the enclosure, the shell of a theatre about 300 yards to the north of it, and the foundations of the precinct which the temples of Neptune and Palgemon once adorned When I come to mention Elis, a few remarks will be offered on the political import of the games, which, as the common meetings of the Greeks, were such im- portant means of cementing mutual agreement and good will, and which united amusement of a religious 396 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. character with the acknowledgement of a political union a union which, had the Greeks known how to preserve it, would have stayed the Macedonian foe, and presented a combined array of strength, against which no human force could have successfully made head. But the mention of the theatrical buildings at Corinth, and the natural supposition, drawn from a knowledge of their general character, that the Corinthians were greatly addicted to amusements of this class, and per- haps disposed to cultivate them with an enthusiasm rivalling that of the Alexandrians, brings us naturally to a contemplation of many allusions found in St. Paul's Epistles. Doubt has been thrown upon the hypothesis that Paul was skilled in Gentile literature, a doubt that seems to me conceived in the very spirit of unne- cessary scepticism. Do the words of St. Paul before the Areopagus convey the notions of a Jew, who had learned no other literature than that of the Scriptures ? Is there not a happy mixture of calm expostulation and gentle satire, which, while it discloses the truths of the Gospel, also proves that he had studied and understood the nature of the false creed and habits he was re- futing ? To say nothing of the obvious quotations from Pagan writers which appear in his writings, the fre- quent metaphors derived from Gentile rites and customs appear most prominently in his writings, allusions well calculated to produce the effect intended upon the hearers to whom the Apostle of the Gentiles was sent. Among these, numerous allusions to the games of Greece, doubtless suggested by the magnificent build- ings devoted to such purposes, which he had beheld during his travels, deserve especial notice. His stay at Corinth, whither he had retired in vexation at his CORINTH. 397 indifferent success in the work of grace at Athens, doubtless tended to impress his ardent and expansive mind with imagery the most lively, comparisons the mos*t effective. And this was likewise due to his early residence at Tarsus, " to which may be traced the urbanity which the Apostle at no time laid aside, and of which he was frequently a perfect model, many insinuating turns which he gives to his epistles, and a more skilful use of the Greek tongue than a Jew born and educated in Palestine could well have attained." The church of Corinth early appears to have been the prey of various intestine divisions which interfered with the good work of the Apostle. "What these dis- putes really were, and what were the reasons that led to them, or to what consequences they led, we have little knowledge. It is "remarkable in the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, by the variety of its spiritual gifts, which seem for the time to have eclipsed or superseded' the office of the elder or bishop, which in most churches fcecame from the beginning so very prominent. Very soon, however, this peculiarity was lost, and the bishops of Corinth take a place co-ordinate to those of other capital cities." ELIS. LIS is, essentially, the Holy Land of Greece. Of comparatively little importance in resources, or in any active part taken in the grand field of Grecian politics, it was a pleasant district, about fifty-four miles in length from south to north, but not above half that breadth in its broadest part. Chief among the rivers which, rising in the mountains of Arcadia, irrigated the fruitful plains of Elis, was the Alpheus, on whose banks the Olympic games were celebrated. In this sacred land of peace, the Greek nation assembled to celebrate the grandest festival to antiquity, to which the Sta f es were invited, even in time of war. Wachsmuth thinks that the claims of the Eleans were not of the early date they asserted. " The name and history of the Olympic sanctuary do not begin historically till Iphitus. From the time of the dissolution of the political system of the ancient Achseans, it seems to have existed solely for the benefit of the Pisatans : it is certain that before Iphitus, the games were suspended, according to the tradition, from the time of Oxylus ; but it is a question whether Oxylus at that time ruled over Pisatis; nevertheless, the account of a consecration is not altogether unfounded, (398) ELTS. 399 This consecration must be especially referred to the locality of the feast, and in its most definite sense, to the grove Altis." Moreover, armies were compelled to lay down their arms before they passed through this favoured land, and during the celebration of the feast to pay a fine. Nevertheless, as Wachsmuth ripely observes, "it was almost a shameless assertion on the part of the Eleans, that they had not borne arms before the time of Philip ; they, in fact, fought wit,h advantage to themselves for the sovereignty f Pisatis and Triphylia, and for their common country against the Persians." Heeren, who takes a more favourable view of the Eleans than his countryman, gives the following idea of the advantages which occurred to Elis from the Olympic games : "If this privilege gave to them, as it were, all their importance in the eyes of the Greeks ; if their country thus became the common centre ; if it was the first in Greece for works of art, and perhaps for wealth; if their safety, their prosperity, their fame, and, in some measure, their existence as an independent state, were connected with the temple of Jupiter Olympus, and its festivals, need we be astonished if no sacrifice seemed to them too great, by which the glory of Otympia was to be increased ? Here, on the banks of the Alpheus, stood the sacred grove, called Altis, of olive and plane trees, surrounded by an enclosure ; a sanctuary of the arts, such as the world has never since beheld. For what are all our cabinets and museums, compared with this one spot ? Its centre was occupied by the national temple of the Greeks, the temple of Olympian Jove, in which was the colossal statue of 400 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. that god, the masterpiece of Phidias. No other work of art in antiquity was so generally acknowledged to have been the first, even whilst all other inventions of Grecian genius were still uninjured ; and need we hesi tate to regard it as the first of all the works of art, of which we have any knowledge ? Besides this temple, the grove contained those of Juno and Lucina, the theatre and the Prytaneum ; in front of it, or perhaps within its precincts, was the stadium, together with the race-ground, or Hippodromus. The whole forest was filled with monuments and statues, erected in honour of gods, heroes, and conquerors. Pausanias mentions more than two hundred and thirty statues ; of Jupiter alone he describes twenty-three, and these were, for the most part, works of the first artists ; for how could any poor production gain admittance, where even indifferent ones were despised ? Pliny estimates the whole number of these statues in his time at three thousand. To this must be added the treasures which the piety or the vanity of so many cities, enumerated by Pausanias, had founded by their votive presents. It was with a just pride that the Grecian departed from Olympia. He could say to himself with truth, that he had seen the noblest objects on earth, and that these were not the works of foreigners, but the creation and prosperity of his own nation." But, great as was the glory of Elis as the centre of peace and religion in Greece, few vestiges remain to attest its renown. The reader will perhaps notice our remarks on the destructive influence of vegetation on the ruins of Baal-bek ; nature has been at work ^ith an equally baleful effect around the site of ancient ELIS. 401 Elis. We may well conclude this notice with the remarks of Wordsworth on the subject : "It is a consequence of those natural properties which conduced to its fertility, that so few remains at present survive of the former splendour of Elis. The soil consists of a rich alluvial loam, deposited, in the lower grounds, by the rivers ; and both the stone of the country is of a more porous description than the limestone and marble supplied by the quarries in other parts of Greece, and the remains of the buildings have disappeared the sooner beneath the covering of soil which was brought down by the streams from the mountain slopes. The same observations may be applied generally to the other provinces of the Grecian continent and peninsula, upon which nature has bestowed a larger share of her endowments. The remains of antiquity are generally in an inverse ratio to the fertility of their soil. We believe that scarcely a sculptured group or fragment of a frieze is to be seen at the present time within the limits of the district of Hella most distinguished for their prolific character, namely, Thes- saly and Boeotia on the continent, and Achaia and Elis in the Peloponnesus." 84* ROME F it is difficult to say a little on the subject of Athens, Rome presents an equal dis- advantage to the historic sketcher. The gigantic vol- umes of Piranesi, the volu- minous cyclopaedias collected by a Grsevius, a Pitiscus, or a Muratori, have exhausted all the mingled appliances of art, literature, and learn- ing, upon the city of the | Seven Hills, and their ma- terials have, in turn, fur- nished a host of compilers with subjects, the discussion of each of which has, in some cases, formed many a folio. What endless stories of the Arcadian life of early Italy does the Palatine hill suggest to our minds ! Here was the little cottage of Evander, beneath the humble roof of which, the Arcadian king, like some patriarch of holier history, received the jaded and weather-beaten Trojans, as they sought a new land, that should hereafter inspire a Virgil with the most . (402) Illilllllillllllln,, ROME. 405 delicious description ever penned. On this hill, too, were the noble babes exposed, who, miraculously pre- served, became the founders of a State that was to command the world. At the southern extremity of the present forum, and just under the Palatine hill, stands the church of St. Theodore, traditionally said to be the temple afterwards erected to Romulus by Tatius. It is of a circular form, and the brazen wolf, commemorating the curious manner in which the founders of Rome were nurtured, occupied a place here till the sixteenth cen- tury. "But this last fact," observes a visitor, "is surely of no authority to demonstrate this to be the ori- ginal building. The roof is unquestionably modern, nor is there any thing to a common eye which bespeaks peculiar antiquity." In Spence's anecdotes, however, we find another argument in its favour : he says, " that the Roman matrons of old used to carry their children, when ill, to the temple of Romulus ; and the women still carry their children to St. Theodore on the same occasions." Such is a slight specimen of the legendary associa- tions with which, even in these days, the site of the ancient capital of the western world is replete. It is a city of gods and heroes, and even in its dirty streets, and amidst its dirtier population, some feeble concep- tions of its ancient nobility and magnificence rise in our imagination. Although the Tarpeian rock has dwindled away from the precipitous height which was once fearful to contemplate, still the fate of " La bella Tarpeia," as she is still called by the neighbouring pea- santry, makes us think of the faithless maiden whose death Propertius has so gracefully worked into the 406 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. form of an elegy, or of a Manilas, whose fate might serve as a significant lesson to many a political adven- turer of modern times. Rome has undergone changes so great, even previous to the introduction of Christianity, that we can hardly be surprised that so few monuments appertaining to the days of the Republic have been handed down to us. The Palatine hill, with the rude huts built by the hardy followers of Romulus, was as great a contrast to the capitol when beautified and covered with stately build- ings by Tarquin, as .its imperfect restoration after its destruction by the Gauls (A. u. 865) presented to its subsequent state. The capture of Corinth tended at once to humanize the tastes of .private individuals, and to furnish the means of gratifying them. Gradually, the study of Grecian art developed itself in the increased splendour of private dwellings and public offices, just as the literature of Rome sprang up from the imitation of the older Greeks. In fact, " we can scarcely fail coming to this conclusion, that architecture was at a very low ebb in Rome, when it was at its height in Greece, and in the Grecian colonies. The remains at Athens, such as the Parthenon, the temple of Theseus, and the Propylrea, carry us back to the time of Pericles, which answers to the year of Rome 302. In Sicily, the temples of Egesta and Girgenti remind us of the ravages which the Carthaginians had inflicted upon the island, before the Romans had a navy in their ports to contend with them. If we come still nearer to thcci in Mugiui Grsecia, we have the temple of Psestum, over whose history a veil of mystery is spread, through which we endeavour to look into those times which are prior to ROME. 409 existing records. But at Home there seems to have been no national genius which could strike out such magnificent works ; and for many years, no national taste which would care to imitate them. A patriot in the days of Augustus, if taunted upon this defect, would probably have made the rudeness and inelegance of his ancestors a topic of admiration ; but in comparing the Romans with the Athenians, we cannot deny that the latter were the most polished nation of the two ; and as a dictator taken from a plough, or a capitol built of brick, does not excite in us any patriotic feeling, we may, perhaps, be allowed to sympathize more with the fate of Athens than of Rome." Although the saying that "Augustus found the capitol of brick, and left it of marble" is probably an epigrammatic exaggeration, yet there is no doubt that this prince, whose reign is proverbially associated with Roman prosperity in its highest state, contributed more than any of his predecessors to the magnificence which made Rome the " fairest of things." Desiring, as we do, to contemplate Rome at her highest pitch of political glory and splendour, let us take a brief view of the times of Augustus Octavianus. But, before we proceed to this interesting subject, let us bear in mind the fact, that the Rome of Augustus had not by any means attained the architectural per- fection which it afterwards boasted. The drunken folly of a Nero, who rivalled in madness the incendiary of the temple at Ephesus, doubtless destroyed most of the principal buildings, but was perhaps beneficial in leading to more scientific arrangements in the recon- struction of the city. At all times, Rome had been an 35 410 C,REAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. object of admiration and interest. When the barbarian Gauls, who had, centuries before, forced its gates, and penetrated to the forum where the senators sat in solemn conclave, were awed by the grandeur which even then formed so great a contrast to their own rough, wandering homes, well might a Caractacus, fresh from the cavern dwellings of our own isle, marvel at the love of conquest which could make his humble dominions an object of envy to the possessors of a city of palaces. Even the Greeks, tutored in a more exclu- sive school of art, severer in their taste, and more reserved in their criticisms, could not deny the won- drous beauty of that city which had proved so fatal to their own prosperity. " Constantius," observes Eustace, " a cold and unfeeling prince, who had visited all the cities of Greece and Asia, and was familiar with the superb exhibitions of Ephesus, Magnesia, and Athens, was struck dumb with admiration as he proceeded in triumphal pomp through the streets; but when he entered the" forum of Trajan, and beheld all the won- ders of that matchless structure, he felt for once a momentary enthusiasm, and burst into exclamations of surprise and astonishment." Strabo, who had traversed Greece in every direction, and was without doubt inti- mately acquainted with all the beauties of his country, and, like every other Greek, not a little partial to its claims to pre-eminence, describes the magnificence of Rome as an object of transcendant glory, that surpassed expectation, and rose far above all human competition. If Greeks, so jealous of the arts and edifices of their native land ; if emperors of the east, who idolized their own capital, and looked with envy on the ovuaments of HOME. 411 the ancient city, were thus obliged to pay an invo- luntary tribute to its superior beauty, we may pardon the well-founded enthusiasm of the Romans themselves, when they represent it as the epitome of the universe, and an abode worthy of the gods. And, indeed, if Yirgil, at a time when Augustus had only begun his projected improvements, and the architectural glory of the city was in its dawn, ventured to give it the proud appellation of rerum pulclierrima we may conjecture what it must have been in the reign of Hadrian, when it had received all its decorations, and blazed in its full meridian splendour. Even in its decline, when it had twice experienced barbaric rage, and had seen some of its fairest edifices sink in hostile flames, it was capable of exciting ideas of something more than mortal gran- deur, and raising the thoughts of a holy bishop from earth to heaven. After the Gothic war itself, which gave the last blow to the greatness of Rome, when it hud been repeatedly besieged, taken, and ransacked, yet .then, though stripped of its population, and aban- doned with its tottering temples to time and desolation ; even then, deformed by barbarism, wasted by pestilence, and bowed down to the ground under the accumulated judgments of Heaven, the "Eternal City" still retained its imperial features, nor appeared less than the mis- tress of the world. It is indeed certain, that,' although literature declined rapidly after the time of Augustus, as well as that the Latin tongue, by its gradual deterioration and admixture with African words and phraseology, proved a corres- ponding declension in critical taste, architecture still flourished, and the later Roman emperors displayed 412 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. their zeal or ambition, not only by decorating the capital of their empire, but by restoring, rebuilding, and beautifying the cities of Asia Minor and of the East. "We shall hereafter recur to the present state of Rome. At present, the leading features of the Augustan age claim our attention. Whatever immoralities may disgrace the memory of this prince, he stands out as the patron of literature and art, and as a kind friend and companion in private life. Loving literature for its own sake, his patronage of Virgil and Horace was not a mere display for ostentation's sake, but a rational enjoyment of the society of those who were most capable of making the private hours of a prince agreeable. Maecenas, a man of equally mixed character with his royal master, was an excellent " introducer" of such companions, and to him must much of the humanizing influence of these most popular of poets be ascribed. But the literature of this age, and of the period immediately preceding it, cannot be regarded as original in any sense of the word. The Romans had long benefited by the thoughts of the Athenian sages and poets. Even the prefaces of Cicero to his philosophical works teemed with allusions to the works of those wise men to whose instruction he had committed his son Marcus ; while his pleasing, but not often sound reasonings have been amusingly characterized as "Plato and water." Julius Caesar's Commentaries, on the contrary, which were never intended to take the place of a regular history, are distinguished by a simple elegance of language that equals the choicest Latinity of Cicero, as well as by an original naivete of style, ROME. 413 which shows his genuine enjoyment of a subject in nrhich he had borne so conspicuous a part. By the poets of this time, though they had for the most part cast off the rough Latinity in which Pacuvius and Ennius, and subsequently, but in a more softened form, Catullus and Lucretius, had written, metrical rules were adhered to with more strictness, harmony of rhythm and cadence more studied, than before. But still, all was imitation of the Greeks. Do we admire the Eclogues of Virgil ? What is there but Theocritus, the Syracusan bucolist, pruned, it is true, of much indelicacy, and oftentimes expanded with singular felicity of treatment and design. Again, the JEneid is but a cento of the best passages of Homer and Apollonius, blent with singular felicity into one narrative, heightened by all the charms of language, and by a delicacy of pathos, in which Virgil stood pre-eminent. The Georgics possess more claims to originality, as far as their richness in allusions purely Italian go, but here, too, Hesiod, Aratus, and Nicander cross our path. Equally dependent upon the Greeks are the minor poets of this period : in short, it is an age in which luxury has chastened and refined taste, while it has destroyed originality. The progress of the arts was on a steady advance. Even the atrocious peculations and violence of a Verres had been useful in raising the standard of taste, and it furnishes the best objects for its employment. Archi- tecture, painting, and sculpture, all throve rapidly, and Rome vied with its luxurious Pompeian neighbours in the elegance of her palaces and private dwellings, while her dilletanti vied with one another in collecting 35* 414 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. the choicest rarities from every clime. Peace through- out the greater part of the world favoured this happy state of things, and the "golden age" truly seemed to have returned under the mild dominion of Augustus. But as literature fell, so did architecture improve at Rome ; and when the feeble writings of an Antoninus, or the heavy, powerless compositions of the "writers of the Augustan history," had taken the place of the nervous, manly language of a Tacitus, the rage for building went on as hotly as ever. In fact, an almost morbid taste for rearing vast edifices, and for building over tracts which before scarcely possessed a single inhabitant, is sometimes a witness of approaching downfall. It was so with Rome. Attentive to the beautifying of cities, sometimes too remote to be faith- ful allies, she sapped her own domestic strength ; and by spreading her resources too widely apart from each other, crippled the strength that had been accumulated by the persevering labours and untiring energy of the great men of so many centuries. A prey to disaffection at home, and to the incursions of an overwhelming horde of barbarians from without, ancient Rome fell. To its present degraded state, we shall briefly advert in our concluding remarks. Let us now take a slight view of the forum, the grand scene of the struggles of a people for a liberty they could so readily lose in the former scene of their victory ; the place where a Virginius had sacrificed his child to preserve her honour, and where the corpse of Caesar had been made to preach a mute sermon that extin- guished the last breath of expiring freedom. Let us think of it, when palaces and temples reared themselves ROME. 417 one above another, and seemed to blend their marble fagades with the warm Italian sky that encompassed so delicious a picture. It lay between the Capitoline and Palatine hills; it was eight hundred feet wide, and adorned on all sides with porticos, shops, and other edifices ; on the erection of which immense sums had been expended, and the appearance of which was very imposing, especially as it was much enhanced by numerous statues. What emotions must have been raised within the minds of the people on gazing at these statues ! How many grudges, how much strife, how much pleasure was awakened to recollection by their presence ; connected as they were with all the ancient tales the priests disseminated, the patricians derided, and the plebs believed. What must be the feelings of the modern traveller who gazes on the relics left of this busy mart and throng of men ! In the middle was the mysterious plain called the Curtian Lake, into which, when it gaped for a victim, Curtius, as the old fable related, plunged full armed, to avert the fate impending over Rome. What a shout his countrymen sent up to Jove, as the yawning gulf, appeased by the sacrifice of the bravest man of Rome, closed for ever. On one side were the elevated seats from which the orators addressed their energetic appeals to the Romans, and the magistrates their "wise saws and modern instances." These benches or pulpits were called Rostra, because they were decorated with the beaks of the vessels taken in a naval engagement with the inhabitants of Antium. In the vicinity was situated that portion of the forum, named the Comitium, where the assemblies of the 418 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. people, called Cornitia Curiata, were held. In tnd direction of the Via Sacra, stood the temple of Anto- ninus and Faustina, and that mentioned already under the name of the Church of St. Theodore, and then known as the temple of Romulus and Remus. Farther "ii, also, on the left hand, was the temple of Peace, and the arch of Titus, " both," as "Wood observes, " monuments of the destruction of Jerusalem." Farther still, .rises the glorious fragments of the yet stately Colosseum, grander, perhaps, in its desolation than when Rome boasted its most glorious era. On the hill, the highest of the seven, stood the Capitol, the centre of the wishes and the hopes of Rome. The ascent to this mighty fortress-temple was by a flight of a hundred steps. It was at once the oldest, largest, and grandest building in the city. It extended for two hundred feet on each side, as it was square in form. Its gates were of brass, and it was adorned with costly gildings. The walls enclosed three principal structures. The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in the centre, the temple of Juno on the left, and the temple of Minerva on the right. Some small chapels were also comprehended within the boundaries of the buildings, and also the Casa Romuli, or cottage of Romulus, the thatch-covered building to which the superstitious mob of Rome looked up with so much respect and admiration. The Basilicce of which we shall speak hereafter, were also in this neighbourhood. Ascending the Palatine, we pause at the ruins of the palaces of the Caesars. " The long vaults, where a partial destruction admits a gleam of daylight to their deep recesses ; the terraces, ROME. 419 which seem to bid defiance to time ; the half domes, and solid piers, attesting the grandeur of their ancient construction ; the walls fringed with shrubs, prin- cipally evergreen ; the very intricacy of the plan, and the mixture of kitchen-gardens and vineyards, where once the voice of harmony resounded through lofty halls decorated with the finest productions of art; all impress the mind with the recollection of past glory." The view from the Palatine is interesting, and the prospect varied. Many of the principal buildings aro to be seen from this point. Below the mount, is temple of Romulus ; farther left, is that conse- crated to Yesta ; between both, was the arch of Janus ; in the immediate neighbourhood was the temple of Castor and Pollux ; and not very far distant, that of Apollo. i; All these names," observes Wood, "and almost every inch of ground is disputed by the Roma a antiquaries; but about such dissensions the imagination does not trouble herself." In fact, as I have already observed in reference to ancient Roman legends, we find too much pleasure in believing, to wish to give way to the skepticism even of a Niebuhr. Besides, it lias been well remarked by Burton, "if we must have visible objects on which to fix our attention, we liavo the ground itself on which the Romans trod; we have the Seven Hills; we have the Campus Martins; the Forutn ; all places familiar to us from history, and in which we can assign the precise -spot where yomo memorable action was performed. Those who feel a gratification in placing their footsteps where Cicero or Caesar' did before them in the consciousness of standing 420 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. upon the same hill which Manlius defended, and in all those associations which bring the actors themselves upon the scene, may have all their enthusiasm satisfied, and need not complain that there are no monuments of the Republic. Rome is, indeed, a melancholy wreck of what it was ; but the circuit of the walls, being the same at this moment as in the time of the Emperor Aurelian, we have so far a point of connection between former times and our own ; and what is wanting in many ancient cities, we can positively identify the limits which it occupied. But in Rome we can do more : from the records of history, we can trace the gradual increase of the city from the time when Romulus had his cottage on the Capitol, to the final extension of the walls by Aurelian. I have now to crave my reader's attention on a painful subject. Whatever may be the anxiety of the * Christian on behalf of the Jews, who to this day per- sist in withholding their belief in Him whom their forefathers crucified, 'and dispiriting as is the compa- ratively small success of the attempts made for their conversion, the state of Papal Rome is a subject fraught with a no less painful interest. It is fearful to contem- plate the degraded condition of the Iqzzaroni of modern Italy, and, in their listless and profligate lounging, to read the demoralizing influence of Popery. Licentious indiiference to the duties of common life are ill-atoned by the purchased pardon or indulgence of a priest ; little does the pomp and luxury of the Papal proces- sions agree with the characteristics of the u fisherman's son." Yet there is a stern vitality in Romanism that mocks our understanding, although we cannot deny its HOME. 421 existence. Romanism is a riddle, the interpretation of which lies but too deeply in the dark passions and most inward failings of mankind. Yet does not the fact, that the Papal authority is to this hour supported by the soldiery of a neighbouring nation, little remark- able for its religious or believing tendency, sadly satirize the assumption of the keys of heaven and earth by a so-called prince, who cannot retain the keys of his own city ? It is for God alone to decree and bring about the great change that shall substitute healthful employment for almsgiving, the Bible for the breviary, and the Gospel for tradition. God send the day be not far off! Superstition took its birth from Rome, and stoutly has Rome nurtured the sturdy bantling that is now sapping her vitals, and consuming her population with the disease of sloth and ignorance. Relics the most apocryphal, traditions the most extravagant, take their stand by the side of the saints of the New Testament and the inspired word of the Almighty. The dome of St. Peter's rears its head proudly above every sur- rounding structure, and claims for itself that pre-emi- nence which the Apostle disclaimed. How unmeaning is such a conception of Peter's character ! How utterly at variance with Scripture, or with the simplest evi- dence drawn from a knowledge of human nature ! To this day it is a matter of uncertain tradition whether St. Peter ever was at Rome at all ; .and surely, had such an idea as Papal supremacy ever formed a part of the Christian dispensation, it would have been esta- blished on a safer and sounder footing than on the doubtful interpretation of a single text of Scripture. 36 422 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. Eustace, describing the Basilica of St. Peter has the following pertinent remarks : " The Basilica of St. Peter was the first and noblest religious edifice erected by Constantine. It stood on part of the circus of Nero, and was supposed to occupy a spot consecrated by the blood of numberless martyrs, exposed or slaughtered in that place of public amuse- ment by order of the tyrant. But its principal and exclusive advantage was the possession of the body of St. Peter, a circumstance which raised it in credit and consideration above the Basilica Lateranensis ; dignified its threshold with the honourable appellation of the Limina Apostolorum, or the Threshold of the Apostles ; and secured to it the first place in the affec- tion and reverence of the Christian world. Not only monks and bishops, but princes and emperors visited its sanctuary with devotion, and even kissed, as they approached, the marble steps that led to its portal. Nor was this reference confined to the orthodox mon- archs who sat on the throne of its founder ; it extended to barbarians, and more than once converted a cruel invader into a suppliant votary. The Vandal Genseric, whose heart seldom felt emotions of mercy while he plundered every house and temple with unrelenting fury, spared the treasures deposited under the roof of the Vatican Basilica, and even allowed the plate of the churches to be carried in solemn pomp to its inviolable altars. Totila, who in a moment of vengeance had sworn that he would bury the glory and the memory of Rome in its ashes, listened to the admonitions of the pontiff, and resigned his fury at the tomb of the apostles. EARLY CHRISTIAN" MARTYRS EXPOSED TO WILD BEASTS IN THE CIRCUS. HOME. 425 " Every age, as it passed over the Vatican, seemed to add to its holiness and dignity ; and the coronation of an emperor, or the installation of a pope, the depo- sition of the remains of a prince, or the enshrinement of the reliques of a saint, appeared as so many new claims to the veneration of the Christian world. At length, however, after eleven centuries of glory, the walls of the ancient Basilica began to give way, and symptoms of approaching ruin were become so visible about the year 1450, that Nicholas V. conceived the project of taking down the old church, and erecting in its stead a new and more extensive structure." I have too little taste for the bitterness of religious controversy to enter farther into the history of St. Peter's at Rome, or to desire to dwell upon the corrup- tions with which Romanism stands attainted. Let all sects find that there are certain common principles of Christianity, from which no one may swerve ; let them agree on those points, and true Catholicism and liberty of conscience will reign together. But for the ipse dixit of Papal power, Christendom is no longer the field. Neander has well proved " that the idea of the primacy of St. Peter rested on nothing but a misunder- standing both of the position which had been assigned him in the progressive movement of the Church, as also of the particular titles which were given to him." Popery is a splendid religious mistake, and a fatal one, because destitute of the inestimable elements of a healthy and moderate tendency to self-reformation. MAHOMET H. CONSTANTINOPLE. ONSTANTINOPLE, the capital of Tur- key, is one of the largest and most famous cities in Europe. It is called by the Oriental nations Constantia, by the Turks, Istamboul, (that is, "into the city,") by the Wallachians and Bulgarians, Zaregrad (royal city). The ancients called the city that stood upon the same site, Byzantium. Constantine the Great built Constantinople for a capital, consecrating it in the year 330. From that time until 1453, the city was the residence of the Emperors of the East, who adorned it with the most magnificent edifices. The inhabitants were distinguished for luxury and refinement. (426) CONSTANTINOPLE. 429 \ The spoils of half the world enriched this great capital. In 1453 it fell into the hands of the Turks, who have held it ever since. The city has been besieged 211 times, but taken only 6, viz. : by Alcibiades, Severus, Constantine, Dandolo, Michael Palseologus, and Moham- med II. Constantinople lies in the province of Roumelia, on the sea of Marmara, and at the south-western opening of the Thracian Bosphorus, which separates Europe from Asia. The harbour is large and safe. The interior of the city but ill corresponds with its noble amphitheatrical site and the splendour of its mosques and palaces. The streets are generally narrow, dirty, and steep ; the houses for the most part low, and built of mud and wood. The great mass of the inhabitants are Turks. Trade is chiefly carried on by the Greeks, Jews, and Armenians. The Turks, or Toorks, are a numerous race, whose original seat was in the high central regions of Tartary, to the north and east of the Jaxartes, and along the borders of the Altai. Their large and handsome persons, and their fair and ruddy complexions, distin- guish them from the meagre, diminutive, and almost deformed aspect of the Mongols, the other ruling Tartar race. In the tenth century, having subdued all their neighbours, they were attracted by the rich and beautiful regions of the south, and poured down through Khorassan into Persia. The princes of the Seljuk dynasty had, at the above period, established full sway over Persia. Thence they crossed the Euphrates, to attack the weakened power of the Greek empire and the Saracen princes. They 430 GREAT CITIES OP THU Vr'Gi;LD. were triumphant ; and established in Asia Minor what was called the kingdom of Roum, while other chiefs over-ran Syria and the Holy Land. At this time the whole of Western Asia was subject to Turkish dynasties. But their fall was preparing. The outrages, of which their rude bands were guilty, formed one of the chief motives which impelled the European powers to the great enterprise of the crusades. The Latin nations poured in with a force which the Turks were unable to withstand ; and the thrones of Jerusalem and Iconium were speedily subverted. At the same time, the Mongols, under Zinghis, having achieved the subjugation of Tartary, followed the traces of the Turks, wrested from them Persia, and subverted the caliphate. At the end of the thirteenth century, the once proud dynasties of Seljuk were reduced to a number of scattered chieftains, occupying the mountainous districts and high plains of Asia Minor, and. obliged to own' the supremacy of the Mongol khans of Persia. Othman, or Ottoman, one of their chiefs, was the man who, in 1299 ; erecting an independent standard, founded the mighty Ottoman empire. He appeared first under the aspect of a Scythian chief, a leader of shepherds and bandits ; but first conquering and then uniting under his standard a number of neighbouring tribes, he assembled a formidable military force. Iiis successor, Orchan, having taken Prusa, erected it into a capital, which almost defied the imperial metropolis Constantinople. His successors continually augmented their force by the peculiar institutions under which they trained to arms the captive youth of the con- quered countries. They continued to make acquisitions CONSTANTINOPLE. 431 from the decrepid Greek empire, until the "walls of Constantinople enclosed all that remained of the dominion of the Caesars. The Turkish empire was raised to its greatest height by the capture of Constantinople, in 1453, by Mahomet II. The power of the Turks now struck terror into all Europe. In the succeeding century they subdued Egypt, the Barbary State?, and all the Arabian coast on the Red Sea. In Europe they rendered tributary the Crimea and the countries along the Danube ; they over-ran Hungary and Transylvania, and repeatedly laid siege to Vienna. When affairs came to that crisis, however, the European states took the alarm, and all the princes of Poland and Germany united against the invader, who was repeatedly driven back with prodigious loss. At sea, notwithstanding the gallant resistance of the Venetians and the knights of St. John, the Turks long carried all before them : they subdued Rhodes, Cyprus, and all the Greek islands ; and it was only at the little rock of Malta that their progress received a check. The decline of the Ottoman power was perceptible hi the course of the seventeenth century, and proceeded rapidly in the eighteenth. The rigour of that discipline by which they had rendered themselves so formidable, was insensibly relaxed; the grand signior resigned himself to the luxuries and indulgences of the seraglio ; and the revolts of the pachas in every quarter distracted the empire. When the European powers began to make war with regular armies, they easily repelled those tumultuary bands which followed the Turkish standard. Above all, when Russia began to develop her gigantic 432 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. energies, the star of Ottoman ascendancy rapidly declined. Defeated in every battle, losing several of their finest provinces, and holding the rest by a precarious tenure, the Turks ceased to be formidable. In the last war, indeed, General Diebitsch entered Adrianople, and saw the road to the capital open; though peace was then granted on moderate terms. But Turkey has since undergone a still deeper humilia- tion, having seen her empire almost subverted by Ibra- him, son to the pacha of Egypt, when she was saved only by the interposition of Russia, her mortal enemy, and obliged to sacrifice Syria and Palestine, two of the finest portions of her territory Russia constantly aims to get possession of Con- stantinople, which will give her the command of the Mediterranean. Doubtless, the overwhelming power of the czar will soon extinguish the once mighty power of the Turks and render their capital the chief em- porium of the Russian empire. Constantinople is annually visited by that fearful scourge, called the plague, which carries off thousands of the inhabitants, and desolates whole sections of the city. Yet in full view of the coming of the pesti- lence, the government adopts no precautionary mea- sures, and individuals are just as careless. The scenes in the city during the prevalence of the plague are heart-rending. Families are separated by inevitable necessity, and many are left to die in the streets, with- out attendants. VENICE. THE rise of the commercial republics Venice, Genoa, and Florence in the middle ages was a brilliant era for Italy and civiliza- tion. Their voices, both for \var and commerce, covered the seas, and set bounds to the all-grasping power of the Ottoman, which threatened to overwhelm the wes- tern world. They revived the learning that had slumbered for ages. The remains of Greek literature were surveyed by the learned men who fled before the sword of the Turks. The writings of the ancients were drawn from the depths of convents, and eagerly studied and circu- lated. What was of more consequence, a race of enlightened princes and nobles arose, who sought glory in patronizing knowledge, while a general taste for it was diffused among a wealthy and refined community. The arts of painting, architecture and music, on which the wealth of the noble citizens was lavishly expended, rose to an eminence equalling, perhaps, that of the ancients : Venice is situated on the Lagunes or Small Islands, about five miles from the continent. It was founded about A. D. 451 or 452 ; when Attila, having destroyed the cities of Aquileia, Verona, Mantua, Trevigio, &c. such of the inhabitants as escaped the slaughter fled to the islands on their coast, and there took up their 37 (433) 434 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. residence. Historians are profuse in their commenda- tions of the virtue of the Venetians during the infancy of their city. Nothing remarkable, however, occurs in the history of Venice for some time, excepting the change of government from the consular to the tribuni- tial form, which happened about thirty years after the building of the city. The republic first began to be of consequence after the destruction of Padua by the Lombards. About this time they were become masters of a fleet and a body of land-forces. They engaged in a quarrel with the Lombards, and soon after distin- guished themselves against the Istrian pirates, who had committed depredations on their coasts ; and the Ter- gestines, or inhabitants of Trieste, who had suddenly carried off a number of the citizens of Venice. The city very soon arrived at a high pitch of affluence and power. In the war carried on by Justinian with the Goths in Italy, the Venetians gave considerable assistance to Narses, the Roman general, who expressed his gratitude by several rich presents, and by building two fine churches dedicated to the saints Theodore and Gerrninian ; the oldest public buildings, beside St. Mark's and St. Peter's, in Venice. From the time of Justinian to A. D. 697, historians are silent with regard to the Venetian affairs. A great revolution then took place in the govern- ment : the tribunes having abused their power were abolished ; and in their stead was elected a doge or duke, in whom was vested the supreme authority. He was to represent the honour and majesty of the state ; to have respect and distinction paid him beyond what the tribunes, or even the consuls enjoyed : he was to VENICE. 435 assemble and preside at the great council ; to have a casting vote in all disputed points ; to nominate to all offices, places, and preferments ; and lastly, to enjoy the same authority in the church as in the state. Paul Anafestus Paoluccio was the first doge. He died in 717. This form of government was changed in 737, and a supreme magistrate chosen, with the title of master of the horse, or general of the forces. His power was to continue only for a year, the shortness of its duration heing thought a security against the abuse of it. But in five years afterwards the doges were restored, and John Fabritio, the 4th and last master of the horse, was deposed, and his eyes put out. Under the doges, the power and wealth of the Venetian republic continued to increase. In 764 the Heracieana and Jesulans, subjects to the republic, having formed some designs against the state, put themselves under the protection of Charlemagne. That conqueror not finding it convenient to give them present assistance, settled them in Malamocco, until he could give them more effectual succour. The Venetians, however, disre- garding the protection of that powerful monarch, attacked and instantly drove them out of Malamocco. Incensed at this, Charlemagne ordered his son Pepin to declare war against the republic. This was done ; but the blow was for some time diverted by Astolphus, king of the Lombards, who, committing great devasta- tions in the territories of the pope, obliged Pepin to come to the assistance of his holiness. However, after having afforded the necessary succour to the pope, Pepin prosecuted the war with Venice. Upon which the Venetians declared themselves a free and inde- 436 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOKLD. pendent state. But in 804 the war was renewed with the utmost fury. Pepin having quarrelled with Nicephorus the Greek emperor, and finding Obelerio the Venetian doge in- clined to favour his adversary, he determined to exter- minate the very name of the republic. After having laid waste the surrounding province, he led his army directly to Venice, blocking the city up at the same time by his fleet. The Venetians united, and gave the chief command to Valentin, as Obelerio was supposed too nearly allied to Pepin to fight with that good-will and cheerfulness the service of his country required. The Venetians, notwithstanding the most obstinate defence, were at length reduced to that part of the city South of the Rialto. While Pepin was preparing to lay a bridge over the canal, they resolved, as a last effort, to attack his fleet. Embarking all the troops they could spare, they succeeded in driving the enemy's fleet aground, and the greater part of the troops perished in attempting to escape; the ships were all, to a few, cither taken or destroyed. During this action at sea, Pepin, having thrown a "bridge over the Rialto, was attacked on every side by the Venetians from their boats, and others who had posted themselves on the bridge. The battle was long, bloody, and doubtful, until the Venetians succeeded in breaking down the bridge ; when all communication being cut off with the troops on shore, the French were to a man either killed or drowned. Pepin was so struck with the intrepidity of the Venetians, that he raised the siege, abandoned the enterprise, and concluded a peace with the republic. He afterwards came to Venice to inte*r- VENICE. 437 cede for Obelerio, but the populace being persuaded that he had acted treacherously, Pepin was no sooner gone than they tore him and his wife to pieces, though she was Pepin's sister. In 839, the Venetians engaged in an alliance offen- sive and defensive against the Saracens with Michael III. the Greek emperor. A fleet of 60 galleys was immediately equipped, who joined the Grecian fleet and engaged the enemy ; but during the heat of the engage- ment, the Greeks having basely deserted their allies, the Venetians were so completely defeated, that scarce a single vessel remained to carry the news of their misfortune to Venice. This defeat threw the city into the utmost consternation, as it was not doubted that the Saracens would immediately lay siege to the capi- tal ; instead of which they turned their arms against Ancona, which they pillaged and destroyed. The Narentines, however, a piratical people, no sooner heard of the defeat of the Venetians, than they laid waste the coasts of Dahnatia, and ravaged the country for a considerable way ; at the same time that the city was distracted by internal dissensions and tumults, in one of which the doge was murdered. It was not till the year 881 that the Venetian affairs were thoroughly re-established. By the prudent and vigorous admi- nistration of Orso Participate the power of the Saracens was checked, the Narentines utterly defeated, and domestic tranquillity restored. From this time the republic continued to flourish; and in 903 her reputation for arms became famous all over the world by a great victory gained over the Huns, who had invaded Italy, defeated Berengarius, 57* GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. and threatened the country with total destruction. For a long time after, we meet with no remarkable transactions in the Venetian history ; but in general the republic increased in wealth and power by its indefatigable application to maritime affairs and to commerce. About the year 1040 it was ordained that no prince should associate a colleague with him in the supreme power. In 1084 the republic was by the emperor of Constan- tinople invested with the sovereignty of Dalmatia and Croatia, which, however, had been held long before by right of conquest. As soon as the Crusade was preached up, the Venetians fitted out a fleet of 200 pail against the infidels ; but before this armament was in a condition to put to sea, war broke out with Pisa. The doge Vitalis Michael took upon him the command of the fleet, when, after having defeated the Pisans in a bloody action at sea, he set sail for Smyrna, and ion, at that time besieged by the Christian?. Tu his valour was owing the conquest of lliii) city, a.- those of Caipha and Tiberias; before ho had time to push his good fortune further, he was recalled on account of an invasion by the Normans of Dalmatia. Here he was equally suc- cessful : the Normans were every where defeated ; and Michael returned home loaded with booty; but died soon after to the grief of all his subjects. Ho was succeeded by Ordelapho Faliero, un<; n the Venetians assisted Baldwin in "the sie Ptole- mais, and were the chief instruments of it.-j conquest; and Baldwin, in recompense for the services of the republic, invest-ed her with the sovereignty of that city, VENICE. 441 which he endowed with many extraordinary privileges, to render his present more valuable. This good for- tune, however, was overbalanced by a rebellion in Dalmatia and Croatia. The former was reduced ; but, in a battle with the Croatians, the doge was killed, and his army entirely defeated : by which disaster the Venetians were so much dispirited, that they made a peace on the best terms they could, giving up all thoughts of Croatia for the time. Under the government of Dominico Micheli, who succeeded Ordelapho, the pope's nuncio arrived at Venice, and excited such a spirit of enthusiasm among all ranks and degrees of men, that they strove whose names should be first enrolled for the holy war. The doge, having fitted out a fleet of 60 galleys, sailed with it to Joppa, which the -Saracens were then besieg- ing. The garrison was reduced to the last extremity, when the Venetian fleet arrived, surprised and defeated that of the enemy with great slaughter; soon after which the Saracens raised the siege with precipitation. Tyre was next besieged, and soon was obliged to capitulate ; on which occasion, as well as on the taking of Ascalon, the Venetians shared two-thirds of the spoils. But in the mean time the emperor of Constan- tinople, jealous of the increasing power and wealth of the republic, resolved to make an attack upon Venice, now weakened by the absence of the doge and such u powerful fleet. But the senate, having timely notice of the emperor's intentions, recalled the doge, who instantly obeyed the summons. Stopping at Rhodes, in his way home to refresh and water the fleet, the inhabitants refused to furnish him with the necessaries 442 GREAT cmtrs OP THE WORLD. lie demanded. Incensed at this denial, he levelled their city with the ground ; and from thence sailing to Chios, he laid waste and destroyed the country, carry- ing off the body of St. Isidore, in those days accounted an inestimable treasure. After this he seized on the islands of Samos, Lesbos, Andros, and all those in the Archipelago belonging to the emperor ; and having reduced ZARA, Spolatra, and Trahu, places in Dalma- tia which had revolted during his absence, he returned in triumph to Venice, where he was received with great The Venetians now became very formidable through- out all Europe. The Sicilians, Paduans, with the states of Verona and Ferrara, felt the weight of their power ; and in 1173 they ventured to oppose Frederic Barba- rossa, emperor of Germany. The occasion of this quar- rel was, that pope Alexander had taken shelter in Venice to avoid the resentment of Barbarossa, who had conceived an implacable aversion against him, and threatened destruction to their city if they did not give him up. On this terrible menace, it was agreed to equip a fleet and repel the attacks of such a formidable and haughty enemy. But before the armament could be prepared, Otho, the emperor's son, arrived before the city with a fleet of 75 galleys. The doge Sebas- tiano Ziani sailed out with the few vessels he had got equipped, to give the enemy battle. The fleets met off the coast of Istria, and a terrible engagement ensued, in which the imperial fleet was totally defeated, Otho himself taken prisoner, and 48 of his ships destroyed. On the doge's return, the pope went out to meet him, and presented linn with M ilng, saying, VENICE. 443 " Take this, Ziani, and give it to the sea, as a testi- mony of your dominion over it. Let your successors annually perform the same ceremony, that posterity may know that your valour has purchased this prero- gative, and subjected this element to you, even as a husband subjccteth his wife." Otho was treated with the respect due to his rank; and soon conceived a great friendship for Ziani. At last, being permitted to visit the imperial court on his parole, he not only pre- vailed on his father to make peace with the Venetians, but even to visit their city, so famed for its commerce and naval power. He was received with all possible respect, and on his departure attended to Ancona by the doge, the senate, and the whole body of the nobility. During this journey he was reconciled to the pope ; and both agreed to pay the highest honours to jge and republic. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Yene- . now become exceedingly powerful and opulent, by the commerce which they carried on with the rich- countries of the world, were invited by young Alexis, son to the emperor of Constantinople, to his father's assistance, who had been deposed by a rebellious faction*. In conjunction with the French, they undertook to restore him ; and easily succeeded. But the old emperor dying soon after, his son was elected in his room, and a few days after murdered by liis subjects; on which the empire was seized by Myr- tillus, a man of moan birth, who had been raised by the favour of old Alexis. As the allied army of French and Venetians was encamped without the city, Myr- tillus resolved immediately to drive them out of his 444 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. dominions, and for this purpose attempted to surprise their camp ; but being repulsed, he shut himself up in the city, with a resolution to stand a siege. The allies assaulted it with so much vigour, that the usurper was obliged to fly ; and though the citizens held out after his departure, they were obliged in less than three months to capitulate. This proved a source of greater acquisition to Venice than all that yet happened. All the chief offices of the city were filled up with Venetians, in recompense for their services ; the allies entered Thrace, and subdued it ; Candia and all the Greek islands also fell under the dominion of the republic. In the mean time the Genoese, by their successful application to commerce, having raised them- selves in such a manner as to be capable of rivalling the Venetians, a long series of wars took place between the republics ; in which the Venetians generally had the advantage, though sometimes they met with terri- ble overthrows. These expensive and bloody quarrels undoubtedly weakened the republic, notwithstanding its successes. In 1348, however, the Genoese were obliged to implore the protection of Visconti, duke of Milan, to support them against their implacable ene- mies, the Venetians. Soon after this, in 1352, the latter were utterly defeated, with such loss, that it was thought the city itself must have fallen into the hands of the Genoese, had they known how to improve their victory. This was in a short time followed by a peace ; but from this time the power of the republic began to decline. Continual wars with the states of Italy, with the Hungarians, and their own rebellious subjects, kept the Venetians employed so that they had no VENICE. 445 leisure to oppose the Turks, -whose rapid advances ought to have alarmed all Europe. After the destruc- tion of the eastern empire, the Turks came more imme- diately to interfere with the republic. Whatever valour might be shown by the Venetians, or whatever successes they might boast of, it is certain that the Turks ulti- mately prevailed; so that for some time it seemed scarce possible to resist them. What contributed also greatly to the decline of the republic was the discovery of a pas- sage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, in 1497. To this time the greatest part of the East India goods imported into Europe passed through the hands of the Venetians ; but as soon as the above-mentioned dis- covery took place, the carriage by the way of Alexan- dria almost entirely ceased. Still, however, the Vene- tian power was strong; and in the beginning of the 16th century they maintained a war against almost the whole power of France, Germany, and Italy ; but soon after we find them entering into an alliance with some Italian states and Henry IV. of France, against the emperor. These wars, however, produced no conse- quences of any great moment ; and in 1573 tranquillity was restored by the conclusion of a peace with the Turks. Nothing of consequence happened in the af- fairs of the Venetian republic till 1643, when the Turks made a sudden and unexpected descent on the island of Candia. The senate of Venice did not display their usual vigilance on this occasion. They had seen the immense warlike preparations going forward, and yet allowed themselves to be amused by the grand signior's declaring war against Malta, and pretending that the armament was intended against that island. The troops 38 446 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. landed without opposition ; and the town of CAXIU was taken, after an obstinate defence. This news being brought to Venice, excited a universal indignation against the Turks ; and the senate resolved to defend to the utmost this valuable part of the empire. Extra- ordinary ways and means of raising money were fallen upon : among others, it was proposed to sell the rank of nobility. Four citizens offered 10(),000 ducats each for this honour ; and, notwithstanding some opposition, this measure was at last carried. Eighty families were admitted into the grand council, and to the hon- our and priveleges of the nobility. The siege of CANDIA, the capital of the island of that name, is, in some respects, more memorable than that of any town which history has recorded. It lasted 24 years. The amazing efforts made by the republic of Venice asto- nished all Europe ; their courage interested the gallant spirits of every nation : volunteers from every country came to Candia to exercise their valour, to acquire knowledge in the military art, and assist a brave people whom they admired. During this famous siege, the Venetians gained many important victories over the Turkish fleet. Sometimes they were driven from the walls of Candia, and the Turkish garrison - of Canea was even besieged by the Venetian fleets. Great slaughter was made of the Turkish armies ; but new armies were soon found to supply their place. Maho- met IV., impatient at the length of this siege, came to Negropont, that he might have more frequent oppor- tunities of hearing from the vizier, who carried on the siege. This war cost the lives of 200,000 Turks. Candia capitulated in 1668. The conditions were VENICE. 447 honourably fulfilled. Morsini, the Venetian general, marched out of the rubbish of this well disputed city with the honours of war. The expense of such a tedious war greatly exhausted the resources of Venice, which could not now repair them so quickly as formerly, when she enjoyed the rich monopoly of the Asiatic trade. This republic remained in a state of tranquillity, endeavouring, by the arts of peace and cultivation of that commerce which she still retained, to fill her empty exchequer, till she was drawn into a new war, in 1683, by the insolence of the Ottoman court. The Venetians had for some time endeavoured, by negotia- tions and many conciliatory representations, to accom- modate matters with the Turks ; and though the haughty conduct of their enemies afforded small hopes of success, yet such was their aversion to war, that they still balanced, whether to bear those insults or repel them by arms ; when they were brought to decision by an event which gave the greatest joy to Venice, and astonished all Europe. This was the great victory gained over the Turkish army before the walls of Vienna, by Sobieski, king of Poland. In this new war, their late General Morsini again had the command of the fleets and armies of the republic, and sustained the great reputation he had acquired in Candia. He con- quered the Morea, which was ceded formally to Venice, with some other acquisitions, at the peace of Carlowitz, in 1699. During the war of the succession, the state of Venice observed a strict neutrality. They con- sidered that dispute as unconnected with their interests, taking care, however, to keep on foot an army on their frontiers in Italy, of sufficient force to make them 448 GKEAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. respected by the contending powers. But, soon after the peace of Utrecht, the Venetians were agahfattacked by their old enemies, the Turks, who, beholding the great European powers exhausted by their late efforts, and unable to assist the republic, thought this a favour- able moment for recovering the Morea, which had been so lately taken from them. The Turks obtained their object; and at the peace of Passarowitz, which terminated this unsuccessful war, the Venetian state yielded up the Morea ; the grand seignor, on his part, restoring to them the small islands of Cerigo and Ceri- gotto, with some places which his troops had taken during the course of the war in Dalmatia. Those, with the islands of Corfu, Santa Maura, Zante, and Ceph- alonia, now form the republic of the SEVEN ISLANDS. By the treaty of Campo Formio, in 1797, the whole Venetian States were ceded to the emperor Joseph II. and erected into the province of MARITIME AUSTRIA. VERONA alone was annexed to the CISALPINE REPUB- LIC, and hence now makes part of the ITALIAN KING- DOM. VENICE, appears at a distance very striking, looking like a great town half floated by a deluge. Betwixt the city and the Terra Firma are a great many shal- lows, on which at low water you may almost every where touch the bottom with a pole ; but all possible care is taken to prevent their becoming dry land. On the south side of the city are also shallows ; but on these there is a greater depth of water. The chan- nels betwixt them are marked out by stakes or poles, which, on the approach of an enemy would certainly be taken away. The city is divided by a vast number VENICE. 451 of canals, on which ply the gondoliers, or watermen, in their black gondolas or boats. The streets are very clean and neat, but narrow and crooked. There are no carriages, not so much as a chair to be seen in them. Of the canals, that called II candle Maggiore, is by far the largest and longest, and consequently the most beautiful. Here races are sometimes run for prizes in the gondolas. On its banks are also several stately houses. Over these canals are a great number of handsome bridges of one arch, but without any fence on cither side ; they are also built of white stone, with which the streets are all paved, except the Rialto over the great canal, which is all of marble, and cost the republic 250,000 ducats, the arch being 90 feet wide. The finest gondolas are those in w r hich the foreign min- isters make their public entries, being richly decorated with gilding, painting, and sculpture. The number of islands on which the city stands, according to some, is 60 ; according to others, 72. The circumference is about six Italian miles. The inhabitants are supposed to be about 150,000, including those of the islands Murano, Guideca, and those who live on board the barges. The most remarkable places in the city are the ci-devant ducal palace, the square and church of St. Mark, who is the Tutelar saint of Venice; the imr, r , public library, grand arsenal, several of the pulac^ ^ the nobles, churches, convents, and hospitals. In the*w last is a prodigious collection of the finest paint- ings; Venice, in this respect, even surpassing Rome itself. But the finest and best of them were carried off to Paris by Bonaparte, in 1797, to enrich the National Museum, along with the famous Laocoon, &c. 452 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. The diversions of the Venetians are chiefly masque- rading, especially during the carnival and other festi- vals ; ridottos, operas, plays, and concerts. During their festivals, debauchery, riot, and licentiousness, are carried to the greatest height. The square of St. Mark is the greatest ornament of the city, and hath the form of a parallelogram. In this square, besides the church and palace of St. Mark, are two towers, on one side of which is a curious clock ; and the other has stairs so constructed that one may ride up on horseback. Opposite to the ducal palace is the public library of the commonwealth ; containing a large col- lection of books and MSS. with some fine paintings, statues, and curiosities. Hard by St. Mark's square is the ZECCA, or mint. The grand arsenal is two and a half Italian miles in circuif, and contains vast quanti- ties of naval and other warlike stores : here are the trophies of Scanderbeg and others, with the helmet of Attila, &c. The rope walk is 444 common paces in length, and the ropes and cables are valued at 2,000,000 of silver ducats. In the foundery none but brass cannon are cast; and 100 men are generally at work in the forges. The salt-petre works here deserve a traveller's notice: there is a vessel filled with wine and water four times a day, where the workmen, though 1000 or more, may drink as much and as often as they please. Close to the Rialto is the bank. The trade of the city at present is far short of what it was for- merly. Their chief manufactures are cloth ; espe- cially scarlet, silks, gold and silver stuffs, brocades, velvets, and paper of which, and wine, oil, fruit, sweet- meats, anchovies, and several sorts of drugs used in VENICE. 453 >hysic and painting, the exports are still considerable. Venice has neither walls, gates, nor citadel. In the reasury of relics is the protocoli, or original MS. as hey pretend, of St. Mark's gospel : it is rarely shown ; nd the writing by length of time, is so defaced, that be greatest connoisseurs in MSS. cannot determine Aether it was written in Greek or Latin. Besides r hat is properly called the city, there is a multitude of ttle islands lying round, which are covered with build- igs, and make each of them a kind of separate town ; tie most considerable of which is that called Gruideca, r the "Jews' Quarter," which is large and populous; ith St. Erasmo, St. Helena, St. Georgio, Chiosa, 1 Lido de Palestrina, II Lido de Malamocco, and lurano : these islands are a sort of fence to the city, reaking the violence of the waves. To distinguish tiem from others, the Jews here must wear a bit of red loth in their hats. The gardens in this city are few nd inconsiderable. In the island of Murano are lade those beautiful looking-glasses, and other glass- r orks for which Venice is so much noted: here the imily of Cornaro has a palace, with a gallery of aintings, little short of an Italian mile in length, ^he salt-works in the island of Chiosa are of great enefit to the Venetians, and yield a very considerable evenue. There are several other small islands about r enice, but they are inconsiderable. The Venetians are in general tall and well made, ^hey are a lively, ingenious people, extravagantly 3nd of public amusements, with an uncommon relish [>r humour, and yet more attached to the real enjoy- lents of life than to those which depend on ostentation. 38* JOHN 80BIESKI. VIENNA. IENNA, or in German, Wien, is the capital of the Austrian empire, and one of the oldest cities of central Europe. It originated, like many others, from a Roman camp, established to command the Danube. The Romans called the place Vindebina. In the fifth century, Christianity penetrated to the shores of the Danube, and carried civilization with it. In 791, Vienna fell into the hands of Charlemagne, who erected a church, a school, and various other important institutions. In 1141, Henry, margrave of Austria, laid the foundation of the famous church of St. Stephen. Vienna received commercial privileges, and gradually became flourishing. The city is situated upon the southern bank of the Danube, in long. 16 23' E., la"t. 48 12' 36" N. It rose in importance chiefly from the time it became the (454) VIENNA. AUSTRIAN COSTUMES. ssidence of the German emperors, and in every part LOWS the marks of gradual increase. The city proper small ; but the thirty -four suburbs which have been irrouiided by a wall, make the whole capital large, i 1846, Vienna had 8,776 habitations and 429,500 [habitants. Its commerce and manufactures are very iluable, and its palaces, churches, literary and scien- fic institutions are highly renowned. The streets are anerally narrow. There are eight large, and ten nailer public places, of which the principal is Joseph's lace, containing a statue of the Emperor Joseph II. he palaces are numerous, biit with few exceptions, not i good taste. The imperial castle attracts attention lore for its extent and antiquity than by beauty or 39 458 GREAT CITIES OF THE WOULD. symmetry. The church of St. Stephen is a magnificent edifice. Monuments of princes, generals, and bishops, five pictures and thirty-eight altars adorn its interior. Its steeple is one of the loftiest in Europe, being 452 feet high. There are dwelling-houses in Vienna with more than 1,500 inhabitants, and yielding an annual rent of 100,000 florins. The high and low nobility form a great contrast. The Germans are the predomi- nating race. Besides those, there are Greeks, Italians, Poles, Servians, Hungarians, Turks, etc. The Viennese love pleasure more than the people of any other capital in Europe, and the numerous places of amuse- ment are finely sustained. The public gardens are thronged. The opera houses and theatres are well attended. Each person seems to be acting on the advice, " Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you may die." Vienna was besieged by the Turks in 1 6 , and reduced to great straits. But the timely arrival and victory of the heroic John Sobieski, king of Poland, saved the city, and, perhaps, Europe, from the power of the Mahommedans The revolutions of 1848 were severe blows to her prosperity. The emperor arid the court fled. The city was besieged. For three days Prince Windischgratz bombarded and cannon- aded the city. The liberals within the .walls were under the command of Generals "Gem and Messen- hauser. They fought manfully, and did not yield until there was no prospect of a successful defence. When Windischgratz entered Vienna, it was truly a scene of desolation. The insurgents had torn up the pavements, and levelled houses to fortify the streets. VIENNA, 461 PRINCE mXDISCHGRATZ. Many houses had been destroyed by the bombs and cannon balls, and others were shattered. Ruin ap- peared on every side. The killed were lying unburied. The wounded were suffering for want of attendance. Yet the imperial commander suffered the worst portion of his army to roam through the city, and appropriate all the valuables they could find. This was Vienna's time of woe, misery, and ruin. The best and bravest of her citizens were condemned to death with horrid mockeries of judicial forms ; and the lash and dungeon were the punishments of many whose only crimes were patriotism, and the love of civil liberty. This was the time of desolation for Vienna. PETER THE GREAT. ST. PETERSBURG!!. T. PETERSBURG, the capital of the Russian empire, is situated at the mouth of the Neva, at the eastern extremity of the Gulf of Finland, about 1400 miles N. E. of Paris and London. The population now amounts to about 485,000. The city sur- passes every other in Europe in beauty and magnificence. The stranger wanders with adiulration through the broad, regular streets, surrounded with the most mag- nificent palaces, churches with gilded towers, and other massive and colossal edifices ; his eyes every where rests on masterpieces of architecture. On entering the imperial gardens on the T^evn, trie majestic stream (462) 8T. PETERSBURG^. '465 CATHAEINB IL presents a fine prospect with its ships, boats, and bridges. On both banks are rich palaces, churches, and towers glittering with gold, charming islands, and beautiful gardens. Each side of the river is lined with a broad quay for the distance of nearly three miles. The excellent water of the Neva supplies the want of springs. The czar Peter the Great laid the foundations of the city during the northern war (1703,) when he constructed a fort on an- island in the Neva, for its defence against the Swedes. To superintend the ^vvork in person, Peter built a small wooden hut opposite it, which is still standing, and is now surrounded with a stone building to preserve it. Public and private buildings were soon erected, and the nobles and rich merchants of Moscow, Novogorod, &c., were induced to 466 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. settle there, so that in a short time, the place assumed the appearance of a considerable city, which, during the succeeding reigns, particularly in those of Catha- rine II. and Alexander, reached an almost unexampled degree of magnificence. The environs are level and low, in many places consisting of morasses : they there- fore suffer from inundations, which sometimes occasion great ravages ; in 1824, 15,000 persons perished by an inundation, which destroyed many villages, and caused great damage to the shipping. Petersburgh is an open city, without walls, and only in some places surrounded with a ditch. Among the inhabitants there are a great number of foreigners, particularly Germans, who have intermixed much with the Russians, and fill many civil and military posts. The. Neva divides the city into two parts, of which the southern or continental part is the largest and most populous : the northern part is again divided by a branch of the Neva. The city is divided into nine quarters the three admiralty quar- ters, the foundery, the Moscow, the Jsemskoy, the Vasili-Ostrov, the Petersburg, and the Wiburg quar- ters. Each quarter is subdivided into districts, and these into inferior sections, at the head of each of which is a police officer, usually a retired major. The whole organization of the police is military ; and the military judges are too often entirely ignorant of the laws. When they find themselves embarrassed by the contradictory provisions of different ukases, they cut the knot, and, if the parties show any dissatis- faction with the decision, it is sealed by a blow or a kick. These inferior officers of police are subordinate to the police court in the centre of the city, the pro- ST. PETERSBURG!!. 467 siding officer of which is a general. In the admiralty quarter, which is~ the finest part of the city, is the impe- rial winter palace, on the banks of the Neva, the inte- rior of which is adorned with statues and mythological figures. Catharine added to it a smaller palace, called the Hermitage. This building contains a rich collection of works of art, among which are a large number of ori- ginal paintings of the^great masters; and attached to it is a garden, in which, as in the garden of Calypso, reigns a perpetual spring. Some hundred paces distant, in the splendid street called the Great Million, is the MarblePalace, of colossal dimensions, which is built on a granite basement, and was given by Catharine to her favourite, count Orloff. On the other side of the admi- ralty, which, towards the land side is enclosed by a ditch and wall, is a walk planted with beautiful lime trees, and some of the finest buildings of the city, particularly Isaac's church, built entirely of marble (1766 1812,) at an expense of 26,500,000 roubles, and which has, since its completion, been continually receiving addi- tional embellishments. Not far off is seen the palace of the prince Labanoff, a gigantic work, even for Petersburg, and built at an enormous expense. Farther down, near the Neva, is the equestrian statue of Peter the Great, cast by Falconet. It stands in a spacious square, on an immense block of granite, about the size of a small house, and weighing above 800 tons. In Komanzoff place is a marble obelisk, erected by Catha- rine, in honor of Romanzoff's victories, and, in Suwar- roff place, a bronze statue of Suwarroff. Among the numerous remarkable edifices and insti- tutions, we shall mention the academy of sciences, to 468 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. EQUESTRIAN STATUE 07 PETEE THE QEEAT. which belongs a very valuable library, a cabinet of natural science, and an observatory ; the new exchange, finished in 1816, a splendid building, surrounded by a colonnade of 44 pillars ; the house of the first corps of cadets, occupied by nearly 4000 men, and embracing a circuit of above a mile ; the spacious building of the academy of fine arts, which, besides accommoda- tions for 300 400 pupils, who are maintained and educated at the expense of the crown, contains every thing suitable for such an establishment ; the second or naval, mining, artillery, and engineer cadet corps ; the university (instituted in 1819) with its collections, and above 50 public institutions for education, supported at the expense of the state. These institutions lie- in the Vasili-Ostrov (Basil's island,) to which there is ST. PETERSBURG. 469 access from the continent by a bridge of boats. There are also similar institutions in other quarters of the city, particularly the great imperial gymnasium, and numerous benevolent establishments, such as military and other hospitals, the insane hospital, the institutions for the blind, and for the deaf and dumb, various medi- cal and surgical establishments, the great foundling hospital, in which about 5000 children are nursed and educated, and in which the mother is permitted to lie-in without charges, and then to leave or take away her child, whether legitimate or not, without being ques- tioned as to her name and station. With this is con- nected the great pawn-house, in which loans are made, even on real property. In all the institutions for instruction (as is also the case with the high schools throughout the empire,) Russian, German, and French, and, in many, English, are taught : Latin and Greek are also publicly taught ; and the young Russian shows a decided taste for dancing, music, and painting. There are eleven public libraries : the most important is the imperial, contain- ing 300,000 volumes and 12,000 manuscripts. Among the palaces should be mentioned the splendid Michailoff palace, built by Paul, near the summer- garden, at an expense of 10,000,000 roubles ; the Taurian palace, with its admirable gardens, built and occupied by Potemkin, and much enlarged and embel- lished by Catharine during his absence. The roofs of all the palaces, and most of the houses, are covered with thin iron plates, varnished black or green. The summer residences also deserve to be seen on account of their natural and artificial beauties. 40 470 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. RUSSIAN COSTUMES. Petersburg contains 115 churches for the established worship, and 8-3 for other rites. The most splendid are Isaac's church, and that of our Lady of Kazan : the latter is of great dimensions : the nave and cupola are supported by 56 granite columns, with bronze capitals: the pavement is of different kinds of marble, the steps to the choir of porphyry, with a silver balus- trade. Among the towers, the most remarkable are that of the admiralty, and that of the fortress, of a pyramidal form, and more than hdf covered with plates of pure gold. Public worship is pert' rii:e;' a much more extened commerce ; yet the central situation of Paris, the peculiar attractions ren- dering it the crowded resort of strangers, and its bril- liant und polished society, especially under the old monarchy, gave to this city a gayer aspect, and ren- dered it a more conspicuous object in the eyes of Europe. Paris is not only less populous than London, but in proportion to its population it covers less ground- It forms on both banks of the Seine an ellipse of about four miles in length and three in breadth. The principal streets are long, narrow,bordered by high houses which, like those of Edinburgh, are each occupied by several families. The streets of shops are further encumbered by the exhibition of the merchandize in front of the (480) 481 doors, a practice only tolerated in the most obscure districts of British cities. Paris thus presents generally a more gloomy and confused aspect than London ; nor has it any structure which can match the grandeur of St. Paul's, or perhaps the beauty of Westminster Abbey ; yet some of its quarters contain long ranges of superb and stately edifices, which London cannot rival. The palaces of Paris in particular, far excel those of the rival metropolis. The most distinguished is the Louvre, finished with the utmost splendour in the style that distinguished the age of Louis XIV. Its front, 525 feet long, is a model of symmetry, the effect of which is only injured by the want of space before it. The Louvre is not now occupied as a palace, but as a grand depot of the objects of taste and art. The gallery, which is more than a quarter of a mile long, and the walls of which are entirely crowded with paint- ings that are still fine, forms a magnificent coup d'mL The hall of statues is still adorned with some of the finest specimens of ancient sculpture. The Tuileries, which is the present royal residence, was begun at an earlier period than the Louvre, and carried on at suc- cessive times ; whence it exhibits varied and sometimes discordant features, but is on the whole a noble and venerable edifice, surrounded with fine gardens and ave- nues. The palace of the Luxembourg, on the south of Paris, and the Palais Bourbon on the west, are edifices of great taste and beauty. The former, now stripped of the famous series of paintings by Rubens, which has been transferred to the Louvre gallery, affords in one part a place of assembly for the Chamber of Peers, and in another apartments for the exhibition of paintings 41 482 GREAT CITIES Otf THE WOfcLft. by living artists ; while tlie Palais Bourbon is in part occupied by the Chamber of Deputies. The Palais Royal is no longer exclusively a palace, but is in part leased out to sundry persons, for purposes partly of business, but much more of pleasure: it is filled with .viops, coffee-houses, taverns, gaming-tables, and every form of gaiety and dissipation which can find acceptance in such a city. Notre Dame, the ancient cathedral of Paris, is somewhat heavy and massive, but the interior is richly decorated. The modern church of St. Ge'ne'- vieve, called during the Revolution, the Pantheon, was highly extolled during its erection, as destined to eclipse both St. Peter's and St. Paul's ; and such was the expectation entertained in France, till, the scaffold- ing being removed and the front thrown open, its infe^ riority became apparent: however, it is still an edifice of a high class. The Madeleine is one of the finest churches in the world. It is of white marble and of Grecian architecture. Paris has no fine streets, nor any of those ample squares which are so great an ornament of London. It boasts, however, of its places, which, without having the regular form or dimensions of a square, command admiration by the ranges of noble buildings that surround them. In particular, the Place Louis Quinze, standing in a central situation among the palaces, presents one of the most brilliant points of view to be found in the city, The capital possesses great advantages in the wide, ornamented spaces, which lie in the very heart of the city. The Boulevards, the ancient rampart of Paris, when it was circumscribed within a much narrower compass, are now converted into a walk adorrcod with PARIS. 485 rows of trees, and filled with numerous exhibitors and venders of every thing that can conduce to public amusement. The gardens of the Tuileries and the embellished spot called the Champs Etysees, are also opeh to the public. Perhaps the most terrible days which Paris has ever passed through were those of the insurrection in June, 1848. The struggle between the government and the socialists lasted four entire days. Over one hundred thousand insurgents maintained the strife against about double the number of troops. Nearly every part of the city was barricaded. The pavements were torn up and houses pulled down to supply the materials for building the rude fortifications. General Cavaignac was made dictator by the assembly, and skilfully ordered every thing upon the government side. The workingmen fought bravely and well, repulsing many of the assaults made by the troops. Even women and children took post behind the barricades. Upon the banners of the insurgents was inscribed their want "Bread!" The skill and determination of Cavaignac prevailed. By the evening of Monday, the 21st of June, every barricade was carried by the troops, and the insurgents gave up the fight. Order was restored ; but Paris was one great scene of ruin and desolation. The exact number of the slain in this awful conflict cannot be ascertained. It is estimated at 20.000. The soldiers suffered most. A large number of the insur- gents were made prisoners. Some of the leaders were transported, and others imprisoned. GREAT FlfcE OF LONDON. LONDON. 'T is the British boast, that London is now the metropolis of the world; and, at least, as the capital of Great Britain, and as possessing over two millions of inhabitants, magnificent edi- fices and extensive trade, the city is entitled to the foremost rank. London retains in its name an evi- dence of its Gothic origin. Its founders were -the Trinobantes, by whose name geographers have distinguished it from the more ancient capital of Scania, still designated, in the works printed at its university, Londinum Gotho- rum. So early as the reign of Nero, London had (486) LONDON. 489 become a place of considerable traffic, as appears from Tacitus, the earliest of the Roman historians who men- tion it by name. The Romans fortified it with a wall, and made it one of their principal stations. At the beginning of the third century, in the reign of the emperor Severus, it is represented as a great and wealthy city, and considered to be the metropolis of Britain. Such was the extent of its commerce, that we are told, by the historian Zosimus, that, in the year 359, 800 vessels belonging to this place were employed in the exportation of grain. In the end of the sixth century, it became the capital of the East Saxons, whose king, Sebert, is generally reputed the founder of the cathedral church dedicated to Saint Paul, and of the abbey and abbey church of Westminster. After the union of the seven kingdoms, Egbert, in 833, held here his first wittenag emote, or council: but London \vas not constituted the capital of England, until its recovery from the Danes by Alfred, who laid the foundation of its present municipal government. William of Normandy, whose interest it was to con- ciliate the citizens, though he built the fortress called the Tower, to keep them in awe, confirmed the privi- leges and immunities which they had enjoyed under his patron Edward the Confessor; subsequent sovereigns augmented and extended them by various charters, one of which, granted by King John, authorized " the barons" of London to choose a mayor annually, or continue the same person in that office from year to year at their pleasure. The city attained to great splendour under Edward III., who held frequent tournays in Smithfield and 490 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. other places ; and its architecture at that period ex- hibited every variety of the richest style of Gothic, both in public and private edifices. The cathedral of St. Paul held the pre-eminence ; and its spire is said to have been five hundred and twenty feet high. The streets were mostly narrow, and the higher stories of the houses projected over the lower. There were no glass windows ; and on the ground floors the wares of tradesmen were openly displayed. Notwithstanding several visitations of fire and pesti- lence, London continued to increase, especially after the accession of the Tudors, when .the overthrow of feudal vassalage, and the more frequent resort to the capital, caused an augmentation so rapid as to alarm the government. The dissolution of monasteries, of which London contained so large a proportion, accele- rated this increase, while it gave an impulse to industry and commerce. In the reign of Elizabeth, the influx of strangers driven from the Netherlands, by the per- secutions of the Duke of Alva, heightened the alarm, and the queen was even induced to issue the absurd and futile decree that no more dwelling-houses should be built ; a prohibition which does not seem for a moment to have retarded the growth of the city. Her public spirit was more sensibly manifested after Sir Thomas Gresham had erected a bourse for the merchants, which she visited in great state, and caused to be proclaimed " The Royal Exchange." In this reign the luxury of coaches was introduced from Holland, by William Boones, a Dutchman, who was appointed coachman to the queen. It was an epoch alike intellectual and prosperous, adorned with the names of Bacon, Cecil, LONDON. 491 and Walsingham ; of Raleigh and Drake; of Shaks- peare, Spenser, and Jonson. Some of these great men also illustrated the pacific reign of James I., scarcely disturbed except by one singular event ; the discovery of a conspiracy of fanatic Jesuits and papists, to blow up the king and both houses of Parliament. In 1636, the refinements of Paris and Madrid were emulated in London by the introduction of hackney coaches and fedan chairs. During the civil wars, the capital parti- cipated in the troubles that afflicted the country, and also in the advantages, accruing from the famous navi- gation act passed in 1651, during the interregnum. The citizens, secretly alienated from Cromwell and his council by the execution of the king, hailed with enthu- siasm the restoration of Charles II., and adopted with indiscriminate eagerness the change of manners intro- duced by his court and followers from France. The reign of Charles II. includes the most memorable epoch in the history of London. In 1665, a plague swept away 100,000 persons. In September, 1666, broke out that great and awful fire which destroyed 400 streets, 13,000 houses, 89 churches, including the vene- rable cathedral of St. Paul, the Guildhall, the Herald's College, the Royal Exchange, and many other struc- tures. For the rebuilding of the city an admirable plan was presented by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect ; but the regard due to private property, and the difficulty of reconciling conflicting interests, allowed it to be but very partially adopted. He rebuilt the cathedral of St. Paul and most of the parish churches in the Grecian style, and the front of Guildhall in the original Gothic, of Portland stone. Instead of wood 492 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. and plaster, the chief materials of the former city, the new dwelling-houses and the halls of the city companies were built of brick, in the substantial though heavy style then in vogue ; with greater regard to conveni- ence than to external display : ornament, however, of a certain kind was not wanting. In the streets occu- pied by traders, gaudy signs with various devices, in iron and gilded brasswork, hung over every door, or projected from every house ; the simple distinction of numbering not having been adopted or perhaps thought of. There were no flagged footpaths ; the streets were ill-paved ; and as there was no system of drainage by sewers, and no distribution of pure water by pipes, they were in some places far from endurable. The city, however, had gained greatly by the change, though with the sacrifice of many interesting memorials of its ancient state, and of its most glorious times. In 1687, the revocation of the edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. gave to London its colony of silk weavers. The revolution of 1688 was effected without the slightest public commotion in London, except that which ensued, on the sudden return of James II. to Whitehall, previ- ously to his final departure from the kingdom. The first years of the reign of William and Mary were signalized by the establishment of the Bank of England, the insti- tution of the funding system, and the introduction of those changes in the operations of commerce by which it was necessarily accompanied. London, though not the most splendid, is the clean- est, the healthiest, and most commodious metropolis in the world. It is well built, well paved, well-lighted, and abundantly supplied with water for the all-import- LONDON. 49J ant object of preventing conflagration, who visit it for the first time soon discover that utility,/ not ornament, is the main characteristic of the town, and that business, not amusement, occupies the minds of its inhabitants. The main streets are spacious ; and all the streets have the advantage of flagged foot-pave- ments on each side. The houses are of brick; and though in the most populous streets discoloured by smoke, have by no means a gloomy appearance. Having been built at various periods, and chiefly on the site of old streets or along the lines of roads, the metropolis can lay no claim to regularity of plan ; some parts are regular, others irregular : but it is for that reason more agreeable than if it had been a parallelogram of streets intersecting each other at right angles, than which nothing can be more wearisome to the eye, especially if, as in the new town of Edinburgh, the walls be built, and the streets paved, with stone of the same grey colour, producing an effect which may truly be called dismal. The charm of London, as a great city, is its variety. Those who dislike the high-piled and narrow streets of the city, shady in summer, and sheltered from cold winds in winter, may delight in the spacious streets and squares of the west end of the town : those who desire to contemplate what Dr. Johnson called "the full tide of human existence," may visit Cheaj,- side, Fleet Street, or the Strand; Pall Mall, and St. James' Street, by some fortunate peculiarity of posi- tion, not easily defined, look light and cheerful in the heaviest weather ; Bond Street is still the resort of gaiety and fashion ; and Regent Street, for architect- ural effect, is the grandest street in Europe. Great 42 494 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. improvements have been made on the north side of the Strand from Charing Cross to Burleigh Street, by taking down an immense mass of small and old houses, partly in narrow streets and courts, and erecting others of large dimensions, and forming wide and handsome streets. Here also has been erected the elegant and commodious structure of Hungerford Market. Another improvement is that of opening a line northward from Bridge Street, Blackfriars, through the site of Fleet Market and across Clerkenwell, to Islington : a parallel line extends from Waterloo Bridge across the Strand, past the portico of Covent Garden Theatre, and into the northern district of the metropolis. London is the chief literary emporium of the king- dom, and the centre of intelligence in relation to affairs at home and abroad. The number of books and news- papers annually published is astonishing. Of the great names that have adorned the scii'Si-e and literature of England the world has heard. Most of them resided in London. No land has produced men, superior in scientific pursuits to Bacon, Newton, Locke, Boyle, and Harvey. The stimulus and the knowledge they have given to the human mind can never be too highly esti- mated. To Bacon belongs the glory of that scientific method of reasoning which has led to so many grand discoveries. Around the head of Newton is twined u wreath of stars whose light can never dim. The ; ' Prii;- cipia" taught men the nature of the nsiglity system of which they form a part. Locke was the first to give a clear view of the operations, weaknesses, arid capaci- ties of the understanding of man. Boyle comunicated an immense amount of information in regard to natural LONDON. 495 history. Harvey first disclosed the fact of the circu- lation of the blood, upon "which much of the modern system of medicine is founded. In regard to litera- ture, London can boast of as bright a galaxy of names as any city of ancient or modern thru\s. Wil- liam Shakspeare, the "myriad minded/' pt;si;da, per- haps, unequalled as a dramatic poet. J; iison, Dekker, Webster, Marlowe, and others of thy same period were admirable dramatists. Con^rcve, Sheridan, Farquhar, Vanbrugh, Goldsmith, Ixiiowles, and Bourcicalt, are renowned in the uimals of the same art. Chaucer, Spenser, Mllion, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Coleridge, and others wrote poetry that will live with the lan- guage. Addison, Johnson, Bunyan, Goldsmith, and a throng of other prose writers deserve immortal remem- brance. In the great age of George III. oratory was cultivated with a success almost unrivalled. Fox, Pitt, Burke, and Sheridan were its chief masters. 71 QUEBEC. UEBEC,.the capital of Lower Canada, is one of the strongest cities in Ame- rica, and one of the most famous for its historical associations. It was founded by the French in 1608. In 1759, the gallant English general, Wolfe, surmounted the heights of Abraham, and defeated Montcalm, the brave defender of Quebec. Both commanders lost their lives. The city fell into the hands of the English. The French under M. de St. Levi made an attempt to retake it, but failed. At the ensuing peace, Quebec was ceded with the rest of Canada to the English. (1763.) In 1775 the patriots of the United Colonies, under the command of Montgomery and Arnold made an attempt upon Quebec, but were re- pulsed. The brave Montgomery fell. The American loss was about 700 men. The city has ever since remained in the hands of its first conquerors. Quebec is situated on a promontory on the side of the St. Lawrence, 180 miles below Montreal, nearly 400 miles from the sea, 700 west by north from Hali- fax, and 740 from Washington. The population of the city and suburbs is stated at about 50,000. By far the greater part of the inhabi- tants are Roman Catholics, and the French language (496) QUEBEC. 499 is most in use. The promontory on which Quebec is built is formed by the St. Lawrence and St. Charles, and is the termination of a ridge of land, generally from one to two miles wide, w T hich runs from east to west. On the north it has the bold promontory of Cape Diamond, rising almost perpendicularly 345 feet above the water ; and across it at the north-east, or lower end, the city is built. The fortifications extending across the peninsula, shut in the ground on which the city stands, the circuit of which is about two and a half miles. It is divided into two parts, upper and lower. Upper Quebec is situated on the side of Cape Diamond, which slopes to the north, towards the river St. Charles. It is separated from the lower town by a line of steep rocks, which run from the cape towards the west. The lower town is situated immediately under Cape Dia- mond, on ground considerably raised, to prevent its being overflowed, as formerly at flood tide. The streets run from the upper side of Cape Diamond down to the St. Charles, a distance of about half a mile. They are of considerable breadth, and the houses are large and commodious. The houses next the river have very extensive warehouses attached to them, and vessels come close to the wharves to discharge their cargoes. The communication from the lower to the upper town is by a winding street, at the top of which is a fortified gate. "Quebec," says Professor Silliman, "for an American city, is certainly a very peculiar town : a military town most compactly and permanently built stone its sole material environed, as to its most import- ant parts, by walls and gates and defended by numer- ous heavy cannon garrisoned by troops, having the 500 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. arms, the costume, the music, the discipline of Europe foreign in language, features and origin, from most of those whom they are sent to defend founded upon a rock, and in its higher parts overlooking a great extent of country between three and four hundred miles from the ocean in the midst of a great continent, and yet displaying fleets of foreign merchantmen, in its fine, capacious- bay, and showing all the bustle of a crowded seaport its streets narrow, populous, and winding up and down almost mountainous declivities situated in the latitude of the finest parts of Europe exhibiting in its environs the beauty of a European capital, and yet, in winter, smarting with the cold of Siberia governed by people of different language and habits from the mass of the population opposed in religion, and yet leaving that population without taxes, and in the full enjoyment of every privilege, civil and religious. Such are some of the important features which strike a stranger in the city of Quebec." The upper town is the seat of government: and the principal residence of the military. Great improvements have recently been made in the style of buildings, and many of the private dwellings, and several of the public buildings are spa- cious and elegant. There is a French seminary or college, containing usually more than 200 pupils ; but much less attention is paid to education than in the principal cities of the United States. Quebec is better fortified than any other town in America. Its strength has been greatly increased within a few years. It is so well defended at all points, as to render it abundantly adequate to repel any force that could approach it. NEW YORK. HE city of New York is the metropolis of America. In wealth, commerce and popu- lation it is far beyond every other city upon the continent. It is situated on Manhattan Island, at the confluence of Hudson or North river with a strait called East river, which connects Long Island sound with the harbour of New York. The mouth of the Hudson river was discovered by Henry Hudson, an English navigator, in September, 1609. In 1612, the ..Dutch erected a fort on Manhat- tan island, and began a settlement, which they named New Amsterdam. In 1614, an English expedition under Captain Argal, took possession of the Dutch fort ; but the English government afterwards agreed to let it remain in the hands of the Dutch for 50 years. In 1629, the Dutch enlarged their fort and settle- ment, and appointed Wouter Van Twiller governor, and he held the office for 9 years. In 1647, Governor Stuyvesant arrived. He held the office until 1664, when the English took possesion of the town, and named it New York. The Dutch retook the city in July 1673, but surren- (501) 502 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. dered it to the English in the next year. All the inhabitants were then required to take the oath of allegiance to the English government. In 1686, James II. abolished the representative system at New York, and forbade the use of printing presses. In 1711, a slave-market was established in Wall street, near the East river, and in the next year there was an insurrec- tion of the negroes, who fired the city in several places, and killed some of the inhabitants. Nineteen of them were executed. In 1741 occurred the famous "negro plot," when the city contained 12,000 inhabitants, one- sixth of whom were slaves. A plot no doubt existed, but the account of it was greatly exaggerated and the fears of the inhabitants excited by repeated fires and robberies. Some Irish Catholics were implicated with the negroes. One hundred and fifty negroes and twenty white persons were committed to prison ; of whom 55 were convicted and 78 confessed. Thirteen negroes were burned tit the stake, at the present intersection of Pearl arid Chatham streets ; 20 were hung, one in chains : 78 were transported and 50 discharged. This was a period of fearful excitement. At the time of the passage of the Stamp Act and other oppressive measures by the British parliament, the people of New York displayed their attachment to liberty by the burn- ing of effigies. On the 26th of August, 1776, after the disastrous battle of Long Island, the city fell into the hands of the British ; and on the 21st of September, in the same year, a great fire consumed 490 houses, nearly one-eighth of the city. New York was not long in recovering from this desolating calamity. The inhab- itants were enterprising, and their wealth and industry NEW YORK. 503 soon rebuilt the burned district. The city remained in the hands of the British until the close of the war of independence. On the 25th of November, 1783, the enemy evacuated New York, and Gen. Washington and his army soon after entered it. A large number of tories accompanied the British in their retreat. In 1785, the first Congress of the United States, after the war, was organised in the City Hall at the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, and in April four years afterwards, Washington was inaugurated President of the United States, in this city. New York rapidly in- creased in size, wealth, population, and commerce, and took rank as the most important city of America. The cholera, in 1832 and the great fire in 1835 could not deck the metropolis in its onward career. The fire i Cv'nrred on the night of the 16th of December, 1835, and swept over between 30 and forty acres of the most valuable part of the city, covered with stores and filled with merchandize. The number of buildings burned was 648, and the amount of property destroyed was estimated at 18,000,000. But the burnt district was immediately rebuilt, with additional convenience and beauty. Since that event, New York has rapidly in- creased in wealth and population. According to the cen- sus of 1850, the city contains 510,000 inhabitants. But Brooklyn on Long Island, Williamsburg on the East River, Jersey City and New Brighton on Staten Island, and other important towns should be considered as parts of New York their business being interwoven with that of the main city, and their residents for the most part being connected with or dependent upon the same great commerce which has peopled this quarter. 504 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. With these suburbs, New York has about 700,000 inhabitants. The compact part of the city is situated on the S. end of New York, or Manhattan Island. The chartered limits embrace the whole island, which is of the same extent with the county. The island extends from the Battery, on the S. point of the island, 13J m. to Kings- bridge, in its N. part ; and has an average breadth of 1 m. and three-fifths. The greatest breadth is on the line of 88th street, where its breadth is about 2J m. and it contains about 14,000 acres. It is bounded on the N. by Harlem river ; on the E. by East river or strait, which separates it from Long Island ; on the S. by the harbour ; and on the W. by Hudson river, which separates it from New Jersey. It is con- nected with the main land on the north by three bridges, Harlem bridge, Macomb's bridge, and King's bridge. It is connected with Long Island by seven fer-. ries, four of which proceed to Brooklyn, and three to Williamsburg. Thus the insular situation of New York proves no serious disadvantage. The ferries to Brook- lyn are by far the most, important, as many persons who do business in New York reside in that city. The harbour is spacious and safe, the inner harbour extending 8 m. from the Narrows to the city, and several miles farther up both the North and East rivers, but particularly the latter. It is about 25 m. in cir- cumference, and the largest vessels come to its wharves. Besides this, it has an outer harbour, extending from the Narrows to Sandy Hook, consisting of Raritan bay. Sandy Hook, on which is a light house, is 18 m. from the city; and at this point, there are 27 feet of water NEW TORE. 505 on the bar at high tide, and 21 feet at low tide. Within Sandy Hook there is a good anchorage. The harbour is entered not only from the ocean at Sandy Hook and through the Narrows, but on the N. E. from Long Island sound, and on the S. W. through the Kills and Staten Island sound. By an accurate enumeration made March 16th, 1844, there were found to be 1011 vessels in the harbour of New York, viz., 121 ships, 43 barques, 101 brigs, two galliots, 208 schooners, and 536 ordinary sloops and schooners, all of which are licensed at the custom house, lying at a total extent of about 7 m. of wharves. To these should be added, when the Hudson river opens, about 90 steamboats, 90 tow boats of from 100 to 400 tons burden, and 200 canal boats. Several islands within the inner harbour are attached to the city, which are Governor's, Bedlow's, and Ellis's islands, on all of which are strong fortifications ; and BlackwelFs, Great Barn, and Randall's islands, in the East river. The excellence of its harbour, and other great natural advantages, have contributed to make New York the second commercial city on the globe. The surface of the island was originally uneven and rough, as is now the case in the northern parts, with occasional low valleys and marshy swamps ; but the hills in the southern part of the island have been levelled, and the swamps and marshes filled up. Many creeks and inlets on the margins of the rivers have also disappeared, and the large ledge of rocks which occu- pied the site of the Battery, has long since been buried beneath the made ground which constitutes that beau- tiful promenade. The streets were originally laid out according to the 43 506 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. make of the ground, and some of them were crooked ; and in imitation of European cities, many of them were narrow. But in later times they have been widened and improved at a great expense. As instances of this among others, John street and West Broadway may be particularly mentioned as well as many others. In latter times care has been taken to lay out the streets straight, and of an ample width. This is particularly true of all the N. part of the city, which was laid out under the direction of Governeur Morris, De Witt Clinton, and others, commissioners appointed by the legislature for this purpose, and surveyed by Mr. John Randall, Jr., completed in 1821, after having occupied ten years. No city can exhibit a more beau- tiful plan than this portion of the city of New York, which extends to 154th street, about ten miles N. of the Battery. Broadway extends from the Battery 3 m. to Union- square, where it joins the fourth-avenue. It is 80 feet wide, perfectly straight, occupies the height of land between the two rivers, and has generally, particularly in its S. part, an excellent drainage. It is well built, with many fine houses, and large retail stores. It is the great promenade of the city, and much resorted to in pleasant weather by the gay and fashionable. Pearl- street, between Broadway and the East river, is in a crescent form, over a mile long, and is the principal seat of the wholesale dry goods and hardware business, which has also extended into Cedar, Pine, and other adjacent streets. Water and Front streets, between Pearl-street, and the East river, is occupied chiefly by wholesale grocers, commission merchants, and mecha- NEW YORK. 507 nics connected with the shipping business. South- street, extending along the margin of East river, contains the warehouses and offices of the principal shipping merchants. In front of it is, at all times, a dense forest of masts. Wall-street extends from Broad- way to the East river, and is occupied by banks, insu- rance offices, newspaper and brokers' offices, has Trinity church at its head, the Custom-house and Merchant's Exchange, and many fine granite buildings, which has caused it to be denominated the granite street ; and is the centre of the heaviest money transactions in the United States. The Bowery is a wide and extensive street E. of Broadway, running N. and S. connected with the Third .avenue, which is Macadamized to Har- lem, and forms the principal entrance to the city from the N. E. East Broadway, and parallel to it Madison, Henry, and Monroe streets, running a little N. of E. and S. of W., are broad and straight streets, and hand- Homely built. Bleeker, Bond, and other streets in the N. part of the city are beautifully built, and have become a fashionable place for residences. Canal- street, half a mile N. of the City-hall, and now much below the centre of the population, is a wide street, with a large covered canal under it, is occupied exten- sively by stores, and is the seat of an extensive retail business. It crosses Broadway, nearly at right angles, and extends to Hudson river. There are other streets which deserve a particular notice, especially Green wicli- street, a long, wide, and nearly straight street, extend- ing N. from the Battery nearly two miles and a half, parallel to Hudson river, which has many stores and fine buildings ; and Hudson street E. of it, and parallel 608 GREAT CITIES OF TUE WORLD. to it, which is wide and straight, extending from Cham- bers-street to the ninth avenue, over a mile and three quarters long, and well built in many of its parts. Chatham-street, named in honour of the Earl of Chat- ham, extending from Broadway to Chatham-square, at the commencement of the Bowery, is a great thorough- fare, and particularly distinguished for its numerous clothing stores. The city must be considered somewhat deficient ir, public grounds or places, but it has several important ones. In addition to several triangular areas, as Hano- ver-square, Franklin-square, and Chatham-square, as they are denominated, with some others of a like description, there are several more important public places. The Battery, at the south-eastern end of the island, is situated at the junction of Hudson and East rivers. It is in the form of a crescent, and contains about 11 acres of ground, beautifully laid out with grass- plats and gravelled walks, and shaded with trees. Cas- tle Garden is built on a mole, and connected with the Battery by a bridge. It was originally erected as a for- tification, and having become unnecessary for this purpose, was ceded by the United States to the corpo- ration of the city in 1823. Within its walls 10,000 people can be accommodated in a great amphitheatre; and it is used for public meetings and exhibitions. The Bowling Green at the southern termination of Broad- way, is an elliptical area, 220 feet long and 140 broad, enclosed by an iron fence. It was established before the American Revolution, and formerly contained a leaden statue of George III., which was converted into bullets at that period. NEW YORK. 509 The Park, called in early times the Commons, is a triangular area of about lOf acres, lying between Broadway, Chatham, and Chambers streets, is laid out with walks, and planted with trees, and surrounded by an iron fence, which cost over $15,653. It contains the City-Hall, the New City-Hall or old Almshouse, and the Post-office. It has also toward its S. part, a public fountain, within a basin about 100 feet in dia- meter, which has a variety of jets, which are occa- sionally changed. Union place, at the northern termination of Broad- way, is in an elliptical form, enclosed with a fine iron fence, having a public fountain in the centre, with ornamental jets ; and when the vicinity shall be more densely settled, will be a delightful breathing place to the inhabitants. All these public grounds are much frequented in the summer season. Farther up the city are other public squares, as Madison-square, Hamilton-square, and others. On the E. are Tomp- kins'-square and Bellevue, the latter the seat of the new almshouse. The city of New York has some superb public build- ings. The most splendid of these is the Merchant's Exchange^ which covers the whole space between Wall, William, Exchange, and South William streets. It has a somewhat confined situation, and shows to less advantage than if it were surrounded by open grounds. It is built in the most substantial form of blue Quincy granite, and is 200 feet long by 171 to 144 feet wide, 77 feet high to the top of the cornice, and 124 to the top of the dome. The front on Wall street has a recessed portico of 18 massive Grecian-Ionic columns, 48* 510 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. 38 feet high, and 4 feet 4 inches in diameter, each formed from a solid block of stone, and weighing 43 tons. It required the best application of the mechanical powers, aided by horses, to raise these enormous masses. Besides numerous other rooms for various purposes, the Exchange in the centre is in a circular form, 80 feet in diameter, with four recesses, making the length and breadth each 100 feet, the whole 80 feet high, surmounted with a dome, resting in part on eight Corinthian columns of Italian marble, 41 feet high, and lighted by a skylight 25 feet in diameter. The Custom house is a splendid building, constructed in the Doric order of Grecian architecture. It is built in the most substantial manner of white marble, some- thing after the model of the Parthenon at Athens, at the head of Broad street, on the corner of Nassau and Wall streets. The building is 200 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 80 feet high. At the S. end on Wall-street, is a portico of eight purely Grecian-Doric columns, 5 feet 8 inches in diameter, and 32 feet high ; and on the N. end on Pine street is a corresponding portico of similar columns. The front portico is ascended by 18 marble steps, and the rear portico on Pine-street, by only three or four marble steps. It is two lofty stories high above the basement story. The great business hall is a splendid circular room, 60 feet in diameter, with recesses and galleries, making it 80 feet in dia- meter, surmounted by a dome, supported by 16 beau- tiful Corinthian columns, 30 feet high, ornamented in the dome with stucco, and at top with a skylight. On each side, on the outside, are 13 pilasters, in perfect keeping with the pillars on the two fronts. The cost NEW YORK. 511 of the building and its furniture was $950,000 ; and including the ground, $1,175,000. The City-Hall, heretofore regarded as much the finest building in the city, and one of the finest in the United States, has a commanding situation in the middle of the Park, though somewhat in the rear, and shows to greater advantage than either of the fine buildings already described. It has more ornament than either the Exchange or the Custom-house, but less simple grandeur ; though with its furniture, it is, perhaps, the most interesting building in the city. It is 216 feet long, and 105 wide. The front and ends are constructed of white marble, and the rear of brown freestone. It is two stories high above the basement, with a third or attic story in the centre building ; and there rises from the centre a lofty cupola, containing a city clock of fine workmanship, and on the top, a colossal statue of Justice. In the upper part of this cupola is a room occupied by a man whose business it is to give alarm in cases of fire ; and from this ele- vated position, he is able to overlook the whole city. Behind this is another less elevated cupola, with eight fine Corinthian columns, which contains the City-hall bell, weighing 6910 pounds, whose deep and solemn tones often sound the knell of property, and, by the different number of strokes, indicate the district of the city in which a fire occurs. The front of the City-Hall is ornamented with columns and pilasters of the Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite orders, rising above each other in regular gradation. The building is entered in front by a flight of 12 marble steps. There are halls which lead from the centre to each end of the building 512 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. in each story. In the basement and the stories there are 28 offices and other public rooms, the most con- spicuous of which are the Governor's room, and the chambers of the common council and assistant alder- men. The Hall of Justice occupies the whole space between Centre, Elm, Leonard, and Franklin streets, and is a unique and beautiful building of the Egyptian archi- tecture. This building, though handsome of its kind, has a heavy and gloomy aspect, which has acquired for it the name of the Egyptian Tombs. It is constructed of a light coloured granite, from Hallowell, Me. Among the churches some deserve to be particularly noticed, on account of their architecture. The new Trinity Episcopal church is one of the finest buildings of the city, and the most complete Gothic structure in the United States. It stands at the head of Wall- street, which it fronts. It is in the finest style of English church architecture, built of a light brown freestone, with much beautifully ornamented sculpture in its various parts ; is 192 feet long upon the outside, 84 feet wide, and the steeple is 264 feet high, built of stone to the top. Above the first story is a roof which considerably narrows the building in the second story as is common in the old churches of England. The inside is even more imposing than the outside. St Paul's Episcopal chapel is situated on Broadway, be- tween Fulton and Vesey streets, and the burying ground extends W. to Church-street, and thus includes the whole block, 400 by 180 feet, surrounded by a handsome iron railing. The body of the church is 90 by 70 feet, with a beautiful spire, 200 feet high, NEW Y6HK. 513 painted and overcast with sand to resemble brown freestone. St. John's Episcopal chapel is situated on Varick-street, directly opposite the centre of St. John's square, is a building of fine proportions and beautiful appearance, was finished in 1810, and cost over 9200,000. It is 111 feet long and 73 wide, built of stone, and has an admirably proportioned steeple, 220 feet high. Grace Church is a splendid edifice, entirely con- structed of marble. Its congregation ranks next in wealth to that of Trinity church. New York contains a large number of literary and charitable associations. The Columbia College and the University of New York are the chief of the educa- tional establishments. They are well conducted, and extensively patronised. Seminaries and schools of all kinds are numerous. The hotels are unsurpassed in the United States. The Astor House, Metropolitan, "Howard's," and the Irving House hold the foremost rank. The two first mentioned are said to be superior to any thing of the kind in London or Paris. The public and private buildings generally are lighted with gas. The most splendid and expensive work undertaken by the city is the Croton Waterworks. The aqueduct commences at the Croton river, 5 miles from Hudson river, in Westchester county. The long dam creates a pond, covering n surface of four Hundred acres containing 500,000 gallons of water, 'i '! - nqucduct which is 8 feet high and 7 feet broad, and .^ilt of bricks, stone, and cement, proceeds a distance of 38 miles, tunnelling s.'-lH rocks, crossing valleys by embankments, and 514 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. Harlem river by a magnificent bridge of stone, to the receiving reservoir, at 86th street. The water is of the purest river water. Free hydrants are to be found in most of the streets. The estimated cost of this great work is $12,000,000. An extensive inland trade cen- tres in New York by means of the Harlem, Erie, and Hudson railroads, and numerous turnpikes. The manu- factures are of all kinds, and reach an immense value. The government of the city is entrusted to a mayor, elected annually, and a board of aldermen. NEW ORLEANS. EW ORLEANS is the prin- cipal commercial city in the southern part of the Union. It stands on the left bank of the Mississippi, 100 miles from the sea by the course of the river, but only 15 miles from the bay, impro- perly called Lake Borgne, and four from Lake Ponchartrain. New Orleans was founded by the French under Iberville, in 1717. In 1769, it was occupied by the Spaniards, and continued in their hands for 34 years. The population in 1769 amounted to 3190, and the exports were already very valuable. The commerce suffered by the restrictions of the Spaniards. About 1785, the Spanish govern- ment adopted a more liberal policy, and the trade of the city revived. In 1788, a fire consumed 900 houses. Under the government of the Baron Carondelet the city was vastly improved, the canal Carondelet con- structed, and some fortifications begun. On the 21st of March, 1801, Louisiana was ceded by Spain to the French republic, and on the 30th of April, 1803, Bona- parte, as first consul, sold it to the United States, for about $15,000,000, and it was taken possession of on the 30th of November. The population of the city did 44 (517) 518 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. not then exceed 8,056. The Roman Catholic religion was the only one allowed publicly. In 1804 New Orleans was made a port of entry and delivery, and in the next year, a city charter was granted. Early in December, 1814, the British approached New Orleans with about 8000 men, by the way of Lakes Borgne and Ponchartrain. The American gunboats were compelled to surrender, after a terrific resistance, in which the British loss was about 250 men. Gen. Jackson had prepared an extensive system of defence for New Orleans. On the evening of the 23d of December, the American commander made a furious attack upon the British camp, killed and wounded a considerable num- ber of men, and retired with but little loss. On the 28th of December, the British made an unsuccessful assault upon the works of the Americans. The decisive action occured on the 8th of January, 1815, when the British army was repulsed, with the loss of two thou- sand men. Sir Edward Packenham, the British com- mander-in-chiof, was killed. General Gibbs, the second in command, was mortally wounded. Gen. Lambert, who succeeded to the command of the army, despairing of success, retired to the squadron. Jackson, wishing to hazard nothing, allowed the enemy to retreat unmo- lested. Peace was concluded before this battle occurred. In May, 1816, the levee, nine miles above New Orleans, broke through, and the back part of the city was inun- dated. The crevasse was finally closed, chiefly by the exertions of Gov. Claiborne. The same calamity has occurred on one occasion since, a vast amount of property being destroyed. The yellow fever is an NEW ORLEANS. 519 annual visitor of the city in the summer season, and it sometimes commits great havoc. New Orleans now contains about 140,000 inhabit- ants, who are Americans, French. Creoles, Spaniards, with a mixture of almost every nation on the globe. It is totally unlike any other city in the United States. The position of New Orleans as a vast commercial emporium is unrivalled; for the Mississippi, with its numerous tributaries, brings to it for a market, the product of 20,000 miles of navigation, and the immense resources of the great valley are yet but partially developed. The city proper is in the form of a paral- lelogram, running along the river 1320 yards, and extending back 700 yards. This portion of the city is traversed by 22 streets, forming 84 principal, and 14 minor squares. The whole extent of the city, including its incorporated fauxbourgs, is not less than five miles parallel with the river, and it extends perpendicularly to it from a quarter to three quarters of a mile ; and to the Bayou St. John, two miles. The houses are principally of brick, except some of the ancient and dilapidated dwellings in the heart of the city, and Borne new ones in the outskirts. The modern buildings, particularly in the upper parts of the city, or Second Municipality, are generally three and four stories high, with elegant and substantial granite fronts. Many of the houses in the outer parts, are surrounded with gardens, and ornamented with orange trees. The view of the city from the river, in ascending or descending, is beautiful, and on entering it, the stranger finds it difficult to believe that he has arrived at an American city. This remark applies especially to the central and 520 GREAT CITIES OF THE WORLD. lower parts, where the older buildings are ancient and of foreign construction, where the manners, customs, and language are so various ; the population being very nearly equally made up of Americans, French, Creoles, and Spaniards, with a mixture of almost every nation on the globe. During the business season, extending from the first of November until July, the Levee, in its whole extent, is crowded with vessels of all sizes, from all quarters of the world ; with hundreds of large and splendid steamboats, and numerous barges and flat boats, &c. Nothing can present a more busy, bustling scene than the levee at this time, the loading and unloading of vessels and steamboats, with 1500 drays transporting tobacco, cotton, sugar, and the various and immense produce of the far west. In 1836, the legislature passed an act dividing the city into three municipalities, ranking them according to their popula- tion. The first includes the city proper, extending, with that width, from the river back to Lake Ponchar- train, and occupying the centre : the second adjoining it above, and the third below, both extending from the river to the lake. Each municipality has a distinct council for the management of its internal affairs, which do not encroach on the general government. Among the public buildings, the Cathedral or Church of St. Louis on the Place d'Armes or Parade-Square, strikes the stranger forcibly by its venerable and an- tique air. It was founded in 1792, and to a certain extent completed in 1794. The lower story is of a rus- tic order, flanked at each of their front angles by hexa- gonal towers, projecting one half of their diameter, crowned by low spires. The second story is of the NEW ORLEANS. 521 CHURCH OP ST. LOUIS, NEW ORLEANS. Roman Doric order. Above, on the apex of the pedi- ment of this story, rises the principal turret, square below, about 20 feet high, and hexagonal above, with a belfry with apertures on each side to let out the sound, with an elevated pinnacle above. Every Satur- 44* 522 GREAT CITIES OP THE WORLD. !> tered with hydraulic cement. It is divided huo . r compartments, to allow the water to settle before !; i-j distributed over the city in cast iron pipe.-. New Orleans is often familiarly called LIJC '..' : City, from its form ; for though the streets a l7Jaa'55RC -MWHH* JUU EHt 7 JUN r' ', 6.- !-> LD 21-100m-12, '43 (8796s) YB 21549 3-3377 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY J