Chapter XIII: Part 13

According to the same author, Smyrna in no respect resembles an Eastern town; it is a large and elegant factory, where the European consuls and merchants lead the life of Paris and London.

Though frequently and severely visited by the plague, it contains one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants; and may be considered as the great emporium of the Levant[240].

NO. XXXII.—SPALATRO.

When Diocletian selected a spot for his retirement, he solicitously observed, that his palace should command every beauty that the country afforded. In this retirement he began to live, to see the beauty of the sun, and to enjoy, as Vopiscus relates, true happiness in the society of those he had known in his youth[241]. His palace was situated at Spalatro, in Dalmatia.

While residing at this place, Diocletian made a very remarkable and strictly true confession:—“Four or five persons,” said he, “who are closely united, and resolutely determined to impose on a prince, may do it very easily. They never show things to him but in such a light as they are sure will please. They conceal whatever would contribute to enlighten him; and as they only besiege him continually, he cannot be informed of any thing but through their medium, and does nothing but what they think fit to suggest to him. Hence it is, that he bestows employments on those he ought to exclude from them; and, on the other hand, removes from offices such persons as are most worthy of filling them. In a word, the best prince is often sold by these men, though he be ever so vigilant, and even suspicious of them.”

As the voyager enters the bay, the marine wall and long arcades of the palace, one of the ancient temples, and other parts of that building, present themselves. The inhabitants have destroyed some parts of the palace, in order to procure materials for building. In other places houses are built of the old foundations; and modern works are so intermingled with the ancient, as scarcely to be distinguishable.

The palace of Diocletian possessed all those advantages of situation, to which the ancients were most attentive. It was so great that the emperor Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, who had seen the most splendid buildings of the ancients, affirms[242], that no plan or description of it could convey a perfect idea of it. The vast extent of ground which it occupied is surprising at first sight; the dimensions of one side of the quadrangle, including the towers, being no less than six hundred and ninety-eight feet, and of the other four hundred and ninety-two feet:—making the superficial contents four hundred and thirteen thousand two hundred and sixteen feet; that is, about nine and a half English acres. But when it is considered that it contained proper apartments not only for the emperor himself, and for the numerous retinue of officers who attended his court, but likewise edifices and open spaces for exercises of different kinds, that it was capable of lodging a prætorian cohort, and that two temples were erected within its precincts, we shall not conclude the area to have been too large for such a variety of buildings.

For a description of this celebrated place, we must refer to Mr. Adam’s Antiquities; but there is one circumstance that may be highly interesting at the present time, which is, that not the smallest vestige of a fire-place is to be seen in any part of the building; and it may be therefore conjectured, that the various apartments might have been heated by flues or funnels, conveying and distributing heated air.

Of the temples, one of them was dedicated to Æsculapius; the ascent to which was by a stair of fifteen steps, and it received no light but from the door. Beneath it are vaults of great strength; its roof is an arch adorned with sunk pannels of beautiful workmanship, and its walls are of a remarkable thickness. This temple remains almost entire.

There is another temple, dedicated to Jupiter, who was worshipped by Diocletian with peculiar veneration; and in honour of whom he assumed the name of Jovius. This temple is surrounded with one row of columns, having a space between them and the wall. It is lighted by an arched window over the door, and is vaulted beneath like that of Æsculapius. There are remains of two other buildings, not much inferior in extent, nor probably in original magnificence; but by the injuries of time, and the depredations of the Spalatrines, these are reduced to a very ruinous condition.

Besides these the visitor sees large vaults along that side of the palace which looks to the sea; partly destroyed, partly filled up, and some occupied by merchants as storehouses.

In one of the towers belonging to the palace, Diocletian is supposed to have been buried; and we are told that, about two hundred and seventy-five years ago, the body of the emperor was discovered there in a sarcophagus of porphyry.

The shafts of the columns of the temple of Jupiter are of oriental alabaster of one stone. The capitals and bases of the columns, and on the entablature, are of Parian marble. The shafts of the columns of the second order, which is composite, are alternately of verd-antique, or ancient green marble and porphyry, of one piece. The capitals and entablature are also of Parian marble.

All the capitals throughout the palace are raffled more in the Grecian than the Roman style; so that Mr. Adam[243] thinks it probable, that Diocletian, who had been so often in Greece, brought his artificers thither, in order to vary the execution of his orders of architecture in this palace, from those he had executed at his baths at Rome, which are extremely different both in formation and execution[244].

NO. XXXIII.—STRATONICE.

This was a town in Caria, where a Macedonian colony took up their abode; and which several Syrian monarchs afterwards adorned and beautified. It was named after the wife of Antiochus Soter, of whom history gives the following account. “Antiochus was seized with a lingering distemper, of which the physicians were incapable of discovering the cause; for which reason his condition was thought entirely desperate. Erasistratus, the most attentive and skilful of all the physicians, having carefully considered every symptom with which the indisposition of the young prince was attended, believed at last that he had discovered its true cause, and that it proceeded from a passion he had entertained for some lady; in which conjecture he was not deceived. It, however, was more difficult to discover the object of a passion, the more violent from the secrecy in which it remained. The physician, therefore, to assure himself fully of what he surmised, passed whole days in the apartment of his patient, and when he saw any lady enter, he carefully observed the countenance of the prince, and never discovered the least emotion in him, except when Stratonice came into the chamber, either alone, or with her consort; at which times the young prince was, as Plutarch observes, always affected with the symptoms described by Sappho, as so many indications of a violent passion. Such, for instance, as a suppression of voice; burning blushes; suffusion of sight; cold sweat; a sensible inequality and disorder of pulse; with a variety of the like symptoms. When the physician was afterwards alone with his patient, he managed his inquiries with so much dexterity, as at last drew the secret from him. Antiochus confessed his passion for queen Stratonice his mother-in-law, and declared that he had in vain employed all his efforts to vanquish it: he added, that he had a thousand times had recourse to every consideration that could be represented to his thoughts, in such a conjuncture; particularly the respect due from him to a father and a sovereign, by whom he was tenderly beloved; the shameful circumstance of indulging a passion altogether unjustifiable, and contrary to all the rules of decency and honour; the folly of harbouring a design he ought never to be desirous of gratifying; but that his reason, in its present state of distraction, entirely engrossed by one object, would hearken to nothing. And he concluded with declaring, that, to punish himself, for desires involuntary in one sense, but criminal in every other, he had resolved to languish to death, by discontinuing all care of his health, and abstaining from every kind of food. The physician gained a very considerable point, by penetrating into the source of his patient’s disorder; but the application of the proper remedy was much more difficult to be accomplished; and how could a proposal of this nature be made to a parent and king! When Seleucus made the next inquiry after his son’s health, Erasistratus replied, that his distemper was incurable, because it arose from a secret passion which could never be gratified, as the lady he loved was not to be obtained. The father, surprised and afflicted at this answer, desired to know why the lady was not to be obtained? ‘Because she is my wife!’ replied the physician, ‘and I am not disposed to yield her up to the embraces of another.’ ‘And will you not part with her then,’ replied the king, ‘to preserve the life of a son I so tenderly love! Is this the friendship you profess for me?’ ‘Let me entreat you, my lord,’ said Erasistratus, ‘to imagine yourself for one moment in my place, would you resign your Stratonice to his arms? If you, therefore, who are a father, would not consent to such a sacrifice for the welfare of a son so dear to you, how can you expect another should do it?’ ‘I would resign Stratonice, and my empire to him, with all my soul,’ interrupted the king. ‘Your majesty then,’ replied the physician, ‘has the remedy in your own hands; for he loves Stratonice.’ The father did not hesitate a moment after this declaration, and easily obtained the consent of his consort: after which, his son and that princess were crowned king and queen of upper Asia. Julian the Apostate, however, relates in a fragment of his writings still extant, that Antiochus could not espouse Stratonice, till after the death of his father.

“Whatever traces of reserve, moderation, and even modesty, appear in the conduct of this young prince,” says Rollin at the conclusion of this history, “his example shows us the misfortune of giving the least entrance into the heart of an unlawful passion, capable of discomposing all the happiness and tranquillity of life.”

Stratonice was a free city under the Romans. Hadrian erected several structures in it, and thence took the opportunity of calling it Hadrianopolis.

It is now a poor village, and called Eskihissar. It was remarkable for a magnificent temple, dedicated to Jupiter, of which no foundations are now to be traced, but in one part of the village there is a grand gate of a plain architecture. There was a double row of large pillars from it, which probably formed the avenue to the temple; and on each side of the gate there was a semicircular alcove niche, and a colonnade from it, which, with a wall on each side of the gate, might make a portico, that was of the Corinthian order. Fifty paces further there are remains of another colonnade. To the south of this are ruins of a building of large hewn stone, supposed to have belonged to the temple of Serapis. There is also a large theatre, the front of which is ruined; there are in all about forty seats, with a gallery in the middle, and another at the top.

Chandler gives a very agreeable account of this village:—“The houses are scattered among woody hills environed by huge mountains; one of which has its summit as white as chalk. It is watered by a limpid and lively rill, with cascades. The site is strewed with marble fragments. Some shafts of columns are standing single; and one with a capital on it. By a cottage are three, with a pilaster supporting an entablature, but enveloped in thick vines and trees. Near the theatre are several pedestals of statues; one records a citizen of great merit and magnificence. Above it is a marble heap; and the whole building is overgrown with moss, bushes, and trees. Without the village, on the opposite side, are broken arches, with pieces of massive wall and sarcophagi. Several altars also remain, with inscriptions; once placed in sepulchres[245].”

NO. XXXIV.—SUSA.

Strabo says that Susa was built by Tithonus or Tithon, the father of Memnon; and this origin is in some degree supported by a passage in Herodotus, wherein that historian calls it “the city of Memnon.” In Scripture it is called “Shushan.” It was an oblong of one hundred and twenty stadia in circuit; situated on the river Cutæus or Uhlai.

Susa derived its name from the number of lilies which grew on the banks of the river on which it stood. It was sheltered by a high ridge of mountains on the north, which rendered it very agreeable during winter. But in summer the heat was so intense and parching, that the inhabitants were accustomed to cover their houses two cubits deep with earth. It was in this city that Ahasuerus gave the great feast which lasted one hundred and eighty-three days.

Barthelemy makes Anacharsis write to his friend in Scythia to the following purport:—“The kings of Persia, besides Persepolis, have caused other palaces to be built; less sumptuous, indeed, but of wonderful beauty, at Ecbatana and Susa. They have, also, spacious parks, which they call paradises, and which are divided into two parts. In the one, armed with arrows and javelins, they pursue on horseback, through the forests, the deer which are shut up in them; and in the other, in which the art of gardening has exhausted its utmost efforts, they cultivate the most beautiful flowers, and gather the most delicious fruits. They are not less attentive to adorn these parks with superb trees, which they commonly dispose in the form called Quincunx.” He gives, also, an account of the great encouragement afforded to agriculture. “But our attention was still more engaged by the conspicuous protection and encouragement which the sovereign grants to agriculture; and that, not by some transient favours and rewards, but by an enlightened vigilance more powerful than edicts and laws. He appoints in every district two superintendants; one for the military, and the other for civil affairs. The office of the former is to preserve the public tranquillity; and that of the latter to promote the progress of industry and agriculture. If one of these should not discharge his duty, the other may complain of him to the governor of the province, or the sovereign himself. If the monarch sees the country covered with trees, harvests, and all the productions of which the soil is capable, he heaps honours on the two officers, and enlarges their government. But if he finds the lands uncultivated, they are directly displaced, and others appointed in their stead. Commissioners of incorruptible integrity exercise the same justice in the districts through which the sovereign does not pass.”

Susa is rendered remarkable by the immensity of wealth, hoarded up in it by the Persian kings, and which fell into the hands of Alexander, when, twenty days after leaving Babylon, he took possession of that city. There were 50,000 talents[246] of silver in ore and ingots; a sum equivalent, of our money, to 7,500,000_l._ Besides this, there were five thousand talents’[247] worth of purple of Hermione, which, though it had been laid up for one hundred and ninety years, retained its freshness and beauty: the reason assigned for which is, that the purple wool was combed with honey, and the white with white oil[248]. Besides this, there were a thousand other things of extraordinary value. “This wealth,” says one of the historians, “was the produce of the exactions imposed for several centuries upon the common people, from whose sweat and poverty immense revenues were raised.” “The Persian monarchy,” he goes on to observe, “fancied they had amassed them for their children and posterity; but, in one hour, they fell into the hands of a foreign king, who was able to make a right use of them: for Alexander seemed to be merely the guardian or trustee of the immense riches which he found hoarded up in Persia; and applied them to no other use than the rewarding of courage and merit.”

Here, too, were found many of the rarities which Xerxes had taken from Greece; and amongst others, the brazen statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton, which Alexander soon after sent to Athens.

This was the city in which a curious scene occurred between Alexander and Sisygambis, Darius’ mother, whom he had taken prisoner at the battle of Issus. He had left her at Susa, with Darius’ children: and having received a quantity of purple stuffs and rich habits from Macedonia, made after the fashion of his own country, he sent them to Sisygambis; desiring his messengers to tell her, that if the stuffs pleased her, she might teach her grandchildren, who were with her, the art of weaving them for their amusement. Now the working in wool was considered an ignominy by the Persian women. When Sisygambis heard Alexander’s message, therefore, she burst into tears. This being related to the conqueror, he thought it decorous to do away the impression. He therefore visited Sisygambis. “Mother,” said he, for he valued Darius’ mother next to his own, “the stuff, in which you see me clothed, was not only a gift of my sisters, but wrought by their fingers. Hence I beg you to believe, that the custom of my country misled me; and do not consider that as an insult, which was owing entirely to ignorance. I believe I have not yet done any thing which I knew interfered with your manners and customs. I was told, that among the Persians it is a sort of crime for a son to seat himself in his mother’s presence, without first obtaining her leave. You are sensible how cautious I have been in that particular; and that I never sat down till you had first laid your commands upon me to do so. And every time that you were going to fall down prostrate before me, I only ask you, whether I would suffer it? As the highest testimony of the veneration I owe you, I always called you by the tender name of mother, though this belongs properly to Olympia only, to whom I owe my birth.” On hearing this Sisygambis was extremely well satisfied, and became afterwards so partial to the conqueror of her son and country, that when she heard of the death of Alexander she wept as if she had lost a son. “Who now will take care of my daughters?” she exclaimed. “Where shall we find another Alexander?” At last she sank under her grief. “This princess,” says Rollin, “who had borne with patience the death of her father, her husband, eighty of her brothers, who were murdered in one day by Ochus, and, to say all in one word, that of Darius her son, and the ruin of her family; though she had, I say, submitted patiently to all these losses, she however had not strength of mind sufficient to support herself after the death of Alexander. She would not take any sustenance, and starved herself to death, to avoid surviving this last calamity.”

Alexander found in Susa all the captives of quality he had left there. He married Statira,[249] Darius’ eldest daughter, and gave the youngest to his dear Hephæstion. And in order that, by making these marriages more common, his own might not be censured, he persuaded the greatest noblemen in his court, and his principal favourites, to imitate him. Accordingly they chose, from amongst the noblest families of Persia, about eighty young maidens, whom they married. His design was, by these alliances, to cement so strongly the union of the two nations, that they should henceforward form but one, under his empire. The nuptials were solemnised after the Persian manner. He likewise feasted all the rest of the Macedonians who had married before in that country. It is related that there were nine thousand guests at this feast, and that he gave each of them a golden cup for the libations.

When at Susa, Alexander found a proof of the misgovernment of which his satraps had been guilty during his absence. The Susians loudly complained of the satrap Abulites, and his son Oxathres, of spoliation and tyranny. Being convicted of the crimes of which they were charged, they were both sentenced to death.

Josephus says, that Daniel’s wisdom did not only reach to things divine and political, but also to arts and sciences, and particularly to that of architecture; in confirmation of which, he speaks of a famous edifice built by him at Susa, in the manner of a castle, which he says still subsisted in his time, and finished with such wonderful art, that it then seemed as fresh and beautiful as if it had been but newly built. “Within this palace,” continues Josephus, “the Persian and Parthian kings were usually buried; and, for the sake of the founder, the keeping of it was committed to one of the Jewish nation, even to his time. It was a common tradition in those parts for many ages, that Daniel died at Susa, and there they show his monument to this day. It is certain that Daniel used to go thither from time to time, and he himself tells us, that ‘he did the king’s business there.’”

There being some doubt whether the ancient Susa is the modern Shus, or the modern Shuster, we shall not enter into the argument, but describe them both.

The ruins of Shus are situate in the province of Kuzistan, or Chusistan. They extend about twelve miles[250] from one extremity to the other, stretching as far as the eastern bank of the Kerah, occupying an immense space between that river and the Abzal; and, like the ruins of Babylon, Ctesiphon, and Kufa, consisting of hillocks of earth and rubbish, covered with broken pieces of brick and coloured tile.

There are two mounds larger than the rest. The first is about a mile in circumference, and nearly one hundred feet in height. The other is not quite so high, but double the circumference. The Arabs often dig with a view of getting treasures of gold in these two mounds; and every now and then discover large blocks of marble, covered with hieroglyphics. The mounds in general bear considerable resemblance to those of Babylon; but with this difference to distinguish them: instead of being entirely composed of brick, they consist of clay and pieces of tile, with irregular layers of brick and mortar, five or six feet thick, intended, it would seem, as a kind of prop to the mass. This is one reason for supposing that Shus is the ancient Susa; and not Shuster. For Strabo says, that the Persian capital was entirely built of brick; there not being a single stone in the province: whereas the quarries of Shuster are very celebrated; and almost the whole of that town is built of stone. But let the question, says a modern traveller, be decided as it may, the site of the city of Shus is now a gloomy wilderness, infested by lions, hyænas, and other beasts of prey. “The dread of these furious animals,” says Mr. Kinneir, “compelled us to take shelter for the night within the walls that encompassed Daniel’s tomb.”

At the foot of the most elevated of the pyramids stands what is called “the Tomb of Daniel;” a small, comparatively modern, building, erected on the spot where the relics of the prophet are believed to rest. Others doubt this circumstance; among whom is Dr. Vincent[251], who insists, that to the legendary tradition of the tomb of Daniel little more respect is due, than to the legends of the church of Rome, and the traditions of the Mahometans in general. The antiquity of the tradition is, nevertheless, considerable; for it is not only mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Shus in the latter part of the twelfth century, but by one of the earliest Mussulman writers, Ahmed of Kufah, who died A. H. 117 (A. D. 735), and records the removal of the prophet’s coffin to the bed of the river.

SHUSTER is the capital of Kuzistan, and is situate at the foot of the mountains of Bucktiari, on an eminence commanding the rapid course of the Karoon, across which is a bridge of one arch, upwards of eighty feet high; from the summit of which the Persians often throw themselves into the water, without sustaining the smallest injury. It is situated so agreeably in respect to climate and supplies of all kinds, that while Shus, in the old Persian language, signified “delightful,” Shuster had a more expressive one; “most delightful.”

Shuster, from the ruins yet remaining, must have been once of great magnificence and extent. The most worthy of observation amongst these ruins are the castle, a dyke, and a bridge. “Part of the walls of the first,” says Mr. Kinneir, “said to have been the abode of Valerian[252], are still standing. They occupy a small hill at the western extremity of the town, from which there is a fine view of the river, mountains, and adjoining country. This fortress is, on two sides, defended by a ditch, now almost choked with sand; and on the other two, by a branch of the Karoon. It has but one gateway, built in the Roman fashion, formerly entered by a draw-bridge. The hill is almost entirely excavated, and formed into _surdabs_ and subterranean aqueducts, through which the water still continues to flow.”

Not far from the castle is the dyke to which we have alluded. This dyke was built by Sapor. “Not,” says Mr. Kinneir, as “D’Herbelot would insinuate, to prevent a second deluge, but rather to occasion one, by turning a large proportion of the water into a channel more favourable to agriculture, than that which Nature had assigned to it.”

This dyke is constructed of cut stone, bound together by clamps of iron, about twenty-feet broad, and four hundred yards long, with two small arches in the middle. It has lately been rebuilt by Mahomet Ali Maerza, governor of Kermanshaw.

The fate of Valerian, to whom we have alluded, is thus recorded by Gibbon:—“The voice of history, which is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery, reproaches Sapor with a proud abuse of the rights of conquest. We are told that Valerian, in chains, but invested with the imperial purple, was exposed to the multitude, a constant spectacle of fallen greatness; and that whenever the Persian monarch mounted on horseback, he placed his foot upon the neck of a Roman emperor. Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of his allies, who repeatedly advised him to remember the vicissitudes of fortune, to dread the returning power of Rome, and to make his illustrious captive the pledge of peace, not the object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible. When Valerian sank under the weight of shame and grief, his skin, stuffed with straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a more real monument of triumph than the sacred trophies of brass and marble, so often erected by Roman vanity[253]. The tale is moral and pathetic; but the truth of it may very fairly be called in question. It is unnatural to suppose, that a jealous monarch should, even in the person of a rival, thus publicly degrade the majesty of kings. Whatever treatment the unfortunate Valerian might experience in Persia, it is at least certain, that the only emperor of Rome who had ever fallen into the hands of the enemy, languished away his life in hopeless captivity.” The place of that captivity is said to have been Shuster[254].

NO. XXXV.—SYBARIS.

Dissolved in ease and soft delights they lie,
Till every sun annoys, and every wind
Has chilling force, and every rain offends.

DYER, _Ruins of Rome_.

Sybaris was a town of Lucania, situated on the banks of the Bay of Tarentum. It was founded by a colony of Achaians; and in process of time became very powerful.

The walls of this city extend six miles and a half in circumference, and the suburbs covered the banks of the Crathis for seven miles.

Historians and orators, of all ages, have been guilty of praising heroes. “For my own part,” says Mr. Swinburne, “I cannot help feeling pity for the hard fate of the Sybarites, to whom we are indebted for the discovery of many most useful pieces of chamber and kitchen furniture. They appear to have been a people of great taste, and to have set the fashion, in point of dress, throughout all Greece. Their cooks, embroiderers, and confectioners, were famous over all the polite world; and we may suppose their riding-masters did not enjoy a less brilliant reputation, since we are told of their having taught their horses to dance to a particular tune. The public voice, however, of all ages, has been against them. Sybaris[255] was ten leagues from Croton. Four neighbouring states, and twenty-five cities, were subject to it; so that it was alone able to raise an army of three hundred thousand men. The opulence of Sybaris was soon followed by luxury, and such a dissoluteness as is scarcely possible. The citizens employed themselves in nothing but banquets, games, shows, parties of pleasure, and carnivals. Public rewards and marks of distinction were bestowed on those who gave the most magnificent entertainments; and even to such cooks as were best skilled in the important art of making new refinements to tickle the palate. The Sybarites carried their delicacy and effeminacy to such a height, that they carefully removed from their city all such artificers whose work was noisy; and would not suffer any cocks in it, lest their shrill, piercing crow should disturb their slumbers.”

All these evils were heightened by dissension and discord, which at last proved their ruin. Five hundred of the wealthiest in the city having been expelled by the faction of one Telys, fled to Croton. Telys demanded to have them surrendered to him; and, on the refusal of the Crotonians to deliver them up, prompted to this generous resolution by Pythagoras, who then lived among them, war was declared. The Crotonians were headed by Milo, the famous champion; over whose shoulders a lion’s skin was thrown, and himself armed with a club, like another Hercules. The latter gained a complete victory, and made a dreadful havoc of those who fled, so that very few escaped; and Sybaris was depopulated.

About sixty years after this some Thessalians came and settled in it; however, they did not long enjoy peace, being driven out by the Crotonians. Being thus reduced to the most fatal extremity, they implored the succour of the Lacedæmonians and Athenians. The latter, moved to compassion at their deplorable condition, after causing proclamation to be made in Peloponnesus, that all who were willing to assist that colony were at liberty to do it, sent the Sybarites a fleet of ten ships, under the command of Lampon and Xenocrates. They built a city near the ancient Sybaris, and called it Thurium.

Two men, greatly renowned for their learning, the one an orator, and the other an historian, settled in this colony. The first was Lysias, at that time but fifteen years of age. He lived in Thurium, till that ill fate which befel the Athenians in Sicily, and then went to Athens.

The second was Herodotus. Though he was born in Halicarnassus, a city of Caria, he was considered as a native of Thurium, because he settled there with that colony. Divisions soon broke out in the city, on occasion of the new inhabitants, whom the rest would exclude from all public employments and privileges. But as these were much more numerous, they repulsed all the ancient Sybarites, and got the sole possession of the city. Being supported by the alliance they made with the people of Croton, they grew very powerful; and, having settled a popular form of government in their city, they divided the citizens into ten tribes, which they called by the names of the different nations whence they sprang.

Sybaris was destroyed five times; but had always the good fortune to be restored. It at length, however, fell into irredeemable decay; and, no doubt, justly, for every excess[256], whether of luxury or voluptuousness, could be found there. The indolence of the inhabitants was so great, that they boasted that they never saw the sun either rise or set. The greatest encouragement was liberally lavished on such as invented new pleasures; and, as a natural consequence, though the city enjoyed a long period of prosperity, not a single citizen’s name has been preserved to posterity, who is entitled to admiration, either for deeds of heroism, or the practice of milder virtues in private life.

There is, nevertheless, one anecdote recorded in their favour. Being enslaved by the Lucanians, and afterwards subjected to the Romans, they still retained a fond attachment to the manners of Greece; and are said to have displayed their partiality to their mother-country, in a manner that evinces both their taste and their feeling. Being compelled by the will of the conquerors, or by other circumstances, to adopt a foreign language and foreign manners, they were accustomed to assemble annually, on one of the great festivals of Greece, in order to revive the memory of their Grecian origin, to speak their primitive language, and to deplore, with tears and lamentations, their sad degradation. It would afford peculiar pleasure to discover some monument of a people of so much sensibility, and of such persevering patriotism.

Seventy days sufficed to destroy all their grandeur! Five hundred and seventy-two years before the Christian era, the Crotoniates, under the famous athlete Milo, as we have already related, defeated the Sybarites in a pitched battle, broke down the dams of the Crathis, and let the furious stream into the town, where it soon overturned and swept away every building of use and ornament. The inhabitants were massacred without mercy; and the few that escaped the slaughter, and attempted to restore their city, were cut to pieces by a colony of Athenians, who afterwards removed to some distance, and founded Thurium.

“Many ages, alas!” continues Mr. Swinburne, “have now revolved since man inhabited these plains in sufficient numbers to secure salubrity. The rivers have long rolled lawless over these low, desolated fields; leaving, as they shrink back to their beds, black pools and nauseous swamps, to poison the whole region, and drive mankind still farther from its ancient possessions. Nothing in reality remains of Sybaris, which once gave law to nations, and could muster even so large a force as 300,000 fighting men. Not one stone remains upon another[257]!”

NO. XXXVI.—SYENE.

This was a town in the Thebais, nearly under the tropic of Cancer; greatly celebrated for the first attempt to ascertain the measure of the circumference of the earth by Eratosthenes, who, about the year 276 A. C., was invited from Athens to Alexandria, by Ptolemy Evergetes.

Juvenal, the poet, was banished there, on the pretence of commanding a cohort, stationed in the neighbourhood.

Its principal antiquities are a small temple, supposed to be the remains of Eratosthenes’ observatory, the remains of a Roman bridge, and the ruins of the Saracen town. The latter includes the city wall, built of unburnt bricks, and defended by square towers, and several mosques with lofty minarets, and many large houses in a state of wonderful preservation, still entire, though resting on very frail foundations.

“Syene, which, under so many different masters,” says a celebrated French geographer, “has been the southern frontier of Egypt, presents in a greater degree than any other spot on the surface of the globe, that confused mixture of monuments, which, even in the destinies of the most potent monarchs, reminds us of human instability. Here the Pharaohs, and the Ptolemies, raised the temple, and the palaces which are found half buried under the drifting sand. Here are forts and villas built by the Romans and Arabians; and on the remains of all these buildings French inscriptions are found, attesting that the warriors, and the learned men of modern Europe, pitched their tents, and erected their observatories on this spot. But the eternal power of nature presents a still more magnificent spectacle. Here are the terraces of reddish granite, of a particular character, hence called syenite,—a term applied to those rocks, which differ from granite in containing particles of hornblende. These mighty terraces, are shaped into peaks, across the bed of the Nile, and over them the river rolls majestically its impetuous foaming waves. Here are the quarries from which the obelisks and colossal statues of the Egyptian temples were dug. An obelisk, partially formed and still remaining attached to the native rock, bears testimony to the labours and patient efforts of human art. On the polished surfaces of these rocks, hieroglyphic sculptures represent the Egyptian deities, together with the sacrifices and offerings of this nation; which, more than any other, has identified itself with the country which it inhabited, and has, in the most literal sense, engraved the records of its glory on the terrestrial globe”[258].

NO. XXXVII.—SYRACUSE.

“The fame of states, now no longer existing, lives,” says Mr. Swinburne, “in books or tradition; and we reverence their memory in proportion to the wisdom of their laws, the private virtues of their citizens, the policy and courage with which they defended their own dominions, or advanced their victorious standards into those of their enemies. Some nations have rendered their names illustrious, though their virtues and valour had but a very confined sphere to move in; while other commonwealths and monarchies have subdued worlds, and roamed over whole continents in search of glory and power. Syracuse must be numbered in the former class, and amongst the most distinguished of that class. In public and private wealth, magnificence of buildings, military renown, and excellence in all arts and sciences, it ranks higher than most nations of antiquity. The great names recorded in its annals still command our veneration; though the trophies of their victories, and the monuments of their skill, have long been swept away by the hand of time.”

Syracuse is a city, the history of which is so remarkably interesting to all those who love liberty, that we shall preface our account of its ruins by adopting some highly important remarks afforded us by that celebrated and amiable writer to whose learning and genius we have been so greatly indebted throughout the whole of this work:—(Rollin). “Syracuse,” says he, “appears like a theatre, on which many surprising scenes have been exhibited; or rather like a sea, sometimes calm and untroubled, but oftener violently agitated by winds and storms, always ready to overwhelm it entirely. We have seen, in no other republic, such sudden, frequent, violent, and various revolutions: sometimes enslaved by the most cruel tyrants; at others, under the government of the wisest kings: sometimes abandoned to the capricious will of a populace, without either government or restriction; sometimes perfectly docile and submissive to the authority of law and the empire of reason; it passed alternately from the most insupportable slavery to the most grateful liberty; from convulsions and frantic emotions, to a wise, peaceable, and regular conduct. To what are such opposite extremes and vicissitudes to be attributed? Undoubtedly, I think, the levity and inconstancy of the Syracusans, which was their distinguishing characteristic, had a great share in them; but what I am convinced conduced the most to them, was the very form of their government, compounded of the aristocratic and democratic; that is to say, divided between the senate or elders, and the people. As there was no counterpoise in Syracuse to support a right balance between those two bodies, when authority inclined either to the one side or the other, the government presently changed, either into a violent and cruel tyranny, or an unbridled liberty, without order or regulation. The sudden confusion, at such times, of all orders of the state, made the way to the sovereign power easy to the most ambitious of the citizens. To attract the affection of their country, and soften the yoke to their fellow-citizens, some exercised that power with lenity, wisdom, equity, and popular behaviour; and others, by nature less virtuously inclined, carried it to the last excess of the most absolute and cruel despotism, under pretext of supporting themselves against the attempts of their citizens, who, jealous of their liberty, thought every means for the recovery of it legitimate and laudable. There were, besides, other reasons that rendered the government of Syracuse difficult, and thereby made way for the frequent changes it underwent. That city did not forget the signal victories it had obtained against the formidable power of Africa, and that it had carried its victorious arms and terror even to the walls of Carthage. Besides which, riches, the natural effect of commerce, had rendered the Syracusans proud, haughty, and imperious, and at the same time had plunged them into a sloth and luxury, that inspired them with a disgust for all fatigue and application. They abandoned themselves blindly to their orators, who had acquired an absolute ascendant over them. In order to make them obey, it was necessary either to flatter or reproach them. They had naturally a fund of equity, humanity, and good nature; and yet, when influenced by the seditious discourses of the orators, they would proceed to excessive violence and cruelties, which they immediately after repented. When they were left to themselves, their liberty, which at that time knew no bounds, soon degenerated into caprice, fury, violence, and even frenzy. On the contrary, when they were subjected to the yoke, they became base, timorous, submissive, and creeping like slaves. With a small attention to the whole series of the history of the Syracusans, it may easily be perceived, as Galba afterwards said of the Romans, that they were equally incapable of bearing either entire liberty or entire servitude; so that the ability and policy of those, who governed them, consisted in keeping the people to a wise medium between those two extremes, by seeming to leave them an entire freedom in their resolutions, and reserving only to themselves the care of explaining the utility, and facilitating the execution, of good measures. And in this some of its magistrates and kings were wonderfully successful; under whose government the Syracusans always enjoyed peace and tranquillity, were obedient to their princes, and perfectly submissive to the laws. And this induces one to conclude, that the revolutions of Syracuse were less the effect of the people’s levity, than the fault of those that governed them, who had not the art of managing their passions, and engaging their affection, which is properly the science of kings, and of all who command others.”

Syracuse was founded about seven hundred and thirty-two years before the Christian era, by a Corinthian named Archias; one of the Heraclidæ.

The two first ages of its history are very obscure; it does not begin to be known till after the age of Gelon, and furnishes in the sequel many great events for the space of more than two hundred years. During all that time it exhibits a perpetual alternation of slavery under the tyrants, and liberty under a popular government, till Syracuse is at length subjected to the Romans, and makes part of their empire.

The Carthaginians, in concert with Xerxes, having attacked the Greeks who inhabited Sicily, whilst that prince was employed in making an irruption into Greece, Gelon, who had made himself master of Syracuse, obtained a celebrated victory over the Carthaginians, the very day of the battle of Thermopylæ.

Gelon, upon returning from his victory, repaired to the assembly without arms or guards, to give the people an account of his conduct. He was chosen king unanimously. He reigned five or six years, solely employed in the truly royal care of making his people happy.

Gelon is said to have been the first man who became more virtuous by being raised to a throne. He was eminent for honesty, truth, and sincerity; he never wronged the meanest of his subjects, and never promised a thing which he did not perform.

Hiero, the eldest of Gelon’s brothers, succeeded him. The beginning of his reign was worthy of great praise. Simonides and Pindar celebrated him in emulation of each other. The latter part of it, however, did not answer the former. He reigned eleven years.

Thrasybulus, his brother, succeeded him. He rendered himself odious to all his subjects, by his vices and cruelty. They expelled him the throne and city, after a reign of one year.

After his expulsion, Syracuse and all Sicily enjoyed their liberty for the space of almost sixty years.

During this interval, the Athenians, animated by the warm exhortations of Alcibiades, turned their arms against Syracuse; this was in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war. This event was fatal to the Athenians.

The reign of Dionysius the Elder is famous for its length of thirty-eight years, and still more for the extraordinary events with which it was attended.

Dionysius, son of the elder Dionysius, succeeded him. He contracted a particular intimacy with Plato, and had frequent conversations with him. He did not long improve from the wise precepts of that philosopher, but soon abandoned himself to all the vices and excesses which attend tyranny.

Besieged by Dion, he escaped from Sicily, and retired into Italy, where he was assassinated in his house by Callippus.

Thirteen months after the death of Dion, Hipparinus, brother of Dionysius the Younger, expelled Callippus, and established himself in Syracuse. During the two years of his reign, Sicily was agitated by great commotions.

Dionysius the Younger, taking advantage of these troubles, reascends the throne ten years after having quitted it. At last, reduced by Timoleon, he retires to Corinth. Here he preserved some semblance of his former tyranny, by turning schoolmaster, and exercising a discipline over boys, when he could no longer tyrannise over men. He had learning, and was once a scholar to Plato, whom he caused to come again into Sicily, notwithstanding the unworthy treatment he had met with from Dionysius’s father. Philip, king of Macedon, meeting him in the streets of Corinth, and asking him how he came to lose so considerable a principality as had been left him by his father, he answered, that his father had indeed left him the inheritance, but not the fortune which had preserved both himself and that; however, Fortune did him no great injury, in replacing him on the dunghill, from which she had raised his father.

Timoleon restored liberty to Syracuse. He passed the rest of his life there in a glorious retirement, beloved and honoured by all the citizens and strangers.

This interval of liberty was of no long duration. Agathocles, in a short time, makes himself tyrant of Syracuse. He commits unparalleled cruelties. He forms one of the boldest designs related in history, carries the war into Africa, makes himself master of the strongest places, and ravages the whole country. After various events, he perishes miserably, after a reign of about twenty-eight years[259].

Syracuse took new life again for some time, and tasted with joy the sweets of liberty. But she suffered much from the Carthaginians, who disturbed her tranquillity by continual wars. She called in Pyrrhus to her aid. The rapid success of his arms at first gave him great hopes, which soon vanished. Pyrrhus, by a sudden retreat, plunged the Syracusans into new misfortunes. They were not happy and in tranquillity till the reign of Hiero II., which was very long, and almost always pacific.

Hieronymus scarce reigned one year. His death was followed with great troubles, and the taking of Syracuse by Marcellus.

Of this celebrated siege, since it was the ruin of Syracuse, it is our duty to give some account.

“The Romans carrying on their attacks at two different places,
Syracuse was in great consternation, and apprehended that nothing
could oppose so terrible a power, and such mighty efforts; and it had
indeed been impossible to have resisted them, without the assistance
of a single man, whose wonderful industry was every thing to the
Syracusans—this was Archimedes. He had taken care to supply the walls
with all things necessary to a good defence. As soon as his machines
began to play on the land-side, they discharged upon the infantry all
sorts of darts, and stones of enormous weight, which flew with so
much noise, force, and rapidity, that nothing could oppose their
shock. They beat down and dashed to pieces all before them.

“Marcellus succeeded no better on the side of the sea. Archimedes had
disposed his machines in such a manner as to throw darts to any
distance. Though the enemy lay far from the city, he reached them
with his larger and more forcible balistæ and catapultæ. When they
overshot their mark, he had smaller, proportioned to the distance,
which put the Romans into such confusion as made them incapable of
attempting any thing.

“This was not the greatest danger. Archimedes had placed lofty and
strong machines behind the walls, which suddenly letting fall vast
beams, with an immense weight at the end of them, upon the ships,
sunk them to the bottom. Besides this, he caused an iron grapple to
be let out by a chain; the person who guided the machine having
caught hold of the head of a ship with this hook, by the means of a
weight let down within the walls, it was lifted up and set upon its
stern, and held so for some time; then, by letting go the chain
either by a wheel or a pulley, it was let fall again with its whole
weight either on its head or side, and often entirely sunk. At other
times the machines dragging the ship towards the shore by cords and
hooks, after having made it whirl about a great while, dashed it to
pieces against the points of the rocks which projected under the
walls, and thereby destroyed all within it. Galleys, frequently
seized and suspended in the air, were whirled about with rapidity,
exhibiting a dreadful sight to the spectators; after which they were
let fall into the sea, and sunk to the bottom, with all that were in
them.

“Marcellus, almost discouraged, and at a loss what to do, retired as
fast as possible with his galleys, and sent orders to his land forces
to do the same. He called also a council of war, in which it was
resolved the next day, before sunrise, to endeavour to approach the
walls. They were in hopes by this means to shelter themselves from
the machines, which, for want of a distance proportioned to their
force, would be rendered ineffectual.

“But Archimedes had provided against all contingencies. He had
prepared machines long before, as we have already observed, that
carried to all distances a proportionate quantity of darts, and ends
of beams, which being very short, required less time for preparing
them, and in consequence were more frequently discharged. He had
besides made small chasms or loop-holes in the walls at little
distances, where he had placed scorpions, which, not carrying far,
wounded those who approached, without being perceived but by that
effect.

“When the Romans, according to their design, had gained the foot of
the walls, and thought themselves well covered, they found themselves
exposed either to an infinity of darts, or overwhelmed with stones,
which fell directly upon their heads; there being no part of the wall
which did not continually pour that mortal hail upon them. This
obliged them to retire. But they were no sooner removed than a new
discharge of darts overtook them in their retreat; so that they lost
great numbers of men, and almost all their galleys were disabled or
beat to pieces, without being able to revenge their loss in the least
upon their enemies: for Archimedes had planted most of his machines
in security behind the walls; and the Romans, says Plutarch, repulsed
by an infinity of wounds, without seeing the place or hand from which
they came, seemed to fight in reality with the gods.

“Marcellus, though at a loss what to do, and not knowing how to
oppose the machines of Archimedes, could not, however, forbear
pleasantries upon them. ‘Shall we persist,’ said he to his workmen
and engineers, ‘in making war with this Briareus of a geometrician,
who treats my galleys and sambucæ so rudely? He infinitely exceeds
the fabled giants with their hundred hands, in his perpetual and
surprising discharges upon us.’ Marcellus had reason for referring to
Archimedes only; for the Syracusans were really no more than the
members of the engines and machines of that great geometrician, who
was himself the soul of all their powers and operations. All other
arms were unemployed; for the city at that time made use of none,
either defensive or offensive, but those of Archimedes.