Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 2 of 2)

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 talents246 of silver in ore and ingots; a sum equivalent, of our money, to 7,500,000l. 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 oil248. 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 miles250 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. Vincent251, 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 Valerian252, 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 vanity253. 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 Shuster254.

NO. XXXV. – SYBARIS

Dissolved in ease and soft delights they lie,Till every sun annoys, and every windHas 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. Sybaris255 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 excess256, 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 another257!”

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.”