Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2)

The bishop was a fine old man with hair and beard of silver, a grave and benevolent cast of features, and a sweet and well-modulated voice. He was the perfect image of a priest of poetry or romance, says the traveller; and his aspect, which denoted peace, resignation, and charity, was well suited to the scene of ruins and meditation in which he lived.

The traveller afterwards describes a delightful scene. He and his friends were sitting by moonlight near the bishop's hut. "We were silent. Suddenly a soft plaintive strain, a slow modulated murmur stole through the grotesque ogives of the ruined wall of the bishop's house. This vague and confused sound swelled higher and higher, until we distinguished it to be a chant from the united voices of choristers; a monotonous, melancholy strain, which rose, fell, and died away, and was alternately revived and re-echoed. This was the evening prayer, which the Arab bishop was chanting with his little flock, in the skeleton of that which once had been his church; viz., a heap of ruins piled up by a heap of idolaters. We were totally unprepared for music of this sort, where every note was, in fact, a sentiment or a sign from the human breast. How little did we expect it in this solitude, in the bosom of the desert, issuing, as it were, from mute stones, strewed about by the combined influence of earthquakes, barbarous ignorance, and time! A hallowed emotion inspired us, and we joined with religious fervour in the sacred hymn, until the last sighs of the pious voices had died away, and silence again reigned over the venerable ruins."

We conclude with the words which Seller in his history of Palmyra adopts from Cicero: "Whenever we see such remains of venerable antiquity, such lasting records of the names and achievements of great persons, we are admonished to take care so to regulate our actions, that we may convince the world we have settled our prospect upon the rewards of future ages, and not on the flatteries of the present; and so remember, that monuments being erected to the memory of those who have lived well in this world before they left it, put us in mind, that there is nothing here permanent and immutable; and that it is the duty of considering man to aspire towards immortality148."

NO. XIX. – BYZANTIUM

"On which side soever," says an elegant traveller, "you approach Constantinople, whether ascending by the Dardanelles and the sea of Marmora, or descending from the Black Sea by the Bosphorus; whether you arrive by crossing the plain of Thrace, or come in sight from the opposite hills of Asia, she presents herself, indeed, like 'the queen of cities.'"

The history of this city being that of an empire, we shall confine ourselves to a few particulars, and then pass on to give some account of its monumental antiquities. We do this the more readily, since those antiquities are far from being of the first order.

According to Ammianus, Byzantium was founded by the Athenians; according to Justin, by the Lacedæmonians; according to Paterculus, by the Milesians; according to others, by a colony of Megara, under the conduct of Byzas, 658 B. C.

Byzantium received a great accession of inhabitants in consequence of a decree passed, in gratitude to the Athenians, for having compelled Philip of Macedon to raise the siege of their city149.

In subsequent times Constantine the Great (from whom it was called Constantinople), seeing its proud situation, created it into a capital jointly with Rome; from which time the Roman empire was distinguished by the titles Eastern and Western. In this position it stood, till the city was sacked by the Turks under the guidance of Mahomet the Second.

The manner in which the Turks first gained a footing in Europe is thus described in Bucke's Harmonies of Nature: – "Orcan having made himself master of the shore skirting the sea that separated Asia from Europe, his son Solyman resolved, if possible, to gain the castle of Hanni (Sestos), then considered the key of Europe: but the Turks had neither pilot, ships, nor boats. Solyman stood meditating on the beach, one fine moonlight night, for some time. He had come thither with about eighty followers on a hunting expedition. Beholding the towers of Hanni rising over the opposite shore, he resolved to secure them for his father and himself. He communicated his thoughts to his followers. Wondering at his resolution, they regarded him as frantic. He persisted; – and they made three rafts fastened on corks and bladders of oxen. When the party had finished their task, they committed themselves to the waters; and with poles instead of oars, succeeded in gaining the opposite shore: the moon shining brilliantly as they stepped off the rafts, almost immediately under the walls of Hanni. As they marched along the beach, they met a peasant going to his work, it being now morning. This man hated his prince; and being bribed by a sum of money, he told Solyman of a subterranean passage leading into the castle. The little band availed themselves of this information, and quietly entered the walls. There was no regular garrison, and the few inhabitants were still asleep. They fell an easy prey, therefore, to the adventurers. Having thus gained the first object of their enterprise, they assembled the pilots and vessel-owners of the town; and, offering them considerable sums of money, induced them to steer their vessels to the opposite shore. Some thousand men were then embarked, and in a few hours they were wafted under the castle walls. This was the first landing of the Turks in Europe: they ever after kept possession of this castle: ninety-six years after, they sacked the city of Constantinople."

Mahomet II.150, surnamed "the Great," was born at Adrianople in the year 1430, and was, in the thirteenth year of his age, called to the throne by the voluntary abdication of his father, Amurath II. On his accession, Mahomet renewed the peace with the Greek emperor Constantine, to whom he, at the same time, agreed to pay a pension for the expenses and safe custody of his uncle Orcan, who had, at a previous period, withdrawn to the court of Constantinople for safety. The carelessness of the sultan in the observance of this clause of the treaty excited the complaints of the emperor, with the imprudent threat that, unless the pension was regularly paid, he would no longer detain Orcan. This threat afforded the sultan a pretext for rekindling the war. Mahomet determined to complete the conquest of the feeble empire by the capture of Constantinople; and to terminate, by one terrible catastrophe, the strife of many ages between the Moslems and the Greeks. Every preliminary measure having been completed, Mahomet at length appeared before Constantinople, on the 2d of April, 1453, at the head of three hundred thousand men; supported by a formidable artillery, and by a fleet of three hundred and twenty sail, mostly store-ships and transports; but including eighteen galleys of war, while the besieged could not muster more than ten thousand effective soldiers for the defence. This vast disparity of force leaves little room for admiring the prowess and military skill of the victorious party. The besieged made, however, so obstinate a defence, under the brave emperor, Constantine Palæologus, that for fifty-three days all the efforts of the assailants were unavailing. The defenders of the city had drawn strong iron chains across the entrance of the port; and Mahomet saw, that unless he could get some of his vessels into the Golden Horn, his success was doubtful, and that, at best, the defence might be greatly protracted. He, therefore, contrived to conduct a part of his fleet, for ten miles, over the land on a sort of railway, from the Bosphorus into the harbour, and caused a floating battery to be constructed and occupied with cannon. This sealed the fate of the imperial city.

On the day of the last assault, Mahomet said to his soldiers: – "I reserve to myself only the city; the gold and women are yours." The emperor (Constantine) accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier. The nobles, who fought around his person, sustained, till their last breath, the honourable names of Palæologus and Cantacuzene. His mournful exclamation was heard – "Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?" and his last fear was, lest he should fall alive into the hands of his enemies. He threw away his imperial dress, rushed into the thickest of the fight, fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain: nor was it afterwards recognised.

The houses and convents were deserted; and the trembling inhabitants flocked together in the streets, like a herd of timid animals. From every part of the city they rushed into the church of St. Sophia. In the space of an hour the sanctuary, the choir, the nave, the upper and lower galleries, were filled with the multitude of fathers and husbands, of women and children, of priests, monks, and religious virgins; the doors were barred on the inside, and they sought protection from the sacred dome, which they had so lately abhorred as a profaned and polluted edifice.

The doors were, soon after, broken with axes; and the Turks encountering no resistance, their bloodless hands were employed in selecting and securing the multitude of their prisoners. Youth, beauty, and the appearance of youth, attracted their choice. In the space of an hour, the male captives were bound with cords, the females with their veils and girdles. The senators were linked with their slaves; the prelates with the porters of their church; and young men of a plebeian class with noble maids, whose faces had been invisible to the sun and their nearest kindred.

In this common captivity the ranks of society were confounded; the ties of nature were cut asunder; and the inexorable soldier was careless of the father's groan, the tears of the mother, and the lamentations of the children. The loudest in their wailings were the nuns, who were torn from the altars with naked bosoms, outstretched hands, and dishevelled hair. At a similar hour, a similar rapine was exercised in all the churches and monasteries; in all the palaces and habitations of the capital. The male captives were bound with cords, and the females with their veils and girdles, and driven, to the number of sixty thousand, from the city to the camp or fleet, where those, who could not obtain the means of purchasing their ransom, were exchanged, or sold, according to the caprice or interest of their masters.

The disorder and rapine lasted till the sultan entered in triumph through the gate of St. Romanus. He was attended by his vizirs, his bashaws, and guards. As he rode along, he gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange, though splendid, appearance of the domes and palaces, so dissimilar to the style of oriental architecture. He proceeded to the church of St. Sophia; where, observing a soldier in the act of breaking up the marble pavement, he admonished him with his scymetar, that if the spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and private buildings had been reserved for the prince.

From St. Sophia he proceeded to the august, but desolate, mansion of a hundred successors of the first Constantine; but which, in a few hours, had been stripped of the pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself upon his mind, and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry: – "The spider has wove his web in the imperial palace; and the owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers of Afrasiel151."

"The finest point from which Constantinople can be viewed," says M. de La Martine, "is from a belvidere, built by M. Truqui, on the terrace roof of his house. This belvidere commands the entire group of the hills of Pere-Galata, and the little hillocks which surround the port on the front side of the water. It is the eagle's flight over Constantinople and the sea. Europe, Asia, the entrance of the Bosphorus, and the sea of Marmora, are all under the eye at once. The city lies at the feet of the spectator. If (continues Mons. de La Martine) we were allowed to take only one point of the earth, this would be the one to choose. Whenever I ascend to the belvidere to enjoy this view (and I do so several times a day, and invariably every evening), I cannot conceive how, of the many travellers who have visited Constantinople, so few have felt the beauty which it presents to my eye and to my mind. Why has no one described it? Is it because words have neither space, horizon, nor colours, and that painting is only the language of the eye? But painting itself has never portrayed all that is here. The pictures, I have seen, are merely detached scenes, consisting of a few lines and colours without life: none convey any idea of the innumerable gradations of tint, varying with every change of the atmosphere, and every passing hour. The harmonious whole, and the colossal grandeur of these lines; the movements and the intertwinings of the different horizons; the moving sails, scattered over the three seas; the murmur of the busy population on the shores; the reports of the cannon on board the vessels, the flags waving from the mast-heads; the floating caiques; the vaporous reflection of domes, mosques, steeples, and minarets in the sea; all this has never been described;" – nor ever can be!

The whole circuit of Constantinople, however, calculated at somewhat more than twelve miles, present, even to diligent research152, very few remains of antiquity. The truth is, the Turks have availed themselves of the marbles and fragments of the Greeks in the construction of their own public edifices; and the antiquities of Constantinople are re-produced to the eye under entirely different forms and constructions, in the mosques and minarets, the fountains and cemeteries of the Osmandys. Many a beautiful work, of the ancient Greek chisel, has thus been embedded in a wall, or cut down and defaced to make a Turkish tombstone; and many an edifice, constructed in accordance with the pure styles of architecture, has been levelled and used as a quarry. But still, it must be confessed that some of the Turkish buildings, and more particularly some of the imperial mosques which have risen in their places, are distinguished by grandeur and beauty. Of these imperial mosques there are fourteen, each lofty, and magnificent in its general dimensions, and built from base to dome with excellent and enduring materials; chiefly of white marble, tinged with grey. Besides these, there are sixty ordinary mosques, varying in size and beauty, but all considerable edifices; and then two hundred and more inferior mosques and messdgids153.

The walls of Byzantium154 were built of large square stones, so joined as, apparently, to form one single block. They were much loftier on the land side than towards the water, being naturally defended by the waves, and in some places by the rocks they are built on, which project into the sea.

They were of Cyclopian structure155; and of the workmanship, from what Herodian has said of them, the masonry was greatly superior to any of the workmanship now visible in the fortifications. It was surrounded by a wall, made of such immense quadrangular masses of stone, and so skilfully adjusted, that the marvellous masonry, instead of disclosing to view the separate parts of which it consisted, seemed like one entire mass. "The very ruins," says Herodian, "show the wonderful skill, not only of the persons who built it, but of those, also, by whom it was dismantled."

The wall of Theodosius begins at the castle of Seven Towers, whence it traverses the whole western side of the city. This is the only part of the general wall of the city worth seeing. It is flanked into a double row of mural towers, and defended by a fosse about eight yards wide. The same promiscuous mixture of the works of ancient art – columns, inscriptions, bas-reliefs, &c. – seen in the walls of all the Greek cities, is here remarkably conspicuous. But the ivy-mantled towers, and the great height of this wall, added to its crumbling ruinous state, give it a picturesque appearance, exhibited by no other city in the Levant: it resembles a series of old ruined castles extending for five miles from sea to sea156.

Of the eighteen gates, which once existed on the west side of the city, only seven now remain. The site of the two temples erected by Justinian, as safeguards of the city, may still be ascertained by their vestiges; but these have almost disappeared.

The walls, which are well built, are still standing, and consist of stone terraces from fifty to sixty feet high, and occasionally from fifteen to twenty feet thick, covered with freestone of a greyish-white colour; but sometimes of pure white, and seeming fresh from the chisel of the mason. At the feet of the walls are the ancient fosses filled with rubbish and luxuriant loam, in which trees and pellitories have taken root ages ago, and now form an impenetrable glacis. The summit of the wall is almost everywhere crowned with vegetation, which overhangs and forms a sort of coping, surmounted by capital and volute of climbing plants and ivy. These walls are so noble, that La Martine says that, next to the Parthenon and Balbec, they are the noblest existing memorials of ruined empires.

"There is nothing either grand or beautiful in the remains of the brazen column, consisting of the bodies of three serpents twisted spirally together. It is about twelve feet in height, and being hollow, the Turks have filled it with broken tiles, stones, and other relics. But in the circumstances of its history, no critique of ancient times can be more interesting. For it once supported the golden tripod at Delphi, which the Greeks, after the battle of Platæa, found in camp of Mardonius157."

Near the Valide is a column of porphyry158, generally supposed to have supported the statue of Constantine. It is composed of eight pieces, surrounded by as many wreaths or garlands of the same marble. Not long since it gained the name of Colonna Brugiata, or burned pillar, having been very much defaced by the many conflagrations to which this vast city has been subject.

Near Mesmer-Kiosch159 is a view of the summit of the Corinthian pillar of white marble, fifty feet high, in the gardens of the seraglio, with the inscription —

FORTUNÆ REDUCI OB DEVICTOS GOTHOS

This has been erroneously supposed the column of Theodora. Pococke mentions that it was taken from some other part of the town to the seraglio gardens. It is supported by a handsome capital of verd antique.

This building160, the mosque of St. Sophia (formerly of much larger extent), owes its foundation to the emperor Justinian, who lived also to see it finished, A. D. 557. It was dedicated by him to the wisdom of God. This fabric is entirely Gothic.

"In the time of Procopius161 its dome might have seemed suspended by a chain from heaven; but at present it exhibits much more of a subterranean than of an aerial character. The approach to the Pantheon at Rome, as well as to the spacious aisle and dome of St. Peter's, is by ascending; but in order to get beneath the dome of St. Sophia, the spectator is conducted down a flight of stairs. * * * The more we saw of the city, the more we had reason to be convinced that it remains as it was from its conquest by the Turks. The interior of St. Sophia manifestly proves the indisposition of the Turks towards the decoration of the buildings they found. * * * There is so much of littleness and bad taste in the patchwork of its interior decorations, and of confusion in the piles and buttresses about it, when viewed externally, that we hardly considered it more worth visiting than some other mosques, especially those of sultan Solyman and sultan Achmet."

This is one of the largest edifices ever built for the purpose of Christian worship; but though built by Constantine, it is evident, from the barbarous style of art which pervades the mass of stone, that it is the production of a vitiated and declining age. It is a confused memorial of a taste which no longer exists. "In its present state," says La Martine, "St. Sophia resembles an immense caravansary of God; for there are the columns of the temple of Ephesus and the figures of the apostles, encircled with gilded glories, looking down upon the hanging lamps of the Iman."

In the mosques, called Osmanic, are pillars of Egyptian granite, twenty-two feet high and three feet in diameter; and near it is the celebrated sarcophagus of red porphyry, called the Tomb of Constantine, nine feet long, seven feet wide, and five feet thick, of one entire mass. In the mosque of sultan Achmet are columns of verde antico, Egyptian granite, and white marble. Several antique vases of glass and earthenware are also there suspended, exactly as they were in the temples of the ancients with the votive offerings.

Near the mosque of sultan Achmet162, which is one of the finest buildings in Constantinople, stands the Hippodrome, called by the Turks Etmeidon, which is no other than a translation of the ancient name; it being made use of at present for exercising cavalry.

It is a space of ground five hundred and seventy-four yards in length, and one hundred and twenty-four in breadth, and at one end are two obelisks, the one of granite fifty-eight feet high, on which are inscribed many Egyptian hieroglyphics. The pedestal is adorned with bas-relievos of but ordinary sculpture, representing different actions of the emperor Theodosius in relation to the races that were performed in the Hippodrome. In one place, particularly, he is to be seen crowning a figure who is supposed to be the person that had carried off the prize.

The other obelisk is composed of several pieces of stone, and seems, by many cavities between the stones, to have been covered with brass plates; which, together with its height, must have rendered it superior to the former in magnificence. Between these obelisks is the Delphic pillar.

The aqueduct of the Roman emperors still remains163. It was first erected by Hadrian: it was called by his name; subsequently it bore that of Valens, and of Theodosius. Being ruined by the Avans in the reign of Heraclius, it was repaired by one of the Constantines. In a later period Solyman, called the Magnificent, finding it gone to decay, caused it to be restored. It consists of a double line of arches, built with alternate layers of stone and brick.

Within the walls of Constantinople164 the Greek emperors had formed, by excavation, a number of immense cisterns, or reservoirs, which were always to be kept full, and which might supply the capital in case of siege. One of them, though no longer performing the office for which it was intended, is still one of the curiosities of Constantinople, to which all travellers are conducted. It is a vast subterranean edifice, whose roof is supported by an immense number of columns, each column being curiously formed of three pillars placed one on the top of the other. The Turks call it the place of the "thousand and one columns" – not that the columns are really so numerous – but because it is the favourite number of the oriental nations. Though the earth has, in part, filled it up, it is still of great depth.

The whole cavity, according to Dr. Walsh, is capable of containing 1,237,939 cubit feet of water when full. It is now, however, dry; and a number of silk-twisters have taken possession of it, and ply their trade at the bottom in almost utter darkness. There is another, also, which still exists as a cistern; which Dr. Walsh, who first gave us any account of it, describes as being a subterraneous lake, extending under several streets, with an arched roof that covers and conceals it, supported on three hundred and thirty-six magnificent pillars.

Some remains of a large antique structure are seen on the side of the Hippodrome; and it has been conjectured that this was the palace of the emperors; others suppose it to have been part of the Basilica, the form of which Gyllius believes to have been quadrangular; in opposition to those who had described it as an octagon. The Basilica was a college for the instruction of youth. In the reign of Basilicus there happened a great fire, and which consuming whole streets, with many stately edifices, wholly destroyed the Basilica, together with its library, containing six hundred thousand volumes. Amongst these curiosities there was a MS. of the Iliad and Odyssey, written in letters of gold; upon a serpents gut, one hundred and twenty feet in length.

Wheler says that the Seven Towers do not look strong enough for a castle; but sufficiently so for a prison; which was the employment to which it was put for great men, or great malefactors, like the Tower of London. He was not permitted to enter into it; but he observed that one of the gateways was adorned with bassi-relievi, or oblong tablets of white marble. One of these represented the fall of Phaeton; another Hercules fighting with a bull; another Hercules combating with Cerberus; and another, Venus coming to Adonis during the time in which he is sleeping.