Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2)

When the traveller approaches367 those vast monuments of human labour, the imagination seems to burst, as it were, the bands of ages, and the mind appears as if it had lived a thousand years. When the French were at Thebes, the whole army stopped among the ruins, and clapped their hands with delight: and when Buonaparte was about to engage the Mamelukes, who were advancing with loud cries, superbly accoutred, he called out to his army, "Behold! Yonder are the Pyramids; the most ancient of the works of men. From the summits of those monuments forty ages are now beholding us." The battle which ensued laid all Egypt at the feet of the French general.

We shall finish this account by selecting a passage from Rollin: – "Such were the famous Egyptian Pyramids, which, by their figure as well as size, have triumphed over the injuries of time and the barbarians. But what efforts soever men may make, their nothingness will always appear. These pyramids were tombs; and there is still to be seen in the middle of the largest, an empty sepulchre, cut out of one entire stone, about three feet deep and broad, and a little above six feet long368. Thus all this bustle, all this expense, and all the labours of so many thousand men, ended in procuring a prince, in this vast and almost boundless pile of building, a little vault six feet in length. Besides, the kings who built these pyramids had it not in their power to be buried in them, and so did not enjoy the sepulchre they had built. The public hatred which they incurred, by reason of their unheard-of cruelties to their subjects, in laying such heavy tasks upon them, occasioned their being interred in some obscure place, to prevent their bodies from being exposed to the fury and vengeance of the populace.

"This last circumstance, which historians have taken particular notice of, teaches us what judgment we ought to pass on these edifices, so much boasted of by the ancients. It is but just to remark and esteem the noble genius which the Egyptians had for architecture; a genius that prompted them from the earliest times, and before they could have any models to imitate, to aim in all things at the grand and magnificent, and to be intent on real beauties, without deviating in the least from a noble simplicity, in which the highest perfection of the art consists. But what idea ought we to form of those princes, who considered as something grand, the raising, by a multitude of hands and by the help of money, immense structures, with the sole view of rendering their names immortal, and who did not scruple to destroy thousands of their subjects to satisfy their vain-glory! They differed very much from the Romans, who sought to immortalise themselves by works of a magnificent kind, but, at the same time, of public utility.

"Pliny gives us, in few words, a just idea of these pyramids, when he calls them a foolish and useless ostentation of the wealth of the Egyptian kings —Regum pecuniæ otiosa ac stulta ostentatio, – and adds, that, by a just punishment, their memory is buried in oblivion."369

1

Plutarch; Diodorus; Rollin; Sandwich.

2

Pliny; Strabo; Plutarch; Diodorus; Wilkinson.

3

Simon; Count Fedor de Karacray; Malte-Brun.

4

"Ægina abounds," says Wheler, "with a sort of red-legged partridge, against which, by order of the Epitropi, or the chief magistrate of the town, all, both young and old, go out yearly, as the pigmies of old did against the cranes, to war with, and to break their eggs before they are hatched; otherwise, by their multitudes, they would so destroy and eat up the corn, that they would inevitably bring a famine every year upon the place."

5

Mr. C. R. Cockerell and Mr. John Foster; W. Linckh and Baron Haller.

6

Wheler; Chandler; Barthélemi; Sandwich; Lusieri; Clarke; Dodwell; Williams; Leake.

7

Rollin.

8

Livy, Cicero, Diodorus Siculus, Rollin, Brydone; Encyl. Lond., Brewster's Encyl.

9

Dionysius of Halicarnassus; – Sir W. Gell.

10

Jose Almana.

11

Browne.

12

Myos Hormos.

13

Four hundred and fifty talents of gold. See 2 Chron. viii. 18. This, we may suppose, was the gross sum received; not the profit.

14

A. M. 3685. Ant. J. C. 321. Diod. lib. xviii. p. 608, 610.

15

This author lived in the fifteenth century.

16

Earl of Sandwich.

17

Some have commended Ptolemy for permitting the architect to put his name in the inscription which was fixed on the tower, instead of his own. It was very short and plain, according to the manner of the ancients. Sostratus Cnidius Dexiphanis F. Diis Servatoribus pro navigantibus, i. e., "Sostratus the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of sea-faring people." But certainly Ptolemy must have very much undervalued that kind of immortality which princes are generally very fond of, to suffer that his name should not be so much as mentioned in the inscription of an edifice so capable of immortalising him. What we read in Lucian, concerning this matter, deprives Ptolemy of a modesty, which indeed would be very ill-placed here. This author informs us that Sostratus, seeing the king determined to engross the whole glory of that noble structure to himself, caused the inscription with his own name to be carved in the marble, which he afterwards covered with lime, and thereon put the king's name. The lime soon mouldered away: and by that means, instead of procuring the king the honour with which he had flattered himself, served only to discover to future ages his unjust and ridiculous vanity. – Rollin.

18

Savary.

19

Lib. xxii. c. 16.

20

See his observations on the supposed conflagration of the Alexandrian library, with a commentary on the 5th and 6th sections of the first chapter of the tenth book of Quintilian.

21

Rees.

22

Browne.

23

A very curious instance is afforded by Bruce, who wrote an account of Alexandria, and, literally, did not spend one entire day in the city. He was at sea on the morning of the 20th of June, 1768, previously to his landing in Alexandria, (see Bruce's Travels, v. i. p. 7,) and in the afternoon he left that city for Rosetta. – Clarke.

24

Browne.

25

After the English were in possession of Alexandria, a subscription was opened by the military and naval officers for the purpose of removing the prostrate obelisk to England. With the money so raised they purchased one of the vessels, sunk by the French in the old port of Alexandria: this was raised, and prepared for the reception of the obelisk. The French had already cleared away the heaps of rubbish which enveloped it, and the English turned it round, and found it in a fine state of preservation. It was moved towards the vessel, when an order arrived from the Admiralty, prohibiting the sailors from being employed at this work. No further attempts have been made to remove this fine monument to Europe. – Anon.

26

Wilkinson.

27

Sonnini.

28

He gives a full description of them. – Part iv. p. 285, 4to.

29

Sat. Mag.

30

Diodorus Siculus; Quintilian; Ammianus Marcellinus; Abulfaragius; Prideaux; Rollin; Shaw; Harris; Gibbon; Johnson; Drake; Savary; Sonnini; Sandwich; Rees; Miot; Clarke; Wilkinson; Browne; Parker; Knight.

31

Rollin; Sandwich.

32

A. M. 3604, A. C. 300.

33

Wheler; Pococke; Chandler; Rees; Sandwich; Porter; Kinneir; Buckingham; Carne; Robinson; Walpole.

34

Rollin.

35

Rollin.

36

Clarke.

37

The devastations of time and war have effaced the old city. The stranger in vain inquires for vestiges of its numerous edifices, the theatre, the gymnasium, the temples, and the monuments it once boasted, contending even with Athens in antiquity and in favours conferred by the gods. – Chandler.

38

See Tiryns.

39

Lib. vii.

40

The district of Argol is first received colonies, who introduced civilisation into Greece. It has been reckoned the cradle of the Greeks, the theatre of events, which distinguished their earliest annals, and the country which produced their first heroes and artists. It was accordingly in the temple of Juno at Argos where the Doric order first rose to a marked eminence, and became the model for the magnificent edifices afterwards erected in the other cities, states, and islands. – Civil Architecture.

41

Rollin; Rees; Clarke; La Martine.

42

Chardin; Cartwright; Ouseley.

43

Every nation had a great zeal for their gods. "Among us," says Cicero, "it is very common to see temples robbed, and statues carried off; but it was never known, that any person in Egypt ever abused a crocodile; for its inhabitants would have suffered the most extreme torments, rather than be guilty of such sacrilege." It was death for any person to kill one of these animals voluntarily.

44

Herodotus; Rollin; Savary; Belzoni; Rees.

45

Strabo; Rees; Porter

46

For the loves of Chosroes and Shirene, see D'Herbelot, and the Oriental collections.

47

Rees; Sir Robert Ker Porter.

48

Brewster.

49

The Attic stater was a gold coin weighing two drachms.

50

Brewster.

51

Dodwell.

52

Diogenes, and Hermias; Eulalicus, and Priscian; Damaschius; Isidore, and Simplicius.

53

Anon.

54

Hence Shakspeare, confounding dates, talks of Theseus, "Duke of Athens."

55

Quin's Voyage down the Danube.

56

Dodwell.

57

Hobhouse.

58

Dodwell.

59

Clarke.

60

Dodwell.

61

Clarke.

62

Hobhouse, p. 343.

63

Clarke.

64

Clarke.

65

The theatre of the ancients was divided into three principal parts; each of which had its peculiar appellation. The division for the actors was called in general the scene, or stage; that for the spectators was particularly termed the theatre, which must have been of vast extent, as at Athens it was capable of containing above thirty thousand persons; and the orchestra, which, amongst the Greeks, was the place assigned for the pantomimes and dancers, though at Rome it was appropriated to the senators and vestal virgins.

The theatre was of a semicircular form on one side, and square on the other. The space contained within the semicircle was allotted to the spectators, and had seats placed one above another to the top of the building. The square part, in the front of it, was the actors' division; and in the interval, between both, was the orchestra.

The great theatres had three rows of porticoes, raised one upon another, which formed the body of the edifice, and at the same time three different stories for the seats. From the highest of those porticoes the women saw the representation, covered from the weather. The rest of the theatre was uncovered, and all the business of the stage was performed in the open air.

66

Boindin; Rollin.

67

Plutarch, in his inquiry whether the Athenians were more eminent in the arts of war or in the arts of peace, severely censures their insatiable fondness for diversions. He asserts, that the money, idly thrown away upon the representation of the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides alone, amounted to a much greater sum than had been expended in all their wars against the Persians, in defence of their liberty and common safety. That judicious philosopher and historian, to the eternal infamy of the Athenians, records a severe but sensible reflection of a Lacedæmonian, who happened to be present at these diversions. The generous Spartan, trained up in a state where public virtue still continued to be the object of public applause, could not behold the ridiculous assiduity of the Choragi, or magistrates who presided at the public shows, and the immense sums which they lavished in the decorations of a new tragedy, without indignation. He therefore frankly told the Athenians, that they were highly criminal in wasting so much time, and giving that serious attention to trifles, which ought to be dedicated to the affairs of the public. That it was still more criminal to throw away upon such baubles as the decorations of a theatre, that money which ought to be applied to the equipment of their fleet, or the support of their army. That diversions ought to be treated merely as diversions, and might serve to relax the mind at our idle hours, or when over a bottle; if any kind of utility could arise from such trifling pleasures. But to see the Athenians make the duty, they owed to their country, give way to their passion for the entertainments of the theatre, and to waste unprofitably that Footnote: time and money upon such frivolous diversions, which ought to be appropriated to the affairs and the necessities of the state, appeared to him to be the height of infatuation." – Montague.

68

He bequeathed to every Athenian a sum nearly equivalent to 3l. of our money.

69

The funeral of Herodes Atticus must have afforded one of the most affecting solemnities of which history makes mention. He was seventy-six years old when he died; and in the instructions which he left for his interment, he desired to be buried at Marathon, where he was born; but the Athenians insisted upon possessing his remains; and they caused the youth of their city to bear him to the Stadium Panathenaicum, which he had built; all the people accompanying, and pouring forth lamentations as for a deceased parent. – Clarke.

70

Clarke.

71

Dodwell.

72

Sandwich.

73

Clarke.

74

Lord Sandwich.

75

Sandwich.

76

Hobhouse.

77

Wheler.

78

Dodwell.

79

Clarke.

80

Clarke.

81

Dodwell.

82

Dodwell.

83

Idem.

84

Rollin.

85

"It is generally supposed," continues Mr. Williams, "the marble temples are white; but, with the exception of the temple of Minerva at Cape Colonna, (which is built of Parian marble,) this is not the case. The marble of Pentelicus, with which all the temples at Athens were built, throws out an oxide of iron of the richest yellow, and this certainly makes them infinitely more picturesque than if they were purely white."

86

"The two principal statues among the Elgin marbles are those of Theseus, the Athenian hero, and a recumbent figure, supposed to be the river-god Ilissus (numbered in the Synopsis 93 and 99). They are executed in a style of extraordinary breadth and grandeur. Theseus is represented half reclined on a rock, covered with the skin of a lion, and appears to be resting after some mighty labour. The figure of the Ilissus is less robust: all his contours flow in lines of undulating elegance. But in both these statues, that which chiefly strikes us, in spite of the dilapidations which they have suffered, is the vitality which seems to pervade them. In these, not only the office and appearance of the muscles, whether in action or at rest, but the bearings of the skeleton, are expressed with an accuracy which could only have resulted from the most profound science, added to an acute and perpetual observation of nature. The statue of the Ilissus is especially remarkable for its graceful flexibility; and we would observe, without going too technically into the subject, how different is the indentation, formed by the lower line of the ribs in this figure, so admirably expressing its position, from that geometrical arch by which this part of the body is designated in the ordinary antique statues, and which is so rarely accommodated to the action represented. The principle, pointed out in this instance, may be traced throughout the Elgin marbles, in which true art is never superseded by conventional style. We believe that in the opinion of the majority of connoisseurs, the statue of Theseus is considered superior to that of the Ilissus. Canova, however, preferred the latter; and Raffaelle, who imported designs from Greece, has adapted this figure to that of the fallen Commander, in his picture of Heliodorus. It is well known that the Ilissus was a small stream which ran along the south side of the plain of Athens. The statue in which it is here personified occupied the left angle of the west pediment of the Parthenon, and that of Theseus was placed opposite to it on the east pediment next to the horses of Hyperion."

87

Herodotus; Thucydides; Pliny, the younger; Plutarch; Pausanias; Wheler; Rollin; Chandler; Stuart; Barthelemy; Sandwich; Montague; Brewster; Rees; Byron; Dodwell; Clarke; Hobhouse; Eustace; Quin; Williams; De la Martine.

88

Gen. c. x. v. 10.

89

Gen. xi. v. 4. – "The schemes that men of coarse imaginations have raised from a single expression in the Bible, and sometimes from a supposition of a fact no where to be found, are astonishing. If you believe the Hebrew doctors, the language of men, which, till the building of Babel, had been one, was divided into seventy languages. But of the miraculous division of the languages there is not one word in the Bible." – "Dissertation on the Origin of languages," by Dr. Gregory Sharpe, 2nd Ed. p. 24.

90

The greatest cities of Europe give but a faint idea of the grandeur which all historians unanimously ascribe to the famous city of Babylon. – Dutens.

91

"It is conceivable," says an elegant writer on civil architecture, "that walls of the height of the London monument might have, during the long existence of a great empire, been raised to protect so great a city as Nineveh; but it requires a much greater stretch of thought to conceive them, as in the case of Babylon, to be raised to a height equal to that of the cross which terminates the dome or cupola of St. Paul's cathedral in London. Yet, when we recollect that Nebuchadnezzar was intoxicated with conquest, in possession of unbounded power and riches, and ambitious of erecting a metropolis for all Asia, upon a scale which should surpass every city the world had seen, we shall hesitate in condemning as improbable even the descriptions of Herodotus."

92

It must be confessed, indeed, that in the comparison of ancient and modern measures, nothing certain has been concluded. According to vulgar computation, a cubit is a foot and a half; and thus the ancients also reckoned it; but then we are not certainly agreed about the length of their foot. – Montfaucon.

The doubt expressed by Montfaucon appears unnecessary; these measures being taken from the proportions of the human body, are more permanent than any other. The foot of a moderately-sized man, and the cubit – (that is, the space from the end of the fingers to the elbow), have always been twelve and eighteen inches respectively. – Beloe.

93

Thus, saith the Lord, to his anointed, to Cyrus, I will go before thee; I will break in pieces the gates of brass. – Isaiah.

94

The original Erythræan, or Red Sea, was that part of the Indian ocean, which forms the peninsula of Arabia; the Persian and Arabian gulfs being branches of it. – Beloe.

95

It is necessary to bear in mind, that the temples of the ancients were altogether different from our churches. A large space was inclosed by walls, in which were courts, a grove, pieces of water, apartments sometimes for the priests; and, lastly, the temple, properly so called, and where, most frequently, it was permitted the priests alone to enter. The whole inclosure was named τὸ ἱερόν: the temple, properly so called, or the residence of the deity, was called ναός (naos) or the cell. – Harvey.

96

The streets crossed each other, and the city was cut into six hundred and seventy-six squares, each of which was four furlongs and a half on every side; viz., two miles and a quarter in circumference.

97

Porter.

98

Anon.

99

This is said to have been done at the building of old London Bridge.

100

These canals having been suffered to decay, the water of the river is much greater now than formerly.

101

Herodotus. Megathenes says seventy-five feet. "We relate the wonders of Babylon," says Rollin, "as they are delivered down to us by the ancients; but there are some of them which are scarce to be comprehended or believed; of which number is the lake. I mean in respect to its vast extent."

102

Vol. xlviii. 199.

103

The reviewer then goes on to say: – "By way of comparing this with a work of modern times, we may notice, that the Bristol ship canal, one of the late projects, was intended to have been eighty miles long, one hundred feet wide, and thirty feet deep; and the estimated cost was four millions sterling. To be sure, labour was cheaper at Babylon than in London, and well it might be; for if the Babylonian lake were to be made now in England, it would cost the trifling sum of four thousand two hundred and twenty-one millions sterling!"

104

The reader will naturally be reminded of the tunnel now constructing under the Thames; a much more difficult and extensive undertaking.

105

Going in and out, we should suppose, with every angle. Should any one do this with a rule at St. Paul's Cathedral, it is probable he might compass a mile.

106

The largest pyramid is 110 feet higher than St. Paul's, with a base occupying about the same area as Lincoln's Inn Fields.

107

The advantageous situation of Babylon, which was built upon a wide, extended, flat country, where no mountains bounded the prospect; the constant clearness and serenity of the air in that country, so favourable to the free contemplation of the heavens; perhaps, also, the extraordinary height of the tower of Babel, which seems to have been intended for an observatory; all these circumstances were strong motives to engage this people to a more nice observation of the various motions of the heavenly bodies, and the regular course of the stars. – Rollin.

108

Diodorus states, that in his time many monuments still remained with inscriptions upon them.

109

Val. Max. ix. c. 3.

110

A statue was erected in memory of this action, representing her in that very attitude, and the undress, which had not prevented her from flying to her duty.

111

Daniel, c. iv.

112

Diodorus; Prideaux.