Ancient history from the monuments: Greek cities & islands of Asia Minor

Phocæa—Smyrna—Clazomenæ—Erythræ—Teos—Colophon—Ephesus—Mr. Wood—Miletus—Branchidæ or Didyma—Sacred Way—Mr. Newton—Thyateira—Magnesia ad Sipylum—Philadelphia—Tralles—Sardes—Halicarnassus—Mausoleum—Cnidus—Demeter—Lion-Tomb—Mr. Pullan—Physcus—Caunus—Stratonicea—Aphrodisias—Mylasa and Labranda.

Phocæa—the most northern of the Ionian cities—founded by emigrants from Phocis, under two Athenian chiefs, soon, from the excellence of its harbour, secured a prominent place among the early maritime states of the world, and was the first to establish colonies on the Adriatic, the coasts of Etruria, Gaul, and Spain. It is reported that Arganthonius, then king of Tartessus (probably Tarshish), did all he could to persuade these enterprising strangers to stay in his land; and that, failing this, he gave them large sums of money to build (or rebuild) the walls of their native town. Phocæa is often mentioned subsequently, though it does not appear to have performed any very memorable actions. It may be traced by its coins, and by the annalists and ecclesiastical writers to the latest period of the Byzantine empire. Indeed, so late as A.D. 1421, the Genoese built a new town near its ancient site, which still retains the name of Palaio-Phoggia.

A little further to the S. we come to Smyrna, one of the most celebrated cities of Asia Minor, though it was comparatively late in attaining this eminence. It was situated on a bay of unrivalled beauty and commercial excellence; and, almost alone of the great cities or ports of Western Asia has preserved its eminence to the present day, being now, as it has long been, the chief emporium of the Levant trade. In remote times, Smyrna successfully resisted the attacks of Gyges, king of Lydia, and was, in consequence, taken and destroyed by his successor, Alyattes. It is said, that, after this blow, it was nearly deserted for 400 years, but was, at length, rebuilt by Antigonus and Lysimachus, though not exactly on the same site. With this rebuilding its great prosperity commenced. Nor were the claims to distinction advanced by itself inferior to its real greatness. Inscriptions abound (some of the best, indeed, among the marbles at Oxford), where, as on its coins, it calls itself ΠΡΩΤΗ ΑCΙΑC, the “first city of Asia”; and so, indeed, it long continued, though at times suffering severely from civil wars and earthquakes, and most of all from the merciless treatment of Tímúr. Smyrna claimed, especially, to be the birthplace of Homer, and dedicated a temple to him. A cave was also shown there, in which the poet was said to have composed his verses (Pausan. Ach. 5). Smyrna is not, however, mentioned by Homer. In the reign of Tiberius, Smyrna contended with ten other cities for the honour (?) of erecting a temple to that worthless ruler, and won the prize; and here, not many years later, the Christian Church flourished under Polycarp, its first bishop, who is believed to have suffered martyrdom in its stadium about A.D. 166.

Next to Smyrna we may take Clazomenæ, a town whose date is probably not earlier than the Ionic migration. It was famous as the birthplace of Anaxagoras, the philosopher, whose disciple Archelaus taught Socrates and Euripides; and, also, as one of the states which joined with the Phocæans in founding the naval colony of Naucratis in Egypt (Herod. ii. 178). It retained its name and existence till late in the Byzantine period (Plin. v. 31; Ptol.; Hierocl. Synecd.), but, towards the middle of the eleventh century, was finally destroyed by the Turks.

Erythræ, celebrated as the home of one if not of two Sibyls—and a town whose life is traceable by coins and inscriptions to a late period of the Roman empire, and, from the acts of Councils and other ecclesiastical documents, was manifestly for some time an episcopal see. Its land produced good wine [being called in a distich preserved by Athenæus φερεστάφυλος Ἐρύθρα (Erythra yielding bunches of grapes)],^[18] and fine wheaten flour:—Teos (now Sighajik), the birthplace of Anacreon and of Hecatæus the historian; famous, too, for its temple, dedicated to Bacchus, some remains of which have been published by the Society of Dilettanti, and, recently, more fully examined by Mr. Pullan:—Colophon, an early Ionian settlement, once the possessor of a flourishing navy, and of cavalry reputed victorious wherever employed;^[19] and illustrious for its poets, Mimnermus, Phœnix, and Hermesianax, and, possibly even Homer; till at length it was destroyed by Lysimachus:—Priene, the birthplace of the philosopher and statesman Bias, and still identifiable by considerable ruins near the Turkish village of Samsoun, to the S. of Mycale, with a famous Temple of Minerva Polias, the ruins of which have been engraved in the “Ionian Antiquities.” In Chandler’s time, about 100 years ago, the whole circuit of the city walls was still standing.

But of the cities of W. Asia, no one took a higher place than Ephesus; though not one of the most ancient, or noticed by Homer. Pliny ascribes its origin to the Amazons; and Strabo gives an excellent account of its site, the chief feature of which was a celebrated port called Panormus, with the temple of Diana, one of the Seven Wonders of the world, at a little distance without the city walls. The worship of this Diana (of Asiatic origin, and symbolized by her peculiar statue) was earlier than the planting of the Ionian colony by Androcles, as has been reasonably suspected, on a hill called Coressus, the lower ground (ultimately the chief part of the city) having been only gradually built over. After its first colonization we hear nothing of Ephesus till the time of Crœsus, who is said to have failed to take the town, owing to a device of a certain Pindarus, who attached the city to the temple by a rope, thus making the intervening space sacred, or an asylum. On this the story goes, that Crœsus, of all princes then ruling, a lover of the gods, spared, indeed, the city, but showed his common sense by changing its constitution and banishing Pindarus. It further appears that Crœsus dedicated golden bulls at Ephesus, and helped largely in the construction of the first temple dedicated there. The temple we now know was about 1,400 yards from the city, a fact, apparently, not anticipated by the first modern investigators of its site.

The inhabitants of Ephesus, as a rule, were time-servers, and ready to court the support of whosoever for the time being were their most powerful neighbours. Thus, at first, they joined the Ionian revolt; then, on the overthrow of Xerxes, were for a while tributary to Athens; and then, again, after the victories of Lysander, permitted their city to be the head-quarters of the Spartan operations against Asia Minor; though he could not, however, persuade the people to change the name of their city to that of his wife Arsinoe. After the overthrow of Antiochus, Ephesus was added by the Romans to the kingdom of Pergamus.

Again, when Mithradates was all-powerful, we find the people of Ephesus, to please him, joining in a general massacre of the Romans in their town; indeed, going to such lengths as not to respect the asylum of their own temple; the natural result being a severe punishment of this fickle population on the ultimate success of the Romans. On an inscription, however, recently discovered, we believe, by Mr. Wood, but now at Oxford, the people assert that they had been compelled to act against their will, and that they were none the less, at heart, the devoted friends of the Romans. As a place of commercial importance, Ephesus did not survive the first three centuries of the Roman empire, as the city was sacked by the Goths in A.D. 262, and its famous temple burnt, an event of which some traces have been detected during the recent excavations on its site. In later days it passed into the hands of the Seljuks and Turks, and a great mosque was built there by Selim I. on the rising ground overlooking the port. The long occupation of the site of Ephesus by a mixed population is attested by the discovery there by Mr. Wood of a hoard of coins, belonging chiefly to the Western States of Europe, and struck during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Among these are some of the Christian subjects of Saro-khan, an emir of Magnesia in the fourteenth century.^[20] It is believed that the present name of its site, Aiosoluk, is a corruption of Hagios Theologos (St. John), the name borne by Ephesus during the Middle Ages.

The chief glory of Ephesus was its temple. According to the most ancient reports, there had been in remote times one, at least, of the grandest proportions which Herodotus claims, with that of Juno at Samos, as among the greatest works of the Greeks. Its architect is said to have been contemporary with Theodorus and Rhœcus, the builders of the Samian Heræum, early in the sixth century B.C.; and Xenophon, especially, notices it, as he deposited there the share entrusted to him of the tenth, arising from sale of the slaves of the Ten Thousand at Cerasus, which was appropriated to Apollo and Artemis.^[21] We have here an instance of a custom noticed elsewhere,—viz., that the great temples of the Hellenic world were often used as banks of deposit, where treasure was collected, not merely in the form of anathemata or dedicated objects, but, also, in large quantities of bullion, &c., in trust. Many inscriptions in Boeckh show clearly that the administrators of the temples employed these treasures as loans. Artemis was, in fact, a queen, whose dower was the wealth accumulated in her temple. As is well known, the original (or the second temple of Artemis, for this point is not clear) was burnt by Herostratus, in B.C. 356, traditionally, on the same night on which Alexander the Great was born, but it was soon rebuilt. It would take a whole book, says Pliny, to describe all its details, and it is admitted to have been the largest temple of antiquity.

Among other valuables, the temple contained the famous picture by Apelles of Alexander, while the circuit round it was an asylum where debtors and worse rogues could screen themselves from justice, an evil which, as an inscription recently found there shows, Augustus found it needful to restrain within reasonable limits. Ephesus, too, was the usual port where the Roman proconsuls landed, on their way to their several provinces. Thus, Cicero came to Ephesus when going to his government in Cilicia. So, too, Metellus Scipio put in there before Pharsalia, and M. Antonius after Philippi. There, too, also, was collected the fleet of Antony and Cleopatra before the fatal day of Actium.^[22]

But the most interesting matter to us in connection with Ephesus have been Mr. Wood’s excavations there, with his discovery not only of many unexpected monuments of the ancient town, but of undoubted relics of the famous temple itself. Mr. Wood, as the constructing engineer of the Smyrna and Aidin Railway, had naturally become well acquainted with the neighbourhood of Ephesus, and, hence, so early as 1863, had made, at his own expense, some excavations, clearing out thereby the Odeum, and ascertaining the true position of the Magnesian and Coressian gates. In these researches, he met with several valuable inscriptions, one of them referring to a certain Roman, Publius Vedius Antoninus, who was at the time the γραμματεὺς—the Scribe or Town-clerk—of the city.^[23] By degrees the position of the Theatre, the scene of the tumult at the time of St. Paul’s visit, was clearly made out; but where was the Temple? In the prosecution of his excavations Mr. Wood had, however, met with many decrees of the people of Ephesus relating to the Temple,—one of them containing much curious information about the ritual used in the Temple-worship, with lists of the votive offerings, to be carried on certain days in procession “through the Magnesian Gate to the Great Theatre, and thence back again through the Coressian Gate to the Temple.” Among the list of statues are several of Diana, probably, such as those which “Demetrius and his craftsmen” manufactured in the days of St. Paul.

At length, in April, 1869, Mr. Wood came upon some massive walls, which were proved to have been those of the courtyard in which the Temple had once stood, by an inscription in Greek and Latin, stating that Augustus had rebuilt them; and, finally, in 1870, a marble pavement was lighted on, at the depth of nineteen feet below the alluvial soil of the present plain, together with drums of columns, quite six feet high, one base being still attached to its plinth. The site of the Temple of Diana had been reached, and its style was, at once, seen to have been similar to that of the Temple of Athene Polias at Priene, and of Apollo at Branchidæ. It is scarcely possible to speak too highly of Mr. Wood’s tact and sagacity. Thus, considering the accounts of ancient authors too vague as guides for excavation, his first diggings were essentially tentative, and with the view of meeting with some illustrative inscriptions. In the Great Theatre he was more likely to find them than anywhere else, and here, indeed, he discovered six large stones, originally from the cella of the Temple, and each bearing various decrees. Indeed, by the most important of these, to which we have already alluded, the real clue was afforded as to its whereabouts. The of finding this inscription confirmed Mr. Wood’s original idea of feeling his way to the Temple from one of the city gates, the result being the discovery of two roads,—one of them leading round the mountain Prion or Pion, the other towards the town of Magnesia. He wisely determined to trace the one which showed the greatest amount of wear or use, assuming that if either of them led to the Temple it would be the most used one. In the one round Mount Prion he found four distinct ruts, deeply cut in its pavement of huge blocks of marble, while the other road was worn scarcely at all. He then devoted all his energy, to use his own words, “in exploring the road round Mount Pion,^[24] which eventually led to the Temple.”

In this way, the peribolus, or courtyard wall of the Temple, was soon reached, and, not long after, as before stated, the drums of several of the columns were exhumed, lying in a confused mass as they had fallen, sixteen or seventeen centuries ago. The largest and best preserved of these drums, of which a sketch is given as the frontispiece for this volume, was found on February 3rd, 1871; it is somewhat more than 6 feet high and 18½ feet in circumference, and weighs 11¼ tons. From the figures carved on it, one of which represents Mercury, it may be fairly presumed that it was one of the thirty-six “columnæ cælatæ” recorded by Pliny. Mr. Wood states that though this splendid building was not only destroyed by earthquakes and the malice of man, all the stones, moreover, having been carried away that could be used for building purposes, enough still remained to enable him to draw out on paper an accurate plan of its original shape and contour. He adds that, in the course of his excavations, he “discovered the remains of three distinct temples, the last but two, the last but one, and the last. The former must have been that built 500 B.C., for which the solid foundations described by Pliny and Vitruvius were laid.... Between 5 and 6 feet below the pavement and under the foundations of the walls of the cella, I found the layer of charcoal, 4 inches thick, described by Pliny. This was laid between two layers of a composition about 3 inches thick, similar to, and of the consistency of, glazier’s putty.”

In conclusion, we may add that Mr. Wood found abundant instances of the use of colour, chiefly vermilion and blue, and one specimen of gold inserted, as a fillet; together with several pieces of friezes much shattered, but, evidently, of the same size and artistic character as the reliefs on the drum. The reliefs themselves do not exhibit any great artistic merit, though they fairly represent the characteristic style of the Macedonian period: their general effect must, however, have been very rich and gorgeous, and quite in character with what we know of rich and luxurious Ephesus. We have not, at present, any evidence that the columns, as well as the drums, were covered with sculpture. Mr. Wood, we believe, thinks they were, but a medallion in the Bibliothèque at Paris, which gives the front of the Temple, rather suggests the contrary.

Passing on from Ephesus we come to the scarcely less celebrated city of Miletus, the parent, according to Pliny, of more than 80 colonies.^[25] Situated at the mouth and, on the left bank, of the Mæander, Miletus more strictly belongs to Caria; but it was, also, one of the most conspicuous members of the Ionian confederacy. It is believed that it was originally founded by a colony from Crete, under the leadership of Sarpedon, the brother of Minos; an idea, in some degree, confirmed by a notice in Homer (Il. ii. 867). Herodotus (ix. 97) only mentions Sarpedon’s establishing himself in Lycia. The advantageous position of the town, with a harbour capable of holding a large fleet, naturally gave it, from the earliest times, the lead in maritime affairs. Its most important colonies were Abydus, Lampsacus, and Parium on the Hellespont; Proconnesus and Cyzicus on the Propontis; Sinope and Amisus on the Euxine; with several more on the coast of Thrace and Tauris, and on the Borysthenes. The period, however, of Miletus’s chief power was comprised between its Ionian colonization and its conquest by the Persians in 494 B.C. After that period, it did not maintain the same lead among the seaports of the Asiatic Greeks; indeed, during the time of its greatest fame, peace was practically unknown among its people, who were constantly distracted by factions aristocratic or democratic.

As was natural, the kings of Lydia made many attempts to possess themselves of Miletus. In the reign of Alyattes, however, the Lydian and Milesian quarrel was, for the time, made up, the Lydian king having been supposed to have incurred the wrath of the gods, as his troops had burnt a temple dedicated to Minerva at Assessos. Some of the rulers of the town were men of historic note, especially Thrasybulus, the friend of the Corinthian Periander. Somewhat later, the Milesians made a treaty with Crœsus, and, what was of more importance to them, secured its maintenance by Cyrus; hence, their town was spared much of the misery inflicted on the other Ionian states in the first war with the Persians (Herod. i. 141, 143). But if Miletus had been previously fortunate, this good luck deserted her during the great Græco-Persian war; nor could she indeed complain, as the chief promoter of this rebellion was her “tyrannus” Histiæus. As will be remembered, it was mainly through Histiæus and his kinsman Aristagoras, that Ionia revolted against the Persians; and, further, that, to the instigations of the latter, was due the needless burning of the great western capital of the Persians, Sardes. An immediate attack on Miletus by the Persian satraps was the natural reply to this treachery; and the city was eventually taken by storm, with all the horrors consequent thereon.^[26] It may be doubted, whether after this fall, Miletus ever again recovered her former glory.

Subsequently, Miletus made many spasmodic efforts to regain her freedom, but with little avail, though it still existed till the decline of the Byzantine empire—its Church being under the direction of bishops who ranked as Metropolitans of Caria (Hierocl.).^[27] A pestilential swamp now covers the birthplace of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.^[28]

In the neighbourhood of Miletus stood, at Branchidæ or Didyma, the famous temple of Apollo Didymæus, the site, we feel pleased to say, of one of Mr. Newton’s most valuable researches. It was known in Greek history from the remotest times, as the site of a shrine and of an oracle second only in sanctity and importance to that of Delphi; as the spot where Pharaoh Necho dedicated the armour he had worn when he took the city of Cadytis (Herod, ii. 159), and as a place which received from Crœsus, before his war with Cyrus, golden offerings equal in weight to those he gave to Delphi. It was plundered and burnt by Darius I., and, a second time, by Xerxes, its sacred family of priests having been, on this occasion, swept off to Sogdiana by the conqueror; but it revived again, in renewed splendour, towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, when rebuilt on a scale so vast that, according to Strabo, it could not be roofed over: it was memorable, especially, too, for a succession of oracles ascending to a period before the commencement of history, yet not wholly extinct even so late as the days of Julian. It was reasonable to expect that such a place would retain some relics of its past greatness, and of its pre-eminence among the sacred shrines of antiquity. Indeed, many travellers, before Mr. Newton, had spoken of the ruins of the Temple and of the Sacred Way leading to it, and, from the notices in Wheler (1685), Gell, Leake, the “Ionian Antiquities,” and Hamilton, much valuable information may be gathered.

It was left to Mr. Newton to complete what had been indeed, hardly done at all before, and to secure for England the most important sculptures still in situ. The Temple of Apollo Didymæus^[29] was originally approached from the sea by a “Sacred Way,” on each side of which had once been a row of seated statues, sepulchral sori, tombs, &c. Along this “Way” Mr. Newton discovered eight seated statues, generally about 4 feet 6 inches high, by 2 feet 9 inches broad and deep; the character of their workmanship being, at the first glance, strikingly Egyptian, at least in this respect, that their drapery, extending from the shoulders to the feet, consists of one closely-fitting garment (chitōn), and of a light shawl (peplos). One only of the figures retains its head, the sculptured treatment of it being that usually recognized as the most archaic Greek, in that the hair is arranged in long parallel tresses, as in the earliest coins of Syracuse. With two exceptions, all these statues belong to the same period of art. Mr. Newton says, it is evident that no one of them occupied, when he discovered them, exactly its original position, and that they must, at some time or other, have been thrown down and partially removed—an opinion confirmed by a somewhat later discovery of about eighty feet of the original paving of the “Sacred Way,” together with some bases, not improbably those on which these statues had been originally placed. The “Sacred Way” can still be traced for about 580 yards.

In a wall extending along it are, here and there, masses of polygonal masonry, with individual stones of immense size, the remains, probably, of an original Hellenic wall. At a short distance from the last of the seated statues, Mr. Newton met with two remarkable monuments—a colossal lion and a female sphinx—both, unfortunately, much injured. The sphinx was completely buried under the earth, and had nothing in its form to recommend it, but the lion had, on its side, a very ancient inscription, which the barbarous Greeks of the neighbourhood had done all they could to obliterate. The important question is, to what period are these works to be assigned? Now, of direct evidence we have none; for, though history speaks of the two temples at this spot, we have no record of the statues themselves; the probability being that they were damaged nearly as much as at present before Herodotus visited the spot, and, probably, by the Persians. Yet, in spite of the silence of history, we have some indirect evidence from the monuments themselves; enough, at least, to determine their age within tolerably accurate limits. In the first place, we have the character of their art, which is, unquestionably, very archaic; secondly, on three of the chairs are inscriptions in the oldest Greek character; on the most important one written boustrophedon (i.e. backwards and forwards, as an ox ploughs); thirdly, a long inscription on the recumbent lion, and another, quite as old, on a detached block, the base, possibly, of a statue now lost. In order that the nature of the characters used may be comprehended, we annex a woodcut of the legend on one of the chairs of the seated figures, the translation of which is, “I am Chares, son of Clesis, ruler of Teichaoessa, a [dedicatory] monument of Apollo.”^[30] On the block found near the chair, the inscription states that “the sons of Anaximander have [dedicated a statue?] of Andromachus,” and that “Terpsicles made it”: while that, on the side of the lion,—the most curious of them all,—declares that “the sons of Python, Archelaos, Thales, Pasikles, Hegesander, and Lysias, have dedicated the offerings, as a tenth, to Apollo.” Some years since, a still more perfect seated figure was in existence, on the chair of which was an inscription copied by Sir W. Gell and Mr. Cockerell, and published by Boeckh and Rose.^[31]

We cannot discuss here the character of the inscriptions quoted above, but all palæographers admit that the writing belongs to the earliest Greek period, not improbably anterior to the year B.C. 520. It may be still earlier, as, on the lion inscription, we find the name of Hegesander and another name, which, though the first letter has met with an injury, we agree with Mr. Newton in thinking, must be read as Thales, while, on the detached block, we have that of Anaximander. Now it is certainly remarkable that on two adjoining stones, found close to the most sacred temple of the Milesians, the names of two of the most celebrated philosophers of that town should occur. If, then, these be really the names of those philosophers, they may be supposed to have joined with other citizens of Miletus in dedicating the figure of the lion, and of the object (whether statue or otherwise) once attached to the second inscription; and, if so, the dates of these works would be between B.C. 470 and B.C. 560. Anaximander was born about B.C. 610, and Hegesander was probably the father of Hecatæus, who was himself born about B.C. 520.

It is worthy of remark that, unlike so many other early Greek works, these sculptures exhibit no trace of an Asiatic or Assyrian origin. The only style they recall is that of Egypt, while the only Assyrian monument they resemble is the semi-Egyptian seated figure brought by Mr. Layard from Kalah Sherghat. Mr. Newton has justly pointed out that the resemblance to Egyptian work “is seen not only in the great breadth of the shoulders, but also in the modelling of the limbs, in which the forms of the bones and muscles are indicated with far greater refinement and judgment than at first sight seems to be the case ... the subdued treatment of the anatomy contributes to the general breadth and repose for which these figures are so remarkable, and suggests the idea that they were executed by artists who had studied in Egypt.” We know that the Greeks were intimately connected with Psammetichus I., Amasis, and Neco; while the tombs at Cameirus, in Rhodes, have yielded works almost certainly imitated from Egyptian prototypes by early Greek artists. We have, too, the statement of Diodorus, that Theodorus of Samos and his brother Telecles of Ephesus, the sons of Rhoecus, derived the canon of their sculptures from Egypt. The general character, however, of the ornamentation, the mæander-pattern, and the lotos and borders on the garments of the seated figures, agreeing, as these do, with the same patterns on early Greek vases, tend to show that their actual artists were Greeks. Thus, too, the archaic statue of Athene in the Acropolis at Athens is essentially Greek, and not Egyptian. Pliny has further noticed that two Cretan sculptors, Dipænos and Scyllis, were the first artists (about B.C. 580) of note, as workers in marble: it is, therefore, quite conceivable that they may have been the actual artists of these monuments.

We shall now say a few words of Thyateira, Magnesia ad Sipylum, Philadelphia, and Tralles with some rather fuller remarks on the celebrated city, Sardes, the capital of Lydia.

Thyateira was a place of considerable importance, and probably of early origin, but of no great rank among the surrounding towns till the time of the Macedonians; its best known name, according to Steph. Byzant., being due to Seleucus Nicator. To us, its chief interest is its connection with early Christianity, as the home of “Lydia the seller of purple” (Acts xvi. 14), and as one of the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse. There are still, according to Sir Charles Fellows, remains of a considerable city; and it is also, under the name of Ak-Hissar, a flourishing commercial town. Close to the Lake Gygæa, not far from Sardes, was the sepulchral mound of Alyattes, considered by Herodotus one of the wonders of Lydia. This remarkable tumulus, which is about 280 yards in diameter, has been recently excavated by M. Spiegenthal, who discovered in its centre a sepulchral chamber of highly polished marble blocks, and of about the same size as that of the tomb of Cyrus. Such tumuli are common in Asia Minor; indeed, round the same lake, are three or four more, probably, as Strabo has suggested, the tombs of other early Lydian kings. Sir Gardner Wilkinson has pointed out that their structure—a stone basement with a mound of earth above—resembles the constructed tombs of Etruria.

The Lydian Magnesia—usually called “Ad Sipylum,” to distinguish it from the Magnesia of Ionia—was the scene of the great victory gained by the two Scipios in B.C. 190, over Antiochus the Great though aided by the Gauls, which handed over Western Asia to the Romans. Hence, in the Mithradatic war, the Magnesians stood firmly by Rome. A coin of this place has on it the head of Cicero, and is interesting as the only portrait (good or bad) we have of that great orator. In legendary history, Mount Sipylus, which overhangs Magnesia on the S., was famous as the residence of Tantalus and Niobe; and here, too, was a town of the same name as the mountain, said to have been converted into a lake by volcanic action^[32] (Paus.). Homer alludes to the mountain in speaking of Niobe’s transformation (Il. xxiv. 614), as do also Sophocles (Antig. v. 822), and Ovid (Metam. vi. 310). The story of the weeping Niobe was probably an optical illusion (Paus. Attic. c. 21), and, curiously, the origin of it has been clearly shown by Chandler, who says, “The phantom of Niobe may be defined as an effect of a certain portion of light and shade on a part of Sipylus, perceivable at a particular point of view. The traveller, who shall visit Magnesia after this information, is requested to observe carefully a steep and remarkable cliff, about a mile from the town; varying his distance, while the sun and shade, which come gradually on, pass over it, I have reason to believe he will see Niobe” (Travels, p. 331). The magnetic influence on the compass is confirmed by Arundell, but the name “Magnet” has been derived from other towns of the same name.

Philadelphia, named from Attalus Philadelphus, suffered more than any other Lydian town from earthquakes, so that, after that in the reign of Tiberius it was well-nigh deserted. It continued, however, to hold its own for many years, and is memorable for the long and gallant resistance it made to the Turks. It submitted, at length, in A.D. 1390, to Bayazíd, and is still a place of some size under its new name of Allah-Shehr. Philadelphia is noticed in the Revelations (iii. 7) as one of the Seven Churches. A story long prevailed of a wall made of bones of the citizens slain by Bayazíd; and Rycaut remarks, that “these bones are so entire that I brought a piece thereof with me from thence.” Chandler, however, found a simple solution for this wonder in a petrifying stream, like that at Laodicea. “This,” says he, “encrusted some vegetable substances which have perished, and left behind, as it were, their moulds.” Gibbon particularly notices the gallantry of the Philadelphians:—“At a distance,” says he, “from the sea, forgotten by the Emperor, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years, and, at length, capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans in 1390. Among the Greek colonies and Churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect, a column in a scene of ruins.”

Tralles, in the time of Strabo, was one of the most flourishing cities of Asia Minor; indeed, situated as it was, on the high road from Ephesus through Lydia and Phrygia, it could hardly have failed to be a place of great traffic (Cic. Ep. ad Att. v. 14; Artemid. ap. Strab. xiv. p. 663). Hence its citizens were generally selected to fill the expensive offices of Asiarchs, or Presidents of the games celebrated in the province. Though abundant ruins may be seen over the whole site of the ancient city, they have been so shattered by earthquakes as to be now scarcely recognizable.

We come now to Sardes, by far the most important city of Lydia. The date of its foundation has not been recorded, but it must have early been a place of note, as Herodotus states that it was plundered by the Cimmerians, though they could not capture its citadel.^[33] Its real importance, however, evidently began when it became the capital of the Lydian monarchs, men whose unusual wealth has been fully attested by Herodotus, who had himself seen the gifts of Crœsus in the treasury at Delphi. The story of the mode whereby the citadel of Sardes was taken by Cyrus is most likely true; indeed is, in some degree, confirmed by a later capture, under circumstances not unsimilar, by Lagoras, a general of Antiochus the Great (Polyb. vii. 4-7).

Under the reign of Crœsus, Sardes was unquestionably a great and flourishing city, the resort of men of learning and ability, who were, Herodotus tells us, attracted thither by the fame and hospitality of the king (i. 29): on the success of Cyrus, it was simply transferred from the native dynasty of rulers to the conquering Persians, becoming thus, not only the capital of Persian Asia Minor, but the occasional residence of the monarch himself. Thus Xerxes spent the winter there when preparing his unwise invasion of Greece (Herod. vii. 32-37); and here, too, Cyrus the Younger collected the army so easily crushed on the fatal day of Cunaxa. Xenophon remarks that the beauty of its gardens excited the admiration of even the Spartan Lysander, who was amused by the tale that Cyrus himself had often played there the part of gardener (Œcon. p. 880; cf. Cic. de Senect. c. 17). The town itself seems to have consisted chiefly of thatched houses, and so was easily burnt by the Ionians in their revolt. The burning of Sardes was felt by the Persian monarch to be a gross insult, the more so that his rule had been notoriously mild and equitable. Sardes made no resistance to Alexander the Great; hence, its people were permitted by that monarch to retain their ancient laws and customs (Arrian, i. 17). During the wars of the Seleucidæ it was, at different times, subject to the prevailing ruler of that house, and, hence, passed over to the Romans after the defeat of Antiochus at Magnesia.^[34] Colonel Leake has given, in his Asia Minor, some interesting notes by Mr. Cockerell on the antiquities of this town, with a special account of the famous temple of Cybele, or the Earth, which stood on the banks of the Pactolus, and of which three great columns were then standing.^[35] This temple was burnt by the Ionians in B.C. 503, and never completely reconstructed.^[36] Most interesting to the Christian are the remains of two churches, one supposed to be that of the Church of the Panagia, and another, in front of it, said to be that of St. John. The former is almost wholly constructed of magnificent fragments of earlier edifices, and is, perhaps, as Colonel Leake thought, “the only one of the Seven churches of which there are any distinguishable remains.” Bearing in mind, too, St. Paul’s residence for three years in the neighbouring town of Ephesus, we must suppose the capital of Lydia was included in the declaration of St. Luke that “all they which dwelt in Asia (i.e. Roman Proconsular Asia) heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts xix. 10; compare also 1 Cor. xvi. 19, and Rev. iii. 1-5). In later days, more than one Council was held here. Indeed, this famous city may be traced through a long period of Byzantine history (Eunap. p. 154; Hierocl. p. 669). The emperor Julian made Chrysanthius, of Sardes, pontiff of Lydia; but his attempt to restore the heathen worship was a failure. About A.D. 400 it was plundered by the Goths under Tribigild and Cainas, officers in Roman pay; in the eleventh century it was seized by the Turks, and, two centuries later, nearly destroyed by Tímúr. A miserable village, called Sart, now occupies its site; and so completely has it passed away, that we might inquire with Horace, “Quid Crœsi regia Sardes?” if we may not quite add the commencement of the following line, “Smyrna quid?” (Horat. Epist. I. i. 2). No remains of its ancient grandeur now exist, and the “princes” of Lydia, her wise men, her captains, and “her rulers and her mighty men” have long been asleep in the innumerable tumuli spread over all the level country around.