Paphlagonia is chiefly famous for the vast forests that clothed the southern and more hilly portions of its territory, and for its vast herds of horses, mules, &c. (the former of which are noticed so early as Homer (Il. ii. 281 and 852)). Its only two towns of any note were Amastris, in the days of Pliny the Younger a handsome place, with squares and many public buildings,—and Sinope; both towns, certainly, of remote antiquity, the latter, indeed, attributed by some to the Argonauts, and by others to the Amazons. In the days of Xenophon, Sinope was a rich and flourishing city; and then, and for a long time, subsequently, the navy of Sinope was highly distinguished among those of the other maritime cities of Greece. Sinope was also famous, like Byzantium, for the fishery of the pelamys or tunny-fish; deriving, also, much of its subsequent wealth from the fact, that it was selected by the kings of Pontus as their royal residence. Lucullus first, and Cæsar, subsequently, in the wars with Mithradates and Pharnaces, respectively, treated the people with much kindness, and left to them most of the works of sculpture with which their town had been embellished by the Pontic monarchs. Sinope is mentioned as a flourishing place in the times of Strabo, Trajan, and Arrian, nor did it decay, till every other place, in like manner and for the same reasons, decayed on the advent of the barbarians from Central Asia, under the hoofs of whose horses, as the proverb says, no grass ever grows again.

Bithynia, the last province of Asia Minor to which we shall have to call attention, was, as we have remarked before in the case of Mysia, in its population, largely of Thracian origin. Subsequently to Cyrus the younger, it was ruled by a series of native kings, the last of whom, Nicomedes II., bequeathed his country to the Romans. Many of these rulers were men of tried valour; thus one defeated a general of Alexander the Great; and another crushed the invading Gauls. Pliny the Younger, in his letters, gives an interesting account of the spread of Christianity in this province, at the same time showing that his stern and hardy master, Trajan, was less inclined to act severely against them than his literary and philosophic lieutenant. The towns of Bithynia to which we propose to call attention, are Prusa, Nicæa, and Nicomedia.

Prusa, generally distinguished by the epithet ad Olympum, more clearly to mark its site, is said to have been built by Hannibal (Plin. v. 2), but was, probably, much older, though Chrysostom, a native of the town, does not claim for it any high antiquity (Orat. xliii. p. 585). It continued to flourish under the Roman Empire (Plin. Epist. x. 35), and was, also, for a while, a leading place under the Greek Empire; indeed, it is still, under the modified name of Broussa, one of the chief cities of Turkish Anatolia. Its name will, doubtless, be fresh in the memory of many of our readers as the long home of the gallant Abd-el-Kader, and of more than one of the Hungarian leaders whom the treachery of Georgey compelled to abandon their native country. The grand Olympus which overhangs Broussa was generally termed the Mysian, to distinguish it from the Olympus of Thessaly. Near it was the town of Hadriani (now Edrenos), the coins of which bear the inscription ΑΔΡΙΑΝΕΩΝ ΠΡΟC ΟΛΥΜΠΙΟΝ.

Nicæa, so named after his wife by Lysimachus, was the real capital of Bithynia, and, for a long time, one of the most important towns of Western Asia. Pliny the Younger, as governor of the province, undertook to restore it, and, during the later Byzantine period it was constantly taken and retaken by the Greeks and Turks, respectively. Leake and other travellers show that there are abundant remains of this famous old town, now called Isnik; not that, under the Turks, it is, or ever could have become, a great city. In Ecclesiastical story, Nicæa will ever be memorable as the site where assembled, in A.D. 325, the grand body of bishops, so well known as the Council of Nice, to condemn the Arian heresy. Our own Church is believed to owe to it its most valuable “Nicene” Creed. Coins of Nicæa abound even as late as the time of Gallienus.

Nicomedeia, as the name implies, the chief residence of the Bithynian kings of the name of Nicomedes, was a large and flourishing city, and, as may be gathered from the letters of Pliny to Trajan, long continued so; indeed, in later times, when occupied with the Parthian or other Eastern wars, it was a convenient and constant residence for the Roman emperors (Niceph. Callist. vii.). We have a curious account of the ruin done to this city by an earthquake in one of the strange orations of Julian’s friend, the orator Libanius, entitled μονωδία ἐπὶ Νικομηδείᾳ, in which he mourns the loss of its public baths, temples, gymnasia, &c.: some of these were, however, subsequently restored by Justinian (Procop. Ædif. v. 1). The historian Arrian was born here, and Constantine the Great died at his villa Ancyron, hard by.

Having said so much on the subject of the leading Greek cities of Asia Minor, or rather of some of them, we shall notice, but as briefly as possible, the principal islands adjacent to its shores; and as the space at our disposal compels us to contract our narrative within the closest limits, we shall refer only to Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Rhodus, and Cyprus. Crete, as a matter of fact, is generally attached, geographically, to the continent of Greece, but, in any case, would require a volume to itself that adequate justice should be done to its ancient and modern story.

Lesbos, which lay off the coast of Mysia, indeed, about seven miles from Assos, was celebrated in ancient times for its high cultivation of poetry and music, and for the many men of literary eminence it produced. To Lesbos we owe Terpander and Arion of Methymna, Alcæus, and Sappho; and Pittacus, Theophrastus, and Cratippus were also born there. More than one passage in Homer, and especially Il. xx. 544, and Odyss. iv. 342, show that many of the towns in the island had large populations, even in remote times, and owned, also, a considerable extent of territory on the mainland opposite. Lesbos displayed a personal love for freedom, which contrasted well with their kinsmen on the continent; for, though crushed, for a while, by Polycrates of Samos, and submitting, perhaps, wisely, to Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, the Lesbians were among the most active seconders of the revolt of Aristagoras, suffering severely in the end, as did Chios and Tenedos, when the Persians won the day. So, too, at Salamis, they stoutly supported the Greek cause. Their subsequent history was that of most of the islands in the Ægæan. Sometimes they were for, perhaps more often against, Athens; paying often dearly enough for their love of freedom; and being, in the end, chiefly under Athens, which, while strenuously advocating the so-called sacred cause of freedom, took good care to divide their lands among her own citizens. In later days, they struggled against Roman aggrandisement, but, of course, in vain. The Romans, however, do not seem to have treated the island with severity, and, as late as Commodus, we have a coin reading ΚΟΙΝΟΝ Λεσβίων, which implies some amount of self-government. We may mention, incidentally, that, at Lesbos, Julius Cæsar received a civic crown for saving the life of a soldier (Livy, Epit. 87; Sueton. c. 2); that, in A.D. 802, Irene, the Byzantine empress, here ended her strange life; and, that four centuries later, John Palæologus gave Lesbos, as her dowry, to his sister, when about to marry Francis Gateluzio, in whose hands the island remained till overwhelmed by the Turks.

Samos, a name said to mean highland, and, doubtless, deserving this name for its far superior height to the islands adjacent, bore, like Lesbos, many different names in antiquity, with a population much intermixed, the result of successive colonies of Carians, Leleges, and Ionians. To the last people it chiefly owed its historic fame, having been, in very early times, an active member of the Ionian confederacy. As islanders, the Samians had much credit for their skill in boatbuilding; indeed, Thucydides (i. 13) goes so far as to say they were the first boatbuilders, a statement, evidently, to be accepted with a good deal of allowance. It seems, however, certain that a citizen of Samos, one Cælius, was the first to reach the Atlantic by passing through the Pillars of Hercules, and that Polycrates, the friend of Anacreon, did much to increase the naval fame of his island.

After having made treaties with Amasis of Egypt, and Cambyses of Persia (which alone show the eminence ascribed to Samos at this early period), we know further, that, from Samos, as his head-quarters, Datis sailed for Marathon, the inference being that Samos at that time was less Greek than perhaps, it ought to have been; hence too, perhaps, somewhat later, the severe punishment inflicted on it by Pericles and Sophocles. From the commencement of the Roman wars in the East, Samos seems, generally, to have sided with Rome, becoming, ultimately, part of the province of “Asia.” Hence, too, probably the fact that Augustus (or rather as he then was, Octavianus) spent his winter there after the battle of Actium. Samos was, in early times, greatly devoted to the worship of Juno, and Herodotus states that her temple there was the largest he had seen. It was, however, never completely finished. According to Virgil, Samos was the second in the affections of Juno, and, in Strabo’s time, in spite of the plunder it had suffered in the Mithradatic war, and, subsequently, by Verres, her temple was a complete picture-gallery. Here too, as so often elsewhere, a Sacred Way led from the temple to the city. Samos was also famous for an earthenware of a “red lustrous” character. Her art, in this respect, was copied by the Romans, their common red ware being popularly called “Samian.” Of this most Museums have abundant and excellent specimens (Marryat, “Pottery and Porcelain,” 1850).

Chios, now Scio, in ancient days known by the name Pityusa, referring doubtless to its abundant pine-forests, was nearly as close to the mainland of Asia Minor as Lesbos, and, in size, rather more than twice that of the Isle of Wight. It was in character peculiarly rugged, its epithet in Homer [of whom it claimed to be the birthplace], of παιπαλοέσσα (the “craggy”), being literally true. In ancient and in modern times it has been famed for the beauty of its women; in the former, also, for the excellence of its wines. In an oval place, not far from its chief town, stood the temple of Cybele, whose worship the Chiotes especially affected; and, that all things might fit properly, the careless Pococke seeing there her headless statue, which he describes as that of Homer, with equal judgment converted the lions between which she is sitting into Muses! Its present chief town is said, in situation, to resemble Genoa in miniature. Traditionally, its oldest people were the Pelasgi; but Ion, a native writer, with better reason, traces them to Crete. Chios was little injured by the first Persian conquest, as the Persians, then like Timúr, eighteen hundred years later, had no fleet; but it was thoroughly sacked and plundered, subsequently, for the crime of having sent one hundred ships to fight off Miletus in aid of the Ionians (Herod. vi. 8, 32).

During the Peloponnesian war, Chios at first supported the Athenians, but was afterwards ravaged by them, though they failed to take its capital. So, in the Mithradatic war, though at first supporting the king of Pontus, Chios fell under his displeasure, in that it had allowed Roman “negotiatores” to frequent and settle in its ports, and had to pay 2,000 talents, and to suffer still rougher treatment at the hands of his general, Zenobius. In modern times, Scio has suffered more perhaps than any other Greek island. Early in the fourteenth century, the Turks secured possession of it by a general massacre; in 1346, it was taken from them by the Genoese, who held it for nearly two centuries and a half, till it was recaptured by the Turks. In 1822, having been foolishly over-persuaded—though then a comparatively flourishing island—to join in the revolt of the Greeks against the Turks, a powerful Ottoman fleet attacked it, who, landing, massacred right and left, enslaved its women and children, and made, as is their wont, a well-cultivated district a desert, destroying, too, by fire and sword a town with thirty thousand inhabitants. No doubt fifty-four years is a very long time in the eyes of mere politicians; but historians might have been expected to remember “Scio,” and to have anticipated similar results at “Batak,” or wherever else these barbarians are able to repeat the habits and practices of their fore-fathers.

Rhodus, an island about ten miles from the south-west end of Lycia, next claims our attention, as one of the most important of the Greek settlements of antiquity, and as retaining still something of its ancient splendour. In remote ages as the adopted abode of the Telchines, a celebrated brotherhood of artists, probably of Phœnician origin, Rhodes soon became famous for its cultivation of the arts, so imported, leading, as these did, naturally, to a civilization much in advance of the people around them. Its early history abounds with many legendary tales, which we regret we cannot insert here (but see Pindar Ol. vii.; Hom. Il. ii. 653). The Rhodians, no doubt from their early connections with the Phœnicians, were among the greatest navigators of antiquity, and this, too, earlier than B.C. 776, when the Olympian games are said to have been instituted: hence the foundation by them of very remote colonies in Sicily, Italy, and Spain; in the latter country, especially Rosas, which, remarkably enough, retains its ancient name, but slightly modified. The Rhodian code of naval laws became too, as is well known, not only the law of the Mediterranean, but the basis of the law of much more modern times. The people of this island did not, perhaps, for prudential reasons, join in the Ionian revolt or in the Persian war.

In the Peloponnesian war, too, they did not take an active part, though serving (according to Thucydides), with reluctance, on the side of Athens, against the people of Syracuse and Gela. In those days they were chiefly valued as light troops, especially, as darters and slingers. In the cause of Darius Codomannus against Alexander, the Rhodians supported Memnon, the ablest admiral of the day, whose death, perhaps more than that of any other individual person, hastened the downfall of the Persian monarchy; and somewhat subsequently, their resistance to Demetrius Poliorcetes, in the memorable siege they underwent, secured them the highest credit, and the admiration of their conqueror. Indeed, they were in such esteem among their neighbours, that (so Polybius states) when their city had been almost destroyed by an earthquake, the rulers of Sicily, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt vied with each other in the liberality of the supplies and presents they sent to repair this calamity. To the Romans their services were of the highest value, indeed, it was mainly due to them, that the naval operations of Livius, the Roman admiral, were successful in the wars against Philip and Antiochus (Liv. xxxi. 14; xxxvii. 9, &c.).

But, perhaps, the most interesting matter in connection with the island of Rhodes is the history of the researches recently conducted there by Messrs. Biliotti and Salzmann on the site of Camirus, one of the three chief original cities of that island, the combining of which together, about B.C. 408, resulted in the creation of the capital city, Rhodes. It was natural, therefore, to expect that any antiquities discovered at these places would be earlier than this date. The ground all round is now covered by a pine forest, in the clearing of which the old necropolis was discovered by a bullock falling into a tomb. In 1853, Mr. Newton obtained many terra-cotta vases of a very archaic type, and other fictile vases from the peasants’ houses of the adjacent village of Kalaverda. Some of the pinakes or platters, with geometrical patterns painted in brown on a pale ground, resembled the oldest objects of this class from the tombs of Athens and Melos; the sites, too, of Mycenæ and Tiryns are also strewn with similar fragments.^[112] Other amphoræ and oinochoæ, with black figures on a red ground, or red figures on a black, were also met with.^[113]

Shortly after this, a firman was obtained from Constantinople, empowering Messrs. Biliotti and Salzmann to make a thorough investigation into this ancient site, the result of which has been the opening of at least 275 tombs. From these tombs many precious works of art in gold, bronze, and glass, with figures in terra-cotta, and calcareous stones, together with vases and alabaster jars, have been procured, some of them probably as old as B.C. 650. The whole may be grouped under the heads: (1) Asiatico-Phœnician, or Archaic Greek; (2) Greek of the best and latest periods; (3) Egyptian, or imitations of Egyptian. The first is the most important, as comprehending most of the gold and silver ornaments, with a few terra-cottas. It has been supposed that the makers of these objects were Phœnicians of Tyre and Sidon; but, as many of the specimens betray a marked Assyrian character and influence, they are more probably copies, at second hand, of works originally Assyrian.

On examining these curious works of art, it will be observed that most of those in gold have been used either as necklaces or for attachment to other substances, probably leather, consisting, as they do, for the most part, of thin pieces or plaques of metal, averaging from one to two and a half inches in length, with subjects on them worked up, as a rule, from behind, after the fashion now called repoussée work. Thus we meet with standing female figures, draped to the feet (which are close together), as on the sculptures from Branchidæ, with long and elaborately-dressed hair falling on their shoulders and naked breasts, the arms being raised in a stiff and formal manner, and the hands partially closed. Another figure has large wings, almost like a nimbus, hands crossed, and elbows square; and against the body of this figure, a rudely-executed animal. A third holds in each hand a small lion by the tail, just as on some of the sculptures from Khorsabad. On a fourth the lions are not held, but are springing up against the figure.

On another plaque we have nearly the same type, with this distinction, that the lions stand out in very high relief, and, curiously enough, are in style almost identical with those on a fibula obtained from Cervetri by the late Mr. Blayds. Many instances may be seen of the narsingh, or man-lion type—a compound figure, with the head, body, and legs of a man, but attached to or behind this body, and, as it were, growing out of it, the body of an animal with hoofs. This monstrous form occurs, also, on a vase from Athens and on Assyrian cylinders. There are, also, specimens of winged, man-headed lions, their wings being thrown back so as to cover the whole figure, just as on the Assyrian sculptures. In some cases, we find bronze plated with gold, the latter having often been forced asunder by the rust and consequent expansion of the bronze.

Besides these objects, were found, also, small glass vessels of a rich purple colour with yellow bands, like those from Cære and other of the oldest cities of Italy, and a coffin, 6 feet 4 inches long, and 2 feet 1 inch wide, made entirely of terra-cotta. There are traces of brown and red paint over the whole of it, and, at one end, lions in red, with floral ornaments, and, at the other, a black bull between two brown lions. Many large terra-cotta plates were also found, with various subjects; such as the combat between Hector and Menelaus over the body of Euphorbus, with the names of the combatants written over them, a drawing of especial interest, from the archaic type of the superinscribed characters: there were, too, a Gorgon’s head, sirens, and other strange animals, and a sphinx and a bull with his horns drawn in perspective. These plates were probably of local manufacture. But, besides these curious antique monuments, the excavations at Camirus brought to light many objects of very fine work, two of which must be mentioned. One, a small gold vessel of exceeding beauty, about an inch in diameter, at one end of which is a seated Eros or Cupid; on the other, Thetis on a dolphin, with the arrows Vulcan had forged for her son Achilles. The other, a magnificent amphora, with figures in red on a black ground, the subject being “the surprise of Thetis by Peleus”; in fact, the same as that on one side of the Portland vase; thus confirming, in a most unexpected manner, the interpretation originally proposed many years ago by Mr. Millingen. This vase is of the time of Alexander the Great, and few, if any vases have as yet been found in the Archipelago exhibiting such free and masterly drawing as this one from Camirus.

The island of Cyprus, which lay off the southern coast of Asia Minor, was one of the most celebrated of those generally called the Greek Islands, though it had, probably, less claim to this designation, and was more Oriental than any of the others. It was, as was natural from its position, early settled by the Phœnicians, Herodotus speaking of the inhabitants as a very mixed race. It is not possible to determine which of several of its towns was the most ancient; but, in the early Jewish Scriptures, we read of “ships of Chittim,” probably those of Citium, one of its chief towns. In later days, Paphos, itself of remote antiquity, became the capital of the island, and the residence, as we learn from the Acts of the Apostles, of the Roman proconsul. As the centre of the worship of Venus, which is noticed so early as Homer, as well as by many later writers, Paphos was greatly visited by strangers, among whom Tacitus mentions, particularly, the Emperor Titus, when on his way to besiege Jerusalem (Hist. ii. 3-4). Her symbol, or idol, was a purely Asiatic type, and consisted merely of an upright, conical, and unsculptured stone. The history of the island was a very chequered one, and there were but comparatively short intervals of time when it was really under its own native rulers; more frequently it was held by one or other of the continental empires near it which happened for the time to be the most powerful. Thus it was, usually, in the hands of the Persians, till the overthrow of that power by Alexander, when it was secured by the Ptolemies, in whose diadem it was the most precious jewel. In the end it was, of course, seized by the Romans, becoming first an Imperial province, and then, by the arrangement of Augustus, directly under the Senate. In later times, it was the seat of a bishopric, one of the most famous of the bishops of Paphos being the celebrated Epiphanius. During the Crusades, Richard Cœur de Lion captured the island and gave it to Guy de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, whence the title of kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem, adopted, till recent times, by some of the monarchs of Western Europe.

In recent times, the Island of Cyprus has proved one of the most abundant sources of precious remains of antiquity, excavated chiefly by Mr. R. H. Lang and General Palma di Cesnola. The former gentleman has published in the Numismatic Chronicle (vol. xi. New Series, 1870), an account of the silver coins, many of native Cypriote manufacture, he lighted on while digging out an ancient temple at Dali (Idalium), in 1869. The coins were found at two several times, and, from the way in which some of them adhered together, had probably been enclosed in a bag, though no traces of it were detected. Mr. Lang believed he could trace from them the existence of the six or seven distinct kingdoms, which we know, from other sources, once existed in this island. The earliest of these coins are, perhaps, as old as the middle of the sixth century B.C.

The most important results of Mr. Lang’s excavations in this temple are now in the British Museum, and have been described by him in a paper read before the Royal Society of Literature (see Transactions, New Series, vol. xi. pt. i. 1875). In this memoir, which has been supplemented with some careful observations by Mr. R. S. Poole, Mr. Lang has given many interesting details of his excavations. His first diggings were in 1868, when his men soon “came upon (as it were) a mine of statues,” several of them being of colossal proportions, and on two large troughs, in an outer court, perhaps once employed for the ablutions connected with the temple, which was completely “full of the heads of small statues, which, after being broken from their bodies, had been pitched pell-mell into the troughs.” Near these troughs were three rows of statues; some, too, of the chambers excavated were also full of statuary—and in a stratum of charcoal were comminuted fragments of the bones and teeth of several animals; as of bullocks, sheep, camels, and swine. We can only add, here, that the treatment of the beard on some of the heads is remarkably Assyrian; which, indeed, might reasonably have been expected, as the island was long subject to that empire,—and, that, besides coins and sculptures, Mr. Lang procured, also, several Phœnician inscriptions, not, however, of very early date, their characters being nearly identical with those on the well-known inscription in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, together with one bilingual inscription in Cypriote and Phœnician writing. The last has proved of great value, in that it enabled the late Dr. Brandis and Mr. G. Smith to settle many important points in connection with the Cyprian alphabet.

Nearly about the same time as Mr. Lang, General di Cesnola, the American consul in Cyprus, was commencing a series of excavations, the latest results of which have, in some respects, far surpassed anything Mr. Lang achieved. M. Cesnola began digging, we believe, first about 1867; but his first important discoveries were in the spring of 1870, when he found at Golgos the remains of two temples of Venus, nearly on the spot where, some time before, the Count de Vogüé had been less fortunate. It was here that M. di Cesnola formed his first collection, now for the most part in the museum of New York. As in the case of Mr. Lang, the statues had all been thrown down and grievously defaced by “iconoclastic” hands. Among them, however, were many which had been simply hurled from their pedestals, and were, therefore, nearly as fresh as when first made. One great interest in the collection is, that it is almost wholly the product of local artists. Naturally there was in it a large number of statuettes of Venus, of vases, of lamps, and of objects in glass; the latter, we believe, chiefly from Idalium. It is said that altogether there were nearly 10,000 objects, and that New York secured them for about £1 apiece. We cannot discuss here the question, much mooted at the time, whether or not the collection ought to have been bought by the English Government; but, had it been, we do not know where it could have been adequately exhibited. The British Museum seems to be as full as ever; nor is there any apparent hope of the removal of the hideous black sheds between the columns in the front of it, which have now, for these twenty years, defaced any architectural beauty it may be supposed to have.

But by far the most remarkable of General di Cesnola’s discoveries are his most recent ones, the great results of which are now, we believe, on their way to New York, the American Government having had the good sense to supply him with ample means for continuing his researches in the best manner. These last, commenced in 1873, have been prosecuted at various ancient sites, such as those of Golgos, Salamis, Palæo-Paphos, Soli, and Amathus; Curium having ultimately proved the most valuable mine of antiquities. Besides two superb sarcophagi he had previously secured, M. Cesnola found at Curium a mosaic pavement, in style, as he calls it, Assyrio-Egyptian, which had already been partly dug through by some former excavator, and beneath this, at a depth of twenty feet, a subterranean passage in the rock leading into three chambers, communicating the one with the other. In the first of these he came upon a great number of small ornaments, rings, &c., in pure gold; in the second, on a considerable collection of gilt vases, cups, &c.; and in the third, on innumerable miscellaneous objects, comprising vases of alabaster, candelabra, metal mirrors, daggers, armlets, small statues of animals, &c. The most valuable individual specimens would seem to be a crystal vase and a pair of armillæ in gold, bearing a double Cypriote inscription. What then is the history of this precious trouvaille? We venture to think that General di Cesnola’s idea on the subject is probably the true one,—that it represents the offerings in a temple now destroyed, and hurriedly packed away, possibly when it was attacked by iconoclasts. Some of the bijoux are inscribed with the names of the owners, and probably donors. Like the relics from Cameirus, these Cypriote monuments are of great antiquarian value, as proving the transition from Eastern to Greek art.

[For further details, see Atti d. Real. Acad. d. Scien. di Torino, vol. x.; and Ceccaldi, Le ultime Scoperte nell’ isola di Cipro, 1876.]