Ruined cities of the East

Front matter

OF THE

U N I VERS ITY Of I LLI N O I S

Received by bequest from Albert H. Lybyer Professor of History University of Illinois 1916-1949

I. §Utins of djrfitsms

Though the human race undoubtedly sprang from one parent pair, there have been various centres, at different periods of man’s history, from ^which fresh influences or new impulses proceeded, to quicken progress, — to emancipate or to enslave, — to conquer and crush, or to elevate and advance. One of these centres was that section of Europe in which The Seven Chueches of Asia were placed. For centuries a bright light radiated thence into the surrounding regions, and though that light has long been extinguished, the friends of truth still love to linger among the scenes where it shone ; to ponder on the moral darkness which now envelops everything there ; and to wonder when the fulness of time shall come, when the truth which came from heaven to illumine every land shall shine on those regions again.

Somewhat in that spirit we are now to consider the present condition of two of these ancient centres of light, Ephesus and Sardis. Were we merely to describe the events mentioned in Scripture regarding Ephesus, io Ruined Cities of the East.

“ The Light of Asia,” as it has been called, the narrative would be long, and would embody some of the profoundest lessons ever taught to man. But we are to consider mainly its ruins. It was the capital of Ionia, and dated from pre-historic times, — the times of fable and of myths. It was situated on the River Cayster, from among whose reeds the swans of old rose clangingly, according to Homer, and not far from the shores of the Ionian Sea. The place was at one period furnished with wharves and docks, which were favourable to the development of its resources ; so that it became at length one of the chief Greek cities in Asia Minor. As to a great mart, many of the children of Israel resorted thither, guided by an instinct which ruled them in ancient times as it rules them still ; and from among them Paul collected a Christian Church (see Acts xviii. 19, and other places), which exercised considerable influence over the adjacent country. Within that city Paul had again and again to do battle for the truth, and suffer in its cause. Indeed the darkness that comes from hell, and the light which beams from heaven, were there very often in conflict ; and Paul tells us (figuratively or literally) that he had to fight with wild beasts at Ephesus while upholding the cause of truth. Those who were mad upon the worship of their great goddess Diana could ill brook the proximity of a purer faith ; and hence Paul’s life was endangered by her fanatical and infuriated idolaters. Her temple was a wonder of the world, and her worship was dear to many as their own life-blood. The abominations which marked her service harmonized well with the dissolute desires of Orientals ; and where voluptu-

THE RUINS OF EPHESUS.

Ephesus . 1 1

ousness of the grossest type reigned, the pure truth of heaven was sure to be opposed. The temple, which it cost the labour of 220 years to complete, stood up in proud defiance against all that was pure and lovely. The pile was 425 feet long, and 220 wide ; it was supported by 127 columns, each the gift of a king, and each 60 feet in height. Chersiphron was the architect ; Praxiteles chiselled the altar ; Scopas, the sculptor, made one of the pillars ; and Apelles, a native of the city, contributed a splendid picture of Alexander the Great, who had offered to rebuild the temple when it was burned to the ground by Erostratus, if the Ephesians would allow him to inscribe his name on the fagade. Cedar, cypress, Parian marble, and gold were lavished on the structure. The great staircase was formed of the wood of a single Cyprian vine ; while the wealth accumulated in the pile from votive offerings was beyond computation. Thus equipped, then, it pressed like a moral millstone on the souls of myriads ; it fascinated the sensuous, and when the admiration of art was put for worship, the havoc among the souls of men was such as only eternity can reckon. Diana’s gorgeous temple, her silver shrines, her worship altogether, formed, beyond a doubt, one of the heaviest curses that ever smote poor man to the dust of death for ever.

To their other delusions the Ephesians added that of sorcery, and Ephesus possessed a high reputation for magic ; insomuch that we learn from Acts xix. 19, that the Ephesians, when the truth got its rightful place in the conscience, burnt books, no doubt on magic, to the value of 50,000 pieces of silver.— It was a signal triumph

12 Ritmed Cities of the East .

of truth over falsehood : it was Satan so far baffled in one of his chosen strongest holds ; for the delusion of these arts was at once deep and wide-spread.

It is time, however, to turn to the remains of Ephesus. A two days’ journey from Smyrna brings the traveller to the supposed ruins of the place ; for so completely has its glory gone that some speak of them as supposed. Many of them are placed upon eminences, as in our Yiew, and consist of shattered walls, into which are built pillars, architraves, and fragments of marble. The soil of the neighbourhood appears to be rich, but it is everywhere deserted and solitary, though skirted by mountains which are described as picturesque. The wolf and the jackal now prowl among these remains, and their howling often adds dreariness to a scene otherwise abundantly depressing. Large masses of shapeless ruins and stone walls, interspersed with some corn fields, indicate still further the supposed site of what was once proudly called “The Emporium of the World.” But even the sea, it has been remarked, has retired from the scene of desolation, and a pestilential morass, covered with mud and rushes, has succeeded to the waters which brought up ships laden with merchandise from every part of the known world. The body now pines, though the inhabitants are but a handful, where souls were ruined of old.

Along the slopes of the hills Coressus and Mount Prion, and over the plain, there are numerous ruins ; but nothing has been discovered to indicate exactly the site of the great temple. Broken pillars and Corinthian capitals of white marble ; the ruins of a theatre, with

Ephesus.

puted the largest of any theatre of antiquity, and supposed to be that in which Paul was speaking when the storm broke upon him, “ Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” are all described as forming part of the remains of Ephesus. The ruins of a circus or stadium 887 feet in length, of some palaces or temples, and other buildings, can also be traced; but no inscription has been found, no locality clearly identified: the city has, in truth, long been a quarry of marble ; and the ruins of an adjoining town, which was built about four centuries ago, for the most part, out of the exuviae of Ephesus, add still further to the desolation of the scene. The nearest approach to identification has taken place in regard to some churches, built when Ephesus was so far Christian that the Church met in Council there. Tradition, or Superstition, has also pointed out the tombs of John, of Timothy, of the Virgin Mary, and of the Seven Sleepers, in Ephesus or the vicinity. The prison of St. Paul is also mentioned, and a gate called the Gate of Persecution ; but, in truth, all is indiscriminate confusion — the real remains must be sought in far-off mediaeval buildings. Columns of green jasper were torn from Diana’s Temple to support the dome of St. Sophia at Constantinople, while some of its other decorations maybe found in Italian cathedrals. As the result, though the environs of these ruins be at some places beautiful, well wooded, and covered with groves of myrtle, a visit to Ephesus is one of the most depressing that can be made. Goths from beyond the Danube were here, as elsewhere, employed as the avengers ; and it has sunk, like countless other places, under the weight of its own guilt ; the rude heel of war, and long years of misrule, have trodden it in the dust.

We have said that scarcely any of the ruins of Ephesus have been distinctly identified. We should notice, however, the opinion of some travellers who have visited the place and have told us that the ruins of the Artemision or Temple of Diana have been traced. That stately pile, it is said, was eight times reduced to ruins. Its foundations were at last laid in a swamp, to guard against the effects of earthquakes; and as the arches of a vast substruction, forming a labyrinth of vaults in which water stagnates, have been traced, some hence conclude that they have discovered the site of one of the seven wonders of the world. The walls are said to be formed of immense blocks of marble, perforated in front so as to admit of fastenings for the plates of brass and silver by which the temple was adorned. Some huge pillars of porphyry are mentioned as having perhaps formed the portico of the temple; but whether these conjectures be correct, or the reverse, the entireness of the ruin is complete. To intensify the impression made by all this we need scarcely add, what some have said, that “ the numerous Christian congregation of Ephesus is reduced to two individuals, one a Greek gardener, and the other the keeper of a coffeehouse; and these are the representatives of the first great Church of the Apocalypse !” The finger of the Almighty Euler of heaven and earth has written “ Ichabod ” here as surely as it wrote His will on the two tables of stone.

Ephesus „ 1 5

The sermons which are in the stones of Ephesus will readily occur to any meditative mind. One who visited the scene about a century ago, in substance thus describes it :* The population of the place now consists of a few Greek peasants, who live in extreme wretchedness and insensibility. They are the sole representatives of .an illustrious people, and dwell amid the wreck of former greatness. Some occupy the substructions of once glorious edifices; some live in the vaults of the stadium, once the scene of animated diversions; and some in the very caves which received the ashes of the ancient people. The Emperor Justinian bore away its statues and decorations to Constantinople, and reared the Church of St. Sophia with columns rifled from Ephesus ; and now its very streets are effaced and overgrown. A herd of goats was driven in for shelter from the sun at noon ; and a noisy flight of crows seemed to insult the silence. We heard the partridge call in the area of the theatre and stadium, where solitude, destruction, and death are paramount. The pomp of its heathen worship is remembered no more, and a truer faith, which was planted by an apostle, barely lingers here in an existence which is hardly visible. And all this, be it remembered, has taken place in a city where the Saviour himself once saw work, and labour, and patience, which he could praise. Along with the praise, however, there was the warning, “ Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out

* See Kitto’s Encyclopaedia, Art. Ephesus.

of his place, except thou repent.” — It is the mingling of mercy and rebuke, of love and faithfulness; but all was unavailing. The warning was neglected, — there was no repentance, or none that was continuous. The candlestick was therefore removed, and yonder is the debris, the rubbish of Ephesus, — she has become her own grave, because the word of Truth was slighted. First Diana; then for some time, and to some extent, the Redeemer; then the Impostor of Mecca; and now a silence which saddens, — behold the story of Ephesus ! “ A few more scores of years,” one has said at the sight, — “ a few more scores of years, and Ephesus has neither temple, cross, crescent nor city, but is a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.” We may pronounce the prediction as already fulfilled.

In our View, the background is filled up by the mountains already named, which terminate the plain in which Ephesus stood. Near to the spectator, on the central eminence, is the castle and town of Aiasaluk ; and under that hill are the ruins of a church dedicated to St. John. The remains of an aqueduct built by Herodes Atticus are seen on the right, and in the foreground are some of the massed ruins of Ephesus. The Cayster still oozes through the plain, but it also has partaken of the general desolation of the region.— The origin of the name Aiasaluk, or Asalook, is perhaps worthy of being noticed. The Greeks call John, Ayos Scologos, — a corruption of Agios Theologus, the Holy Divine ; and from that corruption arose the modern name of the place.

Such, then, is a glimpse of the ruins of Ephesus, — the home of desolation, inscribed all over with righteous

Ephesus. 1 7

retributions from on high, retributions which may strike us in a thousand other places, but rarely amid such contrasts or with such emphasis as here —

“ Here, waning grandeur strikes the wanderer’s eye ;

There, mouldering towers, like giants, rise in air, —

Another Babel, mounting to the sky,

Touched by the hoar of time, mature and fair.”

But no power of m'hn can evolve all the lessons which such scenes and sights may teach. Here is the grave of greatness, and here the humiliation of pride. Here are paid the wages of sin, and here desolation swallows up the pomp of the voluptuous, the grossness of the idolater, and even the exquisiteness of art. Here man is seen at once in his power and his puniness. Here abject wretchedness shakes hands with regal pomp across the gulf of many centuries; and here, among the ruins of Ephesus — crumbling, indiscriminate, Babellike— the world may read its own history, or its own final doom, when He who is holy and true shall arise to judgment, and assert his prerogative as the God of all the ages and all the ends of the earth.

II

Like the solitary pillar of Phocas in the Forum at Rome, the pillars presented in our next view, as exhibiting nearly all that remains of Sardis, furnish another melancholy memorial of the vanity of earthly things.

Sardis was the capital of tjie ancient kingdom of Lydia. It stood at the base of Mount Tmolus in a plain watered by the river Pactolus, whose waters floated down particles of gold, or whose sands contained no inconsiderable fragments of that precious metal. It was a city of great wealth and corresponding luxury. Possession of Sardis was therefore coveted by many of the royal robbers of antiquity ; and many a battle was fought, and many a siege was laid, in order to secure the command of the place. Its last king was Croesus, whose name is now a synonyme for riches. During his reign it was taken by Cyrus, b.c. 548, and yielded the most opulent prize of all the cities in the East. When the Romans became masters of the place it rapidly fell into decay. An earthquake in the time of Tiberius hastened its downfall, and though that emperor ordered its restoration, yet the voluptuous character of its inhabitants wasted it more completely than earthquakes could — no emperor could restore the ravages wrought

Sardis.

by the gross lives of the Sardians, and Sardis sank at last under the weight of its own abominations. It had a name to live — but nothing more ; and though “ a few” were there who had not defiled their garments with the world, yet what were these among so many? The particles of preserving salt had no power against the abounding corruption, and Sardis may be said to have entirely ceased to be.

The ravages of war combined with those of earthquakes to speed on this desolation. The Saracens and Turks took revenge upon Sardis for even the shadow- of the Christian name which it retained ; and its site is now a wide-spread mass of ruins, studded with tokens of its former splendour, but saddening to all who remember the connection between guilt and degradation. The village of Sart, among the ruins, consists of a few miserable cottages, inhabited by Greeks and Turks, contrasting drearily, to the eye of faith, with what the ruins proclaim to have been the ancient splendour of the place. The Acropolis appears distinctly to define the site of the city. It is described as “ a tall distorted rock of soft sandstone, rent as if by an earthquake.” The ruins of a theatre, of a stadium, and some churches, are found there, and a countless number of sepulchral hillocks in the neighbourhood tell how lowly the once proud and lordly now lie : they show that man and his handiwork are equally transient when the Eternal I am gives the word.

But perhaps the most remarkable ruins at Sardis are two Ionic pillars of white marble, represented in our View, supposed to have formed part of a temple dedicated to Cybele, the mother of the gods. In the year 1700, six of these marble columns stood erect ; but barbarism has destroyed four : they were blasted by gunpowder, and only two now remain to proclaim the grandeur that is gone. If that conjecture be correct which assigns these columns to the Temple of Cybele, then these remains rank among the oldest ruins in the world ; for that temple is believed to have been built only three hundred years after that of Solomon, or perhaps seven hundred years before the coming of the Saviour.

But temple, theatre, stadium — all that luxury prompted or wealth could supply have passed away. “ The Lady of Kingdoms” sits lonely and desolate now ; and travellers tell that a feeling of “ indescribable solitude,” or of “ desolate abandonment,” takes possession of the mind amid these crumbling vestiges of the past. After visiting the alleged Palace of Croesus, and other remains, one says, — “ I was filled with wonder and awe at beholding the two stupendous columns of the Temple of Cybele which are still remaining : they are silent but impressive witnesses of the power and splendour of antiquity ;” — a power and a splendour, we may add, which contrasts very strongly with what is recorded of the modern Sardis : “ She affords no permanent habitation to any human being, while her whole Christian population is comprised in two servants of a Mohammedan miller in the vicinity.” But still more touching scenes can easily be there reproduced by memory, and another traveller has been at pains to tell us that, as he sat to gaze upon the ruins of Sardis from the banks of

Sardis .

the golden-sanded Paetolus, scene after scene once enacted there, rose before his view. Beside him were the cliffs of the Acropolis which the hardy Median scaled when leading on the Persians to conquest. Near that traveller were the remains of the Palace of Croesus, within which were sometimes assembled the wisest of their age, Thales, Cleobulus and Solon. Here iEsop composed the Fables which still delight our youth, and here a wretched father mourned over the corpse of his mangled Atys. In the distance across the Hermus, to which the Paetolus is a tributary, are the grave-mounds of the Lydian monarchs, Candaules, Halyattes, and Gyges ; and around them are spread the very plains which the hosts of Xerxes traversed when, rushing in quest of glory, they found only a grave at Marathon. Surely such sights might do more than solemnize, — they might transform. But no. No sight of human littleness, — no bursting of the bubble, fame, — no vanishing away of the glory which is transient and worthless as the foambell on the waters, can accomplish that result : God has reserved it in his own hand. His power alone can transform ; and we may gaze on all the ruins of Sardis* where more varied and more vivid remembrances (one says, though not correctly) may be awakened than could possibly be attached to any other spot on earth, only to rise from the spectacle and plunge into vanity as before. What can the ruined fanes of a dead religion do to change man’s heart ? What power have the tombs of forgotten monarchs to lift our thoughts to heaven? Though the palm-tree now waves in the banquet-hall of kings, will that make me set my affec-

Ruined Cities of the East.

tions upon things above 1 Ah, no. Such things may sadden, but they cannot renew ; and until the sweet influences of grace be granted to deepen and perpetuate such impressions, they will prove but like the early dew, the mirage of the desert, or the dreams of our youth. When Solon, to whom Croesus proudly showed his treasures, warned the monarch not to glory in them, did the warning produce much effect h It did not ; and in due time all that wealth became the property of his conqueror, Cyrus. It is ever the same with foolish man; and Omnipotence alone, working with Omniscience, can make him wise.

Were this the place to submit it, the history of Sardis would be found one of the most remarkable upon record. Its founder is not known. As we have seen, it was captured by Cyrus more than five centuries before the Saviour came. It passed into the hands of the Greeks under Alexander the Great. Antiochus, the last king of Syria, besieged and took the city, being guided to an entrance where the walls of the citadel were low, by the flight of vultures, and other birds of prey, as they resorted to the offals thrown from the fortress at that spot. The place was surrendered by Antiochus to the two Scipios more than 150 years before Christ. Julian the Apostate resolutely attempted to restore a waning paganism there, and re-erected all the pagan altars which had been previously cast down. The Saracens succeeded the Romans, and now Desolation has supplanted them all. If Paul planted the Church there, as some suppose, corruption speedily did its work ; and neither the presence of bishops nor

Sardis.

the holding of Councils could retard the descent of Sardis into the grave which sin digs for nations as well as individuals. But we give one extract more, to exhibit as clearly as we can the lowly condition of Sardis : “ I saw from afar,” one says, “ the lofty Acropolis, fringed with crumbling ruins ; and when I crossed a branch of the golden Pactolus, which once flowed through the Agora, or market-place, and when I stood there at eleven o’clock, the very hour at which, in its ancient days, the place would be crowded, I saw not a soul, nor an object of any sort, to remind me that this solitude had been a vast and splendid city, save here and there a patch of ruin, a dismantled wall, or a heap of brambles and brick-work, mixed with brushwood and creeping weeds. Where palaces and temples, theatres and crowded habitations, had stood, a green and flowery carpet of smooth sward met the eye ; and the tall, stately asphodel, or gay lily, gleamed in its beauty, where a marble column had risen in other days.”

But the whole story of this city has not yet been told. We have already mentioned the name of Gyges, and it suggests some incidents which were at once flagitious and tragical. Candaules, one of the kings of Sardis, maltreated his queen ; and in revenge she encouraged the approaches of Gyges, who slew the king, married the outraged queen, and became king of Sardis himself.

Now about five miles from that capital a large lake called Gygea is found, and on its shores are some of the most memorable of ruins. That lake, which is not far from the river Hermus, is by some deemed artificial in its origin, but the lapse of ages has invested it with the aspects of nature. It teems with fish, flocks of swans stud the waters or gleam in the air, and other attractions add beauty to the scene. On the banks of that lake, the ancient kings of Lydia selected their place of burial. Their remains are deposited in a vast cemetery, and the crowds of monuments which cluster around them have acquired for the scene the oriental name of “ The Place of a Thousand Tombs.” They are now large mounds covered with grass ; but one is conspicuous above all the rest, which is regarded as the Tomb of Alyattes, the father of Croesus the Rich.

The mode of its erection lets us see far into the morals of Sardis, and enables us to comprehend why the Saviour said he had a few even there who had not defiled their garments. Such was the number and such the wealth of the abandoned females of that capital that they reared this magnificent tomb to their king by their own gifts, — “a monument to their own infamy,” it has been said, as well as to their king. Herodotus saw and described it half a millennium before the Christian era, very much as it continues to this day. The base is about three-fourths of a mile in length ; the monument itself is a truncated cone now covered with verdure ; while from the summit, the lake reposing in its beauty, the crowds of monuments all around, the Hermus, and the whole neighbourhood, impress the visitor once more with the thought of dreary desolation. The traditions regarding these ruins are believed to be thoroughly authentic ; and the remains are in themselves so gigantic that “ the traveller there sees a monument as vast and ancient as a pyramid of Egypt, but whose history

Sardis. 2 5

is much more certain and authentic.” Around that lake tastes the most diverse might find indulgence. The botanist might luxuriate amid its aquatic verdure. The naturalist might find objects of interest in its flocks of feathered occupants. The antiquarian might be regaled by ruins which carry us back over two or three thousand years. But above all, the moralist or the man of God might here behold how shameless vice becomes, and how truthful Paul was when he wrote to Rome about ancient paganism, and said that God “ gave men up to a reprobate mind,” so that they were “filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful : who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” Rom. i. 29-32.

Without dwelling further on the ruins of Asia Minor, inviting as the subject is, we now cross the “ Great Sea,” and traverse the desert on the way to the Promised Land. Not far from one of its borders we find the Wady Mousa, or Glen of Moses, and we are alike astonished and delighted by the ruins which there abound. We now refer to Petra.

III. Cjje limns xif

It would be impossible to convey a full account of this marvellous scene unless a volume were devoted to its details. We therefore merely glance at its history, and briefly describe the entrance to the place, with some of its most prominent ruins.

The name Petra, Selah, the Rock, is one of the most descriptive ever applied to any place, as the whole wondrous scene is one mass of living rock. There are houses of rock, and a theatre of rock, and tombs innumerable of rock, and stairs, and excavations, and works without number and without end, all exquisitely chiselled or elaborately dug in the solid rock. — Petra was the ancient capital of Edom, and is utterly unlike any other ruin of which history tells or which modern enterprise has brought to light. The descendants of Esau are reckoned its founders ; and as the Edomites are known from Scripture to have been a powerful and a numerous people many centuries before our era, their capital may date far back in the dimness of remote antiquity. In Genesis xxxvi. we have an abstract of its history, or a catalogue of its princes ; and we there learn that the place was governed first by dukes and princes, then by many successive kings, and then by

ROCK-CUT TOMB AT PETRA.

Petra.

dukes again, and all that prior to the foundation of Israel as a kingdom, — “ before there reigned any king over Israel.” In the time of Saul, Edom was subdued and became tributary to the kingdom of Judah. It revolted, but was again vanquished in the days of David. When the Romans overran the East, Edom was absorbed ; and some of their emperor^ did much to adorn it. Under Augustus it was a flourishing place, the abode of many Romans. Adrian patronized Petra, and changed its name into Adriane ; but soon after his death it ceases to be mentioned in history. Its singular position, “ in the clefts of the rock,” sequestered it from the eyes of all excepting the wandering Arab ; and the unique and magnificent capital became a dwelling only for robbers, for wild beasts and birds, for scorpions and bats. It had once been a centre or a focus of commerce. The roads from the East to the West, and from various other quarters, all converged upon Petra ; and the caravans of those remote times occasioned an activity of trade, a bustle among the merchants of all nations there, such as even fancy can scarcely reproduce amid these stupendous ruins, so deserted now that even the footfall of the traveller appears to mar the solitude. But as Petra flourished artificially, by the commerce of the nations, it fell in their fall. When Nineveh and Babylon were no more, when Egypt sank low among the nations, and when Palestine was peeled and trodden down, the great market-place of the desert faded with them— its occupation was gone; and we know concerning it now only that prophecy has there been marvellously fulfilled : “ 0 thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, and holdest the height of the hill, though thou shouldest make thy nest as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord. Also, Edom shall be desolate : every one that goeth by shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. .... The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is