some perfect, but the greater part mutilated. In one place eleven are
ranged together in a square; the space, which they inclose, is paved
with broad flat stones; but there are no remains of a roof.
At a little distance are the remains of a small temple, which is also
without a roof; and the walls are much defaced; but from the door is
enjoyed the magnificent coup-d’œil of all the ruins, and of the vast
desert beyond. Before the entry, which looks to the south, is a piazza,
supported by six pillars, two on each side of the door, and one at each
end. The pedestals of those in front have been filled with inscriptions
in the Greek and Palmyrene languages, which are become totally
illegible.
Among these ruins there are many SEPULCHRES. They are ranged on each
side of a hollow way, towards the north part of the city, and extend
more than a mile. They are all square towers, four or five stories high.
But though they are alike in form, they differ greatly in magnificence.
The outside is of common stone; but the floors and partitions of each
story are marble. There is a walk across the whole building, just in the
middle; and the space on each hand is subdivided into six partitions by
thick walls. The space between the partitions is wide enough to receive
the largest corpse; and in these niches there are six or seven piled one
upon another.
“As great a curiosity as any,” says Mr. Halifax, “were these sepulchres,
being square towers four or five stories high, and standing on both
sides of a hollow way, towards the north part of the city. They
stretched out in length the space of a mile, and perhaps formerly might
extend a great way further. At our first view of them, some thought them
the steeples of ruined churches, and were in hopes we should have found
some steps of churches here; others took them to have been bastions, and
part of the old fortifications, though there is not so much as any
foundation of a wall to be seen. But when we came, a day or two after,
more curiously to inquire into them, we quickly found their use. They
were all of the same form, but of different splendour and greatness,
according to the circumstances of their founders. The first we viewed
was entirely marble, but is now wholly in ruins; and we found nothing
but a heap of stones, amongst which we found two statues; one of a man;
another of a woman, cut in sitting, or rather leaning, posture, and the
heads and part of the arms being broken off; but their bodies remaining
pretty entire; so that we had the advantage of seeing their habits,
which appeared very noble; but more approaching the European fashion,
than what is now in use in the East, which inclined me to think they
might be Roman. Upon broken pieces of stone, tumbled here and there, we
found some broken inscriptions, but, not affording any perfect sense,
they are not worth the transcribing.”
These are the most interesting of all the ruins. As you wind up a narrow
valley between the mountain range, you have them on your right and left,
topping the hills, or descending to the border of the valley: some
presenting heaps of rubbish, and some half fallen, expose their
shattered chambers, and one or two still exist in almost an entire state
of preservation. They are seen from a great distance, and have a
striking effect in this desert solitude.
The ruins of Palmyra and Balbec are very different. “No comparison can
be instituted between them,” says Mr. Addison. “The ruins of Balbec
consist merely of two magnificent temples, inclosed in a sort of
citadel; while here, over an immense area, we wander through the ruins
of long porticoes leading up to ruined temples and unknown buildings.
Now we see a circular colonnade sweeping round with its ruined gateway,
at either end; now we come to the prostrate walls, or ruined chambers of
a temple or palace; anon we explore the recesses of a bath, or the ruins
of an aqueduct; then we mount the solitary staircase, and wander through
the silent chambers of the tombs, ornamented with busts, inscriptions,
and niches for the coffins, stored with mouldering bones; and from the
summits of funereal towers, five stories in height, we look down upon
this mysterious assemblage of past magnificence; and beyond them, upon
the vast level surface of the desert, silent and solitary; stretching
away like the vast ocean, till it is lost in the distance, far as the
eye can reach. The dwelling of man is not visible. The vastness and
immensity of space strikes us with awe, and the mouldering monuments of
human pride, that extend around, teach us a sad lesson of the
instability of all human greatness.”
Though antiquity has left nothing either in Greece or Italy, in any way
to be compared with the magnificence of the ruins of Palmyra, Mr. Wood
observes, that there is a greater sameness in the architecture of
Palmyra than at Rome, Athens, and other great cities, whose ruins
evidently point out different ages of decay. But, except four
half-columns in the Temple of the Sun, and two in one of the mausoleums,
the whole architecture is Corinthian, richly ornamented with some very
striking beauties and some as visible faults.
Through the valley of the tombs may be traced remnants of a ruined
aqueduct, which formerly conducted water to the town from, at present,
an unknown source; it consists of a vaulted passage running underground,
covered with a fine hard stucco. In regard to the present supply, there
are two rivers, the waters of which, when judiciously distributed, must
have conduced greatly to the subsistence and comfort of the ancient
inhabitants; but these are now allowed to lose themselves in the sand.
Mr. Wood says that all the inscriptions he saw were in Greek or
Palmyrene, except one, which was in Latin. Many attempts have been made
to explain the Palmyrene inscriptions. They were generally supposed to
be Syriac. Gruter, having seen an inscription at Rome, gave it as his
opinion that the characters were Arabic. Scaliger, speaking of the same
inscription, gave the subject up in despair. Some have thought they were
Greek, translated from the Palmyrene. Upon this hint M. Barthelemy
examined the inscriptions copied into Mr. Wood’s work, and came to the
conclusion, that Syriac was the living language of the inhabitants of
Palmyra, at the time those monuments were erected; and that the
greatest part, if not all the characters, are the same as those made use
of in writing Hebrew at this day, although they have a different
appearance.
We shall now give a few specimens:—“_This splendid and durable
monument, Jamblichus, the son of Mocimus, the son of Acaleises, the son
of Malichus, erected for himself, his children, and his posterity, in
the month of April, year 314._”
There is another to the same purport, erected in the same month, one
hundred years after:—“_This monument, Elabælus Manæus Cocchæus
Malachus, the son of Waballathus, the son of Manæus, the son of
Elabælus, built for himself and family in the month of April, year
414._”
Another inscription implies that “_Septimius Odenathus, the most
excellent senator, had erected this monument for himself and his
posterity, to preserve their name for ever_.”
Another contains an epitaph erected by Soræchus, to his wife Martha, in
the reign of Marcus Antoninus, A. D. 178.
A third is of the same nature; appropriated by Malchus, to himself and
his children, though built by his ancestors.
Besides sepulchral monuments there are others, erected by order of the
senate and people of the commonwealth of Tadmor, to the honour of those
citizens who had deserved well of the republic. Among these is one in
honour of Alilamenes; another in honour of Julius Aurelius Zenobius;
another in honour of Jarisbolus; and others in honour of Septimius
Orodes. The last of these was a great benefactor to the public and
private institutions of Palmyra. He had been an officer in his younger
days, and had greatly distinguished himself under his prince, Odenathus,
against the Parthians; during the year in which this monument was
erected, he exercised the office of symposiarch, in the festival
dedicated to their Patron God, Jupiter Belus. That in honour of
Alilamenes runs thus:—“The senate and the people have placed this in
honour of Alilamenes, the son of Panas, the son of Mocimus, the son of
Æranes, devoted lovers of their country, and in every respect deserving
well of their country, and of the immortal Gods, in the year 450, and
the 30th day of the month of April.”
There are, also, monuments erected by private persons to the memory of
their friends. The finest of these contains the grateful remembrance
which the Palmyrene merchants, trading to Vologesias[71], retained of
the great services which Julius Zobeidas did them in that expedition.
Another inscription commemorates the virtues of a person named
Malenthon, secretary to the republic of Palmyra, when “the God Hadrian”
arrived in the city (A. D. 122). He is remembered for having contributed
to the adornment of the temple of Belus, and for having given a largess
to the public baths, of oil for the use, not only of the citizens, but
of strangers.
The monument erected to Jamblichus seems to be the oldest, and the work
of Domitian the latest; taking in about three hundred years between
them. The other rich and extensive buildings were, Mr. Wood supposes,
erected _before_ the _last_ of these dates, and probably _after_ the
_first_; perhaps about the time ELABÆLUS built his monument.
It is rather remarkable, that there is no monument in memory of, nor any
inscription in honour of Zenobia; for which Dr. Halley accounts on the
supposition, that the Romans were so much irritated and ashamed, that
they destroyed and defaced everything that might be erected in honour of
her.
The decay of Palmyra has been accounted for from its peculiar situation.
A country without land, if the expression may be allowed, could only
exist by commerce: their industry had no other channel to operate in;
and when loss of their liberty was followed by that of trade, they were
reduced to live idly on as much of their capital as had been spared by
Aurelian. When that was spent, necessity compelled them to desert the
town.
Time has partially preserved the peristyles, the intercolumniations, and
entablatures; the elegance of the designs of which equal throughout the
richness of the materials. These being, in many respects, the greatest
and most entire, is attributed to there having been, for so long a time,
few inhabitants to deface them, to a dry climate, and their distance
from any city which might apply the materials to other uses. These ruins
present a sad contrast with the hovels of the wild Arabs, now the only
inhabitants of a city which, in former times, emulated Rome. “Of all the
contrasts of past magnificence with present meanness,” says Mr. Addison,
“of the wealth and genius of by-gone times with the poverty and
ignorance of the present day, no more striking instance, perhaps, can be
found than is presented in the present poor Arab village of Tadmor. You
there see a few poverty-stricken inhabitants living in square hovels of
mud mixed with chopped straw, roofed with earth, leaves, and dry sticks,
congregated round the magnificent Temple of the Sun of yore; despoiled
of its ornaments by one of the haughtiest and most powerful of the Roman
emperors, who came with his victorious troops from the distant provinces
of Gaul and of Britain, to rend asunder the dominion of which this spot,
in the midst of desert solitudes, had rendered itself the head.” Mr.
Addison then goes on to state that the “_village of Tadmor_ consists,
altogether, of about a dozen or fifteen families, and there can be
hardly more than twenty able-bodied males in the whole place. This
little community possesses a few herds of goats and dromedaries, which,
together with the poultry, form the chief wealth of the villagers. These
poor people are not, however, sufficiently advanced in the desert to be
without the reach of the Syrian government; they all pay a capitation
tax to Ibrahim Pasha. The portion of cultivated land on this spot is
very small; there are merely a few scanty gardens, which produce roots,
vegetables, and a miserable supply of corn. There are one or two
palm-trees along the banks of the stream, and a few shrubs of the thorny
acacia.”
These ruins were, some years ago, visited by a lady who has made a great
noise in Syria—Lady Hester Stanhope. During her residence there she
gave a kind of fête to the Bedouins. “The great sheikh,” says Mr. Carne,
in his letters from the East, “and some of his officers constantly
reside at the ruins. Their habitations are fixed near the great temple;
they are all well-disposed and civil in their manners, and their young
women are remarkable above all the other tribes for their beauty. It was
a lovely day, and the youth of both sexes, dressed in their gayest
habiliments, were seated in rows on the fragments of the pillars,
friezes, and other ruins with which the ground was covered. Her
ladyship, in her Eastern dress, walked among them, addressed them with
the utmost affability, and ordered a dollar to be given to each. As she
stood with all that Arab array amidst the columns of the great Temple of
the Sun, the sight was picturesque and imposing, and the Bedouins hailed
her with the utmost enthusiasm ‘queen of Palmyra,’ ‘queen of the
desert;’ and, in their enthusiasm, would have proceeded to confer more
decided marks of sovereignty; but they were declined.”
This fête was afterwards described to Mr. Buckingham by an Arab, who had
been present, in the following hyperbolical style:—“As soon as it was
known in the desert that the princess intended to journey to Tadmor, all
the tribes were in motion; war was changed to universal peace, and every
sheik, or chief, was eager to have the honour of leading the escort.
Councils and assemblies were held at Horis and at Hamak, at Sham, and at
Thaleb, Damascus, and Aleppo; messengers were sent in every direction,
and nothing was neglected that might serve to make the way full of
pleasure. When money was talked of, every one rejected it with
indignation, and exclaimed, ‘Shall we not serve the princess for
honour?’ Every thing being settled, the party set out, preceded by
horsemen in front, dromedaries of observation on the right and the left,
and camels laden with provisions in the rear. As they passed along, the
parched sands of the desert became verdant plains; the burning wells
became crystal streams; rich carpets of grass welcomed them at every
place where they stopped for repose, and the trees under which they
pitched their tents, expanded to twice their size to cover them with
shade. When they reached the broken city (the ruins), the princess was
taken to the greatest of all the palaces (the Temple of the Sun), and
there gold and jewels were bound round her temples, and all the people
did homage to her as a queen, by bowing their heads to the dust. On that
day Tadmor was richer than Damascus, and more peopled than
Constantinople; and if the princess had only remained, it would soon
have become the greatest of all the cities of the earth: for men were
pouring into it from all quarters; horsemen and chiefs, merchants and
munugemein (astrologers and learned men who consult the stars); the fame
of her beauty and benevolence having reached to Bagdad and Isfahan, to
Bokhara and Samarcand; the greatest men of the East being desirous of
beholding it for themselves.” The Arab, who firmly believed all this,
narrated the return from Palmyra in the same romantic strains; and ended
by repeating his regret at the misfortune of not having been one of the
happy multitude, assembled on that occasion; he having been then on some
business with another tribe to the south of the Dead Sea[72].
Lady Hester is now dead. The following account is taken from a paper
published originally at Smyrna: “We announced in our last number the
death of Lady Hester Stanhope. Our readers will no doubt be glad to have
a brief sketch of the principal circumstances of that extraordinary
woman’s life. It was at Djouni, in Syria, that Lady Hester died, after a
long illness, at the age of sixty-four. That reader must be indifferent,
who reverts not with interest to his recollections of a woman, who has
expired on the borders of the desert, amidst the Druses and Turkomans,
over whom that noble daughter of the Infidels once exercised so strange
and so marvellous a sway. The destiny of Lady Stanhope presents one of
those features of which not another instance could, perhaps, be found in
the annals of the East. Only imagine forty thousand Arabs suddenly
assembled upon the ruins of Palmyra, and these wandering, savage, and
indomitable tribes surrounding, in silent astonishment and admiration, a
foreign woman, and proclaiming her Sovereign of the Desert and Queen of
Palmyra! Convey yourself in thought to the scene of this incredible
triumph, and you will then conceive what woman that must have been, who
imposed silence on Mussulman fanaticism, and created for herself, as it
were, by magic, a sovereignty in the domains of Mohammed. ‘Lady Hester
Stanhope,’ says M. de Lamartine, in his admirable work, ‘was a niece of
Mr. Pitt. On the death of her uncle, she left England, and visited
various parts of Europe. Young, handsome, and rich, she was everywhere
received with the attention and interest due to her rank, fortune, mind,
and beauty; but she constantly refused to unite her fate to that of her
worthiest admirers; and, after spending some years in the principal
capitals of Europe, embarked with a numerous suite for Constantinople.
The real cause of this expatriation has never been known. Some have
ascribed it to the death of a young English officer, who was killed at
that period in Spain, and whom an eternal regret rendered for ever
present in Lady Hester’s heart: others have imputed her voluntary
banishment to a mere love of adventure in a young person of an
enterprising and courageous character. However this might be, she
departed, spent some years at Constantinople, and then sailed for Syria
in an English vessel, which carried also the larger part of her fortune,
as well as jewellery, trinkets, and presents of all sorts, of very
considerable value.’ The vessel encountered a storm in the gulf of
Macri, on the road to Caramania; the ship was wrecked, Lady Hester
Stanhope’s property was all lost, and it was as much as she could do to
save her own life. Nothing, however, could shake her resolution. She
returned to England, gathered the remainder of her fortune, sailed again
for Syria, and landed at Latakia, the ancient Laodicea. She had at first
thought of fixing her abode at Broussa, at the foot of the Olympus; but
Broussa is a commercial city, situate on the avenues to the Ottoman
capital, and reckoning not less than sixty thousand inhabitants; and
Lady Hester sought the independence and solitude of the desert. She
therefore selected the wilderness of Mount Lebanon, whose extreme
ramifications lose themselves in the sands. Ruined Palmyra—Zenobia’s
ancient capital—suited her fancy. The noble exile took up her residence
at Djouni, prepared for every vicissitude. ‘Europe,’ said she, ‘is a
monotonous residence; its nations are unworthy of freedom, and endless
revolution are their only prospects.’ She applied herself to the study
of the Arabic language, and strove to obtain a thorough acquaintance
with the character and manners of the Syrian people. One day, dressed in
the costume of the Osmanlis, she set out for Jerusalem, Damascus,
Aleppo, and the desert; she advanced amidst a caravan loaded with
wealth, tents, and presents for the Scheiks, and was soon surrounded by
all the tribes, who knelt to her, and submitted to her supremacy. It was
not solely by her magnificence, that Lady Hester had excited the
admiration of the Arabs: her courage had been proved on more than one
occasion; and she had always faced peril with a boldness and energy
which the tribes well remembered. Lady Hester Stanhope knew also how to
flatter the Mahomedan prejudices. She held no intercourse with
Christians and Jews; she spent whole days in the grotto of a santon, who
explained the Koran to her; and never appeared in public without that
mien of majestic and grave inspiration, which was always unto oriental
nations the characteristic of prophets. With her, however, this conduct
was not so much the result of design, as of a decided proneness to every
species of excitement and originality. Lady Hester Stanhope’s first
abode was but a monastery. It was soon transformed into an oriental
palace, with pavilions, orange-gardens and myrtles, over which spread
the foliage of the cedar, such as it grows in the mountains of Lebanon.
The traveller, to whom Lady Hester opened this sanctuary, would behold
her clad in oriental garments. Her head was covered with a turban made
of red and white cashmere. She wore a long tunic, with open loose
sleeves; large Turkish trousers, the folds of which hung over yellow
morocco boots, embroidered with silk. Her shoulders were covered with a
sort of burnous, and a yataghan hung to her waist. Lady Hester Stanhope
had a serious and imposing countenance; her noble and mild features had
a majestic expression, which her high stature and the dignity of her
movements enhanced. The day came when all this _préstige_, so
expensively kept up, suddenly vanished. Lady Hester’s fortune rapidly
declined; her income yearly decreased; in short, the substantial
resources, which had, at one time, sustained the magic of her
extraordinary domination, were daily forsaking her. The Queen of Palmyra
then fell back into the rank of mere mortals, and she who had signed
absolute firmans, enabling the traveller to visit in security the
regions of Palmyra—she, whose authority the Sublime Porte had tacitly
acknowledged—soon saw her people disown her omnipotency. She was left
the title of queen, but it was but an empty name, a mere recollection;
and again the monastery’s silence ruled over the solitude of Djouni. A
queen, stripped of her glory of a day, Lady Hester Stanhope has expired,
the sport of fate, at the moment the East is convulsed. She has expired
in obscurity and loneliness, without even mingling her name with the
great events of which it is now the theatre.”
All this, if no exaggeration had been employed, might have served to the
excitation of a smile: but the matter did not rest there. Lady Hester,
or the Princess, as she was styled, having given to the Sheik an absurd
paper of authority, no one is permitted to visit Palmyra without paying
a thousand piastres! “The consequence of which is,” says Mr. Carne,
“several travellers have left Syria without seeing the finest ruins in
the world[73].”
NO. XI.—PATRÆ.
“Night overtook us,” says Mr. Williams, “before we reached Patras,
anciently called Patræ. But such a night! the moon was in full
splendour; and while we travelled among the mysterious scenes, we were
often tempted to pause and ask what could be those shadowy towers, that
were perpetually arresting our attention? Nothing could be more pleasing
or more romantic, than the winding of our cavalry among the projecting
rocks and dismal hollows, when first a gleam of light prevailed, and
then a solemn darkness veiled and softened all in sweet composure. The
glow-worms, peeping from the bushes, seemed like fairies’ eyes;
fireflies glanced in thousands, like the sun’s bright rays stealing on
rippling waters in ebon shade; and how divine the evening star appeared,
tipping the dark chain of Mount Olonos! The blackbird, too, with its
train of dear associations, awakened our peculiar interest. All seemed,
by their look of delight to say, ‘Sing on, sweet bird! and tell us of
our absent friends and beloved country!’”
Patræ was a town of Peloponnesus, anciently called AROE.
Diana had a temple there, and a statue formed of ivory and gold, which
was considered a masterpiece. Apollo also had a temple, in which was a
statue of the god, raised by Icadius.