breach in the place, gave over his attacks, and turned the siege into
a blockade. The Romans conceived they had no other resource than to
reduce the great number of people in the city by famine, in cutting
off all provisions that might be brought to them either by sea or
land. During the eight months in which they besieged the city, there
were no kind of stratagems which they did not invent, nor any actions
of valour left untried, almost to the assault, which they never dared
to attempt more. So much force, on some occasions, have a single man,
and a single science, when rightly applied.
“A burning glass is spoken of, by means of which Archimedes is said
to have burned part of the Roman fleet.
“In the beginning of the third campaign, Marcellus almost absolutely
despairing of being able to take Syracuse, either by force, because
Archimedes continually opposed him with invincible obstacles, or
famine, as the Carthaginian fleet, which was returned more numerous
than before, easily threw in convoys, deliberated whether he should
continue before Syracuse to push the siege, or turn his endeavours
against Agrigentum. But before he came to a final determination, he
thought proper to try whether he could make himself master of
Syracuse by some secret intelligence.
“This, too, having miscarried, Marcellus found himself in new
difficulties. Nothing employed his thoughts but the shame of raising
a siege, after having consumed so much time, and sustained the loss
of so many men and ships in it. An accident supplied him with a
resource, and gave new life to his hopes. Some Roman vessels had
taken one Damippus, whom Epicydes had sent to negociate with Philip
king of Macedon. The Syracusans expressed a great desire to ransom
this man, and Marcellus was not averse to it. A place near the port
Trogilus was agreed on for the conferences concerning the ransom of
the prisoner. As the deputies went thither several times, it came
into a Roman soldier’s thoughts to consider the wall with attention.
After having counted the stones, and examined with his eye the
measure of each of them, upon a calculation of the height of the
wall, he found it to be much lower than it was believed, and
concluded, that with ladders of a moderate size it might be easily
scaled. Without loss of time he related the whole to Marcellus.
Marcellus did not neglect this advice, and assured himself of its
reality with his own eyes. Having caused ladders to be prepared, he
took the opportunity of a festival that the Syracusans celebrated for
three days in honour of Diana, during which the inhabitants gave
themselves up entirely to rejoicing and good cheer. At the time of
night when he conceived that the Syracusans, after their debauch,
began to fall asleep, he made a thousand chosen troops, in profound
silence, advance with their ladders to the wall. When the first got
to the top without noise or tumult, the others followed, encouraged
by the boldness and success of their leaders. These thousand
soldiers, taking the advantage of the enemy’s stillness, who were
either drunk or asleep, soon scaled the wall.
“It was then no longer time to deceive, but terrify the enemy. The
Syracusans, awakened by the noise, began to rouse, and to prepare for
action. Marcellus made all his trumpets sound together, which so
alarmed them, that all the inhabitants fled, believing every quarter
of the city in the possession of the enemy. The strongest and best
part, however, called Achradina, was not yet taken, because separated
by its walls from the rest of the city.
“All the captains and officers with Marcellus congratulated him upon
this extraordinary success. For himself, when he had considered from
an eminence the loftiness, beauty, and extent of that city, he is
said to have shed tears, and to have deplored the unhappy condition
it was upon the point of experiencing.
“As it was then autumn, there happened a plague, which killed great
numbers in the city, and still more in the Roman and Carthaginian
camps. The distemper was not excessive at first, and proceeded only
from the bad air and season; but afterwards the communication with
the infected, and even the care taken of them, dispersed the
contagion; from whence it happened that some, neglected and
absolutely abandoned, died of the violence of the malady, and others
received help, which became fatal to those who brought it. Nothing
was heard night and day but groans and lamentations. At length, the
being accustomed to the evil had hardened their hearts to such a
degree, and so far extinguished all sense of compassion in them, that
they not only ceased to grieve for the dead, but left them without
interment. Nothing was to be seen every where but dead bodies,
exposed to the view of those who expected the same fate. The
Carthaginians suffered much more from it than the others. As they had
no place to retire to, they almost all perished, with their generals
Hippocrates and Himilcon. Marcellus, from the breaking out of the
disease, had brought his soldiers into the city, where the roofs and
shade was of great relief to them; he lost, however, no
inconsiderable number of men.
“Amongst those, who commanded in Syracuse, there was a Spaniard named
Mericus: him a means was found to corrupt. He gave up the gate near
the fountain Arethusa to soldiers sent by Marcellus in the night to
take possession of it. At day-break the next morning, Marcellus made
a false attack at Achradina, to draw all the forces of the citadel
and the isle adjoining to it, to that side, and to facilitate the
throwing some troops into the isle, which would be unguarded, by some
vessels he had prepared. Every thing succeeded according to his plan.
The soldiers, whom those vessels had landed in the isle, finding
almost all the posts abandoned, and the gates by which the garrison
of the citadel had marched out against Marcellus still open, they
took possession of them after a slight encounter.
“The Syracusans opened all their gates to Marcellus, and sent
deputies to him with instructions to demand nothing further from him
than the preservation of the lives of themselves and their children.
Marcellus having assembled his council, and some Syracusans who were
in his camp, gave his answer to the deputies in their presence:—‘That
Hiero, for fifty years, had not done the Roman people more good than
those who have been masters of Syracuse some years past had intended
to do them harm; but that their ill-will had fallen upon their own
heads, and they had punished themselves for their violation of
treaties in a more severe manner than the Romans could have desired.
That he had besieged Syracuse during three years; not that the Roman
people might reduce it into slavery, but to prevent the chiefs of the
revolters from continuing it under oppression. That he had undergone
many fatigues and dangers in so long a siege, but that he thought he
had made himself ample amends by the glory of having taken that city,
and the satisfaction of having saved it from the entire ruin it
seemed to deserve.’ After having placed a guard upon the treasury,
and safe-guards in the houses of the Syracusans, who had withdrawn
into his camp, he abandoned the city to be plundered by the troops.
It is reported that the riches which were pillaged in Syracuse at
this time exceeded all that could have been expected at the taking of
Carthage itself.”
The chronicles of Syracuse[260] commemorate endless and bitter
dissentions among the several ranks of citizens, the destruction of
liberty by tyrants, their expulsion and re-establishment, victories over
the Carthaginians, and many noble struggles to vindicate the rights of
mankind; till the fatal hour arrived, when the Roman leviathan swallowed
all up. Inglorious peace and insignificance were afterwards, for many
ages, the lot of Syracuse; and, probably, the situation was an eligible
one, except in times of such governors as Verres. At length, Rome
herself fell in her turn, a prey to conquest, and barbarians divided her
ample spoils. The Vandals seized upon Sicily; but it was soon wrested
from them by Theodoric the Goth; and at his death, fell into the hands
of the Eastern emperor. Totila afflicted Syracuse with a long but
fruitless siege: yet it was not so well defended against the Saracens.
These cruel enemies took it twice, and exercised the most savage
barbarities on the wretched inhabitants. They kept possession of it two
hundred years, and made an obstinate resistance against Earl Roger, in
this fortress, which was one of the last of their possessions, that
yielded to his victorious arms.
“It is truly melancholy,” says Mr. Brydone, “to think of the dismal
contrast, that its former magnificence makes with its present meanness.
The mighty Syracuse, the most opulent and powerful of all the Grecian
cities, which, by its own strength alone, was able at different times to
contend against all the power of Carthage and of Rome, in which it is
recorded to have repulsed fleets of 2000 sail, and armies of 200,000
men; and contained within its walls, what no other city ever did before
or since, fleets and armies that were the terror of the world:—this
haughty and magnificent city is reduced even below the consequence of
the most insignificant borough.”
In its most flourishing state Syracuse, according to Strabo, extended
twenty-two and a half English miles in circumference[261], and was
divided into four districts; each of which was, as it were, a separate
city, fortified with three citadels, and three-fold walls.
Of the four cities[262] that composed this celebrated city, there
remains only Ortygia, by much the smallest, situated in the island of
that name. It is about two miles round. The ruins of the other three are
computed at twenty-two miles in circumference. The walls of these are
every where built with broken marbles, covered over with engravings and
inscriptions; but most of them defaced and spoiled. The principal
remains of antiquity are a theatre and amphitheatre, many sepulchres,
the Latomie, the catacombs, and the famous Ear of Dionysius, which it
was impossible to destroy. The Latomie now forms a noble subterraneous
garden, and is, indeed, a very beautiful and romantic spot. The whole is
hewn out of a rock as hard as marble, composed entirely of a concretion
of gravel, shells, and other marine bodies; and many orange, bergamot,
and fig trees, grow out of the hard rock, where there is no mark of any
soil.
There are many remains of temples. The Duke of Montalbano, who has
written on the antiquities of Syracuse, reckons nearly twenty; but few
of these now are distinguishable. A few fine columns of that of Jupiter
Olympius still remain; and the temple of Minerva (now converted into the
cathedral of the city, and dedicated to the Virgin) is almost entire.
There are some remains, also, of Diana’s temple, near to the church of
St. Paul; but they are not remarkable.
The palace of Dionysius, his tomb, the baths of Daphnis, and other
ancient buildings, and all their statues and paintings[263], have
disappeared; but the Ear, of which history speaks so loud, still
remains. It is no less a monument of the ingenuity and magnificence,
than of the cruelty of the tyrant. It is a huge cavern, cut out of the
hard rock, exactly in the form of the human ear. The perpendicular
height of it is about eighty feet, and the length is no less than two
hundred and fifty. The cavern was said to be so contrived, that every
sound, made in it, was collected and united into one point as into a
focus. This was called the tympanum; and exactly opposite to it the
tyrant had made a hole, communicating with a little apartment, in which
he used to conceal himself. He applied his own ear to this hole, and is
said to have heard distinctly every word that was spoken in the cavern
below. This apartment was no sooner finished, than he put to death all
the workmen that had been employed in it. He then confined all those
that he suspected of being his enemies; and by hearing their
conversation judged of their guilt, and condemned or acquitted
accordingly.
The holes in the rock, to which the prisoners were chained, still
remain, and even the lead and iron in several of the holes.
The cathedral[264], now dedicated to Our Lady of the Pillar, was the
temple of Minerva, on the summit of which her statue was fixed; holding
a broad, refulgent shield. Every Syracusan, that sailed out of the port,
was bound by his religion to carry honey, flowers, and ashes, which he
threw into the sea, the instant he lost sight of the buckler. This was
to ensure a safe return. The temple is built in the Doric proportions,
used in the rest of Sicily. Its exterior dimensions are one hundred and
eighty-five feet in length, and seventy-five in breadth.
The amphitheatre[265] is in the form of a very eccentric ellipse; but
the theatre is so entire, that most of the seats still remain.
The great harbour ran into the heart of the city, and was called
“Marmoreo,” because it was entirely encompassed with buildings of
marble. Though the buildings are gone, the harbour exists in all its
beauty. It is capable of receiving vessels of the greatest burden, and
of containing a numerous fleet. Although at present this harbour is
entirely neglected, it might easily be rendered a great naval and
commercial station.
The catacombs are a great work; not inferior either to those of Rome or
Naples, and in the same style.
There was also a prison, called Latomiæ, a word signifying a quarry.
Cicero has particularly described this dreadful prison, which was a
cave dug out of the solid rock, one hundred and twenty-five paces long,
and twenty feet broad, and almost one hundred feet below the surface of
the earth. Cicero, also, reproaches Verres with imprisoning Roman
citizens in this place; which was the work of Dionysius, who caused
those to be shut up in it, who had the misfortune to have incurred his
displeasure. It is now a noble subterranean garden.
The fountain of Arethusa[266] also still exists. It was dedicated to
Diana, who had a magnificent temple near its banks, where great
festivals were annually celebrated in honour of that goddess. It is
indeed an astonishing fountain, and rises at once out of the earth to
the size of a river: and many of the people believe, even to this day,
that it is the identical river, Arethusa, that was said to have sunk
under ground near Olympia in Greece, and, continuing its course five
hundred or six hundred miles below the ocean, rose again in this
spot.[267]
NO. XXXVIII.—THEBES.
The glory of Thebes belongs to a period, prior to the commencement of
authentic history. It is recorded only by the divine light of poetry and
tradition, which might be suspected as fable, did not such mighty
witnesses remain to attest the truth. A curious calculation, made from
the rate of increase of deposition by the Nile, corroborated by other
evidence, shows however that this city must have been founded four
thousand seven hundred and sixty years ago, or two thousand nine hundred
and thirty before Christ. There are the ruins of a temple, bearing an
inscription, stating that it was founded by Osymandyas, who reigned,
according to M. Champollion, two thousand two hundred and seventy
years before Christ.
[Illustration: THEBES.]
Thebes was called, also, Diospolis, as having been sacred to Jupiter;
and Hecatompylos, on account, it is supposed, of its having had a
hundred gates.
“Not all proud Thebes’ unrivall’d walls contains,
The world’s great empress, on the Egyptian plain;
That spreads her conquests o’er a thousand states,
And pours her heroes through a hundred gates—
Two hundred horsemen, and two hundred cars,
From each wide portal issuing to the wars.”
HOMER’S ILIAD; POPE.
“This epithet Hecatompylos, however,” says Mr. Wilkinson, “applied to it
by Homer, has generally been supposed to refer to the hundred gates of
its wall of circuit; but this difficulty is happily solved by an
observation of Diodorus, that many suppose them ‘to have been the
propylæa of the temples,’ and that this expression rather implies a
plurality, than a definite number.”
Historians are unanimously agreed, that Menes was the first king of
Egypt. It is pretended, and not without foundation, that he is the same
with Misraim, the son of Cham. Cham was the second son of Noah. When the
family of the latter, after the attempt of building the Tower of Babel,
dispersed themselves into different countries; Cham retired to Africa,
and it was, doubtless, he who afterwards was worshipped as a god, under
the name of Jupiter Ammon. He had four children, Chus, Misraim, Phut,
and Canaan. Chus settled in Ethiopia, Misraim in Egypt, which generally
is called in Scripture after his name, and by that of Cham, his father.
Phut took possession of that part of Africa which lies westward of
Egypt; and Canaan, of the country which has since borne his name.
Misraim is agreed to be the same as Menes, whom all historians declare
to be the first king of Egypt; the institutor of the worship of the
gods, and of the ceremonies of the sacrifices.
Some ages after him, Busiris built the city of Thebes, and made it the
seat of his empire. This prince is not to be confounded with the Busiris
who, in so remarkable a manner, distinguished himself by his inordinate
cruelties. In respect to Osymandyas, Diodorus gives a very particular
account of many magnificent edifices raised by him; one of which was
adorned with sculpture and paintings of great beauty, representing an
expedition against the Bactrians, a people of Asia, whom he had invaded
with four hundred thousand foot, and twenty thousand horse. In another
part of the edifice was exhibited an assembly of the judges, whose
president wore on his breast a picture of Truth, with her eyes shut, and
himself surrounded with books; an emphatic emblem, denoting that judges
ought to be perfectly versed in the laws, and impartial in the
administration of them. The king, also, was painted there, offering to
the gods silver and gold, which he drew from the mines of Egypt,
amounting to the sum of sixteen millions.
So old as this king’s reign, the Egyptians divided the year into twelve
months, each consisting of thirty days; to which they added, every year,
five days and six hours. To quote the words of a well-known writer,
(Professor Heeren,) “its monuments testify to us a time when it was the
centre of the civilisation of the human race; a civilisation, it is
true, which has not endured, but which, nevertheless, forms one of the
steps by which mankind has attained to higher perfection.”
Although Thebes had greatly fallen from its former splendour, in the
time of Cambyses the Persian it was the fury of this lawless and
merciless conqueror that gave the last blow to its grandeur, about 520
years before the Christian era. He pillaged its temples, and carried
away the ornaments of gold, silver, and ivory. Before this period, no
city in the world could be compared with it in size, beauty, and wealth;
and according to the expression of Diodorus—“The sun had never seen so
magnificent a city.”
The next step towards the decline and fall of this city was, as we learn
from Diodorus, the preference given to Memphis; and the removal of the
seat of government thither, and subsequently to Sais and Alexandria,
proved as disastrous to the welfare, as the Persian invasion had been to
the splendour, of the capital of Upper Egypt. “Commercial wealth,” says
Mr. Wilkinson, “on the accession of the Ptolemies, began to flow through
other channels. Coptos and Apollinopolis succeeded to the lucrative
trade of Arabia; and Ethiopia no longer contributed to the revenues of
Thebes; and its subsequent destruction, after a three years’ siege, by
Ptolemy Lathyrus, struck a death-blow to the welfare and existence of
this capital, which was, thenceforth, scarcely deemed an Egyptian city.
Some few repairs, however, were made to its dilapidated temples by
Evergetes II., and some by the later Ptolemies. But it remained
depopulated; and at the time of Strabo’s visit, was already divided into
small and detached villages.”
Thebes was, perhaps, the most astonishing work ever performed by the
hand of man. In the time of its splendour, it extended above
twenty-three miles; and upon any emergency could send into the field
seven hundred thousand men, according to Tacitus; but Homer allows only
that it could pour through each of its hundred gates two hundred armed
men, with their chariots and horses, which makes about forty thousand
men, allowing two men to each chariot.
Though its walls were twenty-four feet in thickness, and its buildings
the most solid and magnificent; yet, in the time of Strabo and of
Juvenal, only mutilated columns, broken obelisks, and temples levelled
with the dust, remained to mark its situation, and inform the traveller
of the desolation which time, or the more cruel hand of tyranny, can
assert over the proudest monuments of human art.
“Thebes,” says Strabo, “presents only remains of its former grandeur,
dispersed over a space eighty stadia in length. Here are found great
number of temples, in part destroyed by Cambyses; its inhabitants
have retired to small towns, east of the Nile, where the present city
is built, and to the western shore, near Memnonium; at which place we
admired two colossal stone figures, standing on each side, the one
entire, the other in part thrown down, it has been said by an
earthquake. There is a popular opinion, that the remaining part of
this statue, towards the base, utters a sound once a day. Curiosity
leading me to examine this fact, I went thither with Ælius Gallus,
who was accompanied with his numerous friends, and an escort of
soldiers. I heard a sound about six o’clock in the morning, but dare
not affirm whether it proceeded from the base, from the colossus, or
had been produced by some person present; for one is rather inclined
to suppose a thousand different causes, than that it should be the
effect of a certain assemblage of stones.
“Beyond Memnonium are the tombs of the kings, hewn out of the rock.
There are about forty, made after a marvellous manner, and worthy the
attention of travellers. Near them are obelisks, bearing various
inscriptions, descriptive of the wealth, power, and extensive empire
of those sovereigns who reigned over Scythia, Bactriana, Judæa, and
what is now called Ionia. They also recount the various tributes
those kings had exacted, and the number of their troops, which
amounted to a million of men.”
We now proceed to draw from Diodorus Siculus:—
“The great Diospolis,” says he, “which the Greeks have named Thebes,
was six miles in circumference. Busiris, who founded it, adorned it
with magnificent edifices and presents. The fame of its power and
wealth, celebrated by Homer, has filled the world. Never was there a
city which received so many offerings in silver, gold and ivory,
colossal statues and obelisks, each cut from a single stone. Four
principal temples are especially admired there: the most ancient of
which was surpassingly grand and sumptuous. It was thirteen stadia in
circumference, and surrounded by walls twenty-four feet in thickness
and forty-five cubits high. The richness and workmanship of its
ornaments were correspondent to the majesty of the building, which
many kings contributed to embellish. The temple still is standing;
but it was stripped of its silver and gold, ivory, and precious
stones, when Cambyses set fire to all the temples of Egypt.”
The following account of the tomb of Osymandyas is also from Diodorus:—