There are few cities whose immediate origin we know so well as that of
Antioch.
Antigonus had built a city at a small distance from the spot on which
Antioch was afterwards erected, and this he called after his own name,
Antigonia. After his death Seleucus, having made himself master of Upper
Syria, determined on founding a city. He, in consequence, demolished the
one Antigonus had built, and employed its materials in constructing his
own[32]. This he named after his son, Antiochus. He afterwards
transplanted all the citizens to the new capital; and he adorned it with
all the beauty and elegance of Grecian architecture.
Seleucus built several other cities in the same direction, amongst which
may be particularly noticed Apamea, which he named after his wife, the
daughter of Arbazus the Persian; and Laodicea, which he called after his
mother. Apamea was situated on the same river as Antioch, and Laodicea
in the southern part of the same quarter. What is rather remarkable is,
that in these cities he allowed the Jews the same privileges and
immunities as were enjoyed by the Greeks and Macedonians; more
especially at Antioch, where that people settled in such numbers that at
length they possessed as large a portion of the city as their countrymen
enjoyed at Alexandria.
In the Christian times it was the see of the chief patriarch of Asia. It
is often mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, and particularly wherein
it is said, that the disciples of Christ were here first called
Christians; and in the river Orontes, according to tradition, St. Paul
is said to have been baptised. The city, at various times, has suffered
severely from the rage of bigotry and superstition, inseparably attached
to the zealots of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the spirit
of enthusiasm, roused by designing priests, induced the powers of Europe
to attempt the reduction of Syria and the Holy Land.
Antioch has several times been subjected to the violence of earthquakes,
and several times been afflicted with great famine; and when Chosroes
invaded Syria, the city, disdaining the offers of an easy capitulation,
was taken by storm, the inhabitants slaughtered with unrelenting fury,
and the city itself delivered to the flames. It recovered, however,
after a time, and was again visited by earthquake, and the sword of the
conqueror. It was taken by the Crusaders A.D. 1098; and in 1262 all its
glory terminated; having been taken possession of by Bybaris, sultan of
Egypt.
It is now a ruinous town, the houses of which are built of mud and
straw, and exhibit every appearance of poverty and wretchedness. The
walls, however, of each quarter, as well as those which surrounded the
whole, are still remaining; but as the houses are destroyed, the four
quarters appear like so many inclosed fields.
It is said that this city, which was about four miles in circumference,
was built at four different times, and consisted in a manner of four
cities, divided from one another by walls. The first, as we have already
stated, was built by Seleucus Nicator; the second by those who flocked
thither after the building of the first; the third by Seleucus
Callinicus; and the fourth by Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria. The
present town, which is a mile in circumference, stands in the plain, on
the north-west part of the old city; all the parts within the walls
being converted into gardens. The walls, which now exist, though much
ruined, mark the ancient boundaries of Antioch. They were built since
the introduction of Christianity; the form of them being nearly of a
rectangular figure.
There are, as we have already stated, very few remains within the city
of any ancient buildings. The principal works are the aqueducts, and
some grottoes cut in the mountain. There were once two temples of great
celebrity, one of which was dedicated to Apollo and the other to the
Moon. At this moment not a vestige of these is to be discovered.
"Formerly," says Lord Sandwich, "it had a port of considerable
importance on the north bank of the Orontes, and on the shores of the
Levant; but the harbour is choked up, and not a single inhabitant
remains. The sun of Antioch is set. The present city is a miserable
place, extending four hundred yards from the side of the river to the
bottom of a mountain, on the summit of which, and round the town, the
crusaders, during their being in possession of Syria, built a strong
wall. Nothing remains of its ancient grandeur besides some stupendous
causeways and massy gateways of hewn stone."
At a distance of about four or five miles was a place called Daphne.
There Seleucus planted a grove, and in the midst of it he erected a
temple, which he consecrated to Apollo and Diana. To this place the
inhabitants of Antioch resorted for their pleasures and diversions, till
at last it became so infamous, that "to live after the manner of Daphne"
was used proverbially to express the most voluptuous and dissolute mode
of living.
Antioch is said to have been once greater than Rome itself; but often
ruined, and finally razed by the Mamelukes, it is now only a small town,
known by the name of Antakia. Its climate is so agreeable, that we may
cite some observations, made in regard to it in a passage in Mr.
Robinson's tour in Palestine and Syria. "For the breadth and brilliancy
of the eastern landscape, there is no architecture equal to the
Oriental. The solemnity and grandeur of the Gothic are suited to our
climate of cloud and tempest. The severe or even the florid beauty of
Greek architecture belongs to a country where the spectator sees it
under the lights and shadows of a sky as picturesque as the hills and
valleys that it covers. But the magnitude, strong colourings, and yet
fantastic finish of Eastern architecture are made to be seen across its
vast plains under the unclouded sky; and glowing with the powerful
splendour with which the rising and the setting sun less illumine than
inflame the horizon. At a distance it has the dream-like beauty which we
habitually attach to the edifices of the Arabian Nights[33]."